The power of language

Hi! I watched a exposition by Mark Pagel which he talks about language. Pagel states because of language we can benefit of others’ ideas and the human cooperation is possible. I’m agree with him, but I think the true power of language is related with its  potential manipulation according to particular intentions. When he says that language is useful to promote a “free flow” of ideas I think he is too cynical because  isn’t a mystery that by means of language can be legitimized the most aberrant ways of domination. Moreover, flow of information is something different of “communication”. In a modern theory about this, comunication  is definied in relation with a  symmetric interaction between individuals where is posible a exchange of information.

I think language is a relevant element on the social construction of memory  and identity because by means of an ideological discourse a lot of aspects of the history can be maintained underhand.  Nowadays, when we can talk about “multiculturalism”, the social construction of identities is becoming important. On that sense, when Pagel talks about “a world with one language” in the future he only consider economical and political factors. I think he don't consider the diversity and his thoughts cover a dangerous eagerness of universalism...    

BBC

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to talk about a website: BBC. I’ts a excellent  english learning website. This afternoon I’ve done some activities to practise my english on this website. On this opportunity I put my vocabulary skills to use.

First, I responded a quiznet about books. It is a set of  six questions with its alternatives about that topic. I liked it because then you can check the correct answers. The topic was relatively easy so I did the right. Afterwards, I  responded a quizz about slang. I must to say it was most difficult to me because I dont`t know a lot of informal expressions, so I learned many new words. Finally, I responded a last quizz: BBC Word Master. This game is to practise your vocabulary too. You can to select the difficulty level and if you are stuck you can use clues but you have to consider clues reduce your time. I used it 3 times at least! I think it's a very good game because there are a lot of words to practise  and when you finish it  you obtain your final score and the score for each question.

Definitely it’s a website I’d recommend!

Second term

Hi, everyone! Today I’m going to talk about this second term and some of my perceptions about it.

Well, in this extremely short semester I took two subjects in the methodological area: Methodologies and Techniques of Visual Ethnography and SIG, a  interesting and useful course about geo-referencing of  data. Moreover, I took  a subject about Esthetic and culture. In these course we watch a lot of movies of  a same director to choice because the idea is to interpret his/her films. Other subject I’ve taken is about childhood and adolescence. These course is about young people as social actors. I think is very interesting in the current context.

Well, we know this is a very atypical term. After  six months we return to “normal” classes, so we don’t get holidays this year. Yes, it is so sad but personally, I’m resigned to studying in summer. I’ve heard many people to complain about it  but we knew this could happen, so I assumed it  a long time ago. This semester will be too short and intensive, so I hope be prepared to this defiance…

Students march for a better Chile

I think the article “Students march for a better Chile” by Cabalin shows how an external point of view is revealing with respect to an unacceptable reality that is assumed to be daily and is therefore naturalized. In that sense, this sentence appears significant:

“In fact, families finance 73% of higher education in Chile, a figure that greatly exceeds the average (16%) for OECD countries”

I consider very revealing data provided by the author about the disproportionate percentage of expenses generated by the education that is assumed by chilean families. It is indicative of how in our society, a consumer society, people are willing to borrow even decades, accepting this as natural. This society harvest individuals working just to pay their debts. Fortunately, today stands a critical spirit that calls into question the system that is not natural but a reflection of political and economic orientation has led the development of the education system over the past thirty years.

We can see how the emphasis on the problem of access to higher education of previous governments has only operated as a shelter for the marketization of education. We believe that inadequate attention to the quality of education is not only serious impediments posed to the country's development restricting the technological innovation, for example. Moreover, this deficit in quality implies a lack of civic values ​​that translates into the reproduction of a frustrated professional army without a future vision.

This publication made ​​sense to many readers, some of them Latin Americans, who compare the situation in Chile described by the author the educational system of their own countries, finding similarities. One of them says:

“All Latin American countries which follow the Anglo American education model have the same problems because education is solely regarded as merchandise which opens the door for all shades of corruption”

Other discussion which is installed with this article is the media coverage has had the phenomenon in Chile. How “Chilean media is showing only what our government wants”. How the movement for quality education has been criminalized in the media as a strategy to divert attention from what really matters.

