Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson, in his talk, "Do schools kill creativity?" has a bold statement to make: creativity should be treated, in the educational systems, as importantly as literacy. Kids are not afraid to being wrong; they are always willing to take chances, and that's what an ideal educational system should exploit. And the truth is: the fear to being wrong is engraved to them in our schools. There isn't a real focus on other activities that don't involve intellectual development.

Sir Ken Robinson argues that current educational systems were designed in the 19th century with a purpose in mind: to turn everyone into a "university professor", or, at least, into someone with a degree. Educational systems don't take into account the tremendous