Education and Creativity

Hi everyone, today I’m going to talk about the relations between education and creativity exposed by Sir Ken Robinson.  I mean the need of incorporate creativity in education. He says that all educational systems are based in a hierarchical idea of intelligence. This means that educational systems encourage certain capacities of individuals while other skills are undervalued, such as dance or music. Like he said, there is a view dominated by academic ability and the preference for scientific subjects.  This is in addition to the educational system that stigmatizes the mistake, without which, according to Sir Ken, we are not prepared to come up with something original. The result of all this is that “we are educating people out of their creative capacities.”

When I was in high school I can see this very markedly. In my school always potentiated the good results in the sciences and mathematics. In penultimate year, when you could choose one area of ​​the curriculum related to your interests, the common was that they formed only two humanities-oriented courses and rarely came to constitute art courses. The rest of the courses were six or seven, were mathematicians and biologists.
For this speaker creativity in education should be as important to literacy. He defines creativity as: “the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” This includes the elimination of hierarchy between the disciplines that lead to artificial divisions...

My specialty meant having more hours of language, history, literature and visual arts. I remember it was hard for me to make that decision because if you were good at math and chose another area they called you from the school guidance department to make you reconsider your decision. Personally I felt quite depressed and I knew some colleagues who changed their original decision yielding to those pressures. Fortunately it was not my case.

Toys...

Hi everyone, now I’m going  to talk about a place I visited today. At midday I went with a friend to the exposition about national toys  in Cultural Center Palacio La Moneda. There more than 600 toys made in Chile between 1915 and 1975 are exposed in a sample divided into two rooms. All these items belong to a collector called Juan Antonio Santis.

The tour of the exhibition offers an emotional voyage to childhood itself and it is a very intense experience for those who are nostalgic of their childhood. The instance of the game is very attractive because it offers the possibility to live without your actions have real consequences. The games tend to have clear rules, without ambiguity. Surely most people miss the fantasy of childhood games, I think.

Toys tend to be associated with a fictitious reality, a child's world but it is very interesting how the toys are historical artifacts that reflect the global and national reality of other times. For example, in the exposition "National Toy" many objects appear obsolete for today's children. I’ve seen how aircraft, tanks and combat helmets are exposed reflecting an era marked by global wars. In turn, you see how these toys help-reinforced social constructions related to gender roles imposed by society. Toys reproduce values ​​through socialization. On the other hand, among the toys "for girls' dolls and kitchen items associate the image of the feminine with domestic activities. The exhibition which opened the first days of May will continue to receive visits until July. I must say that there is a discount for students and if you arrive before midday, you can enter for free! This is a great opportunity to see something interesting, I recommend it!

Websites!

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to talk about websites that I often visit. It’s difficult to me to choose a favorite website because I’m a huge fan of a lot. I’m a frequent user of internet, I must admit it. Much of my free time I dedicate it to surf the internet looking for interesting things to disconnect me of my sad existence… haha Well, apart of that  sites  all  we usually visit daily as gmail/hotmail/yahoo or youtube, I’m aware of the humor blogs updates.  I think we must find or invent reasons to laugh a while!

The first one I discovered was www.filosofosos.blogspot.com about three years ago. This is the website of a guy who recreates famous scenes from movies or TV series with a very personal style. The protagonists of his cartoons are always sarcastic, politic, existentialist and extravagant bears... He also works with your own scripts and the results are sometimes disturbing…

Since a couple of years I visit the website www.dosisdiarias.com. I visit it almost daily because as its name indicates offers daily updates. Montt is better known, perhaps you've heard of him before. Montt has the ability to parody whatever; policy, religion, art, movies, novels. Everyday situations and speeches are subtly ridiculed. I can remember that a friend recommended me and I strongly recommend it to you now

Finally, I usually visit the website of Liniers, argentinian strip cartoonist. Liniers is a classic and never ceases to amaze me. I think his characters are fascinating, especially the penguins. (http://www.macanudoliniers.blogspot.com/)

Notable of these websites is that you can leave comments to the artists, including suggestions. I hope you like it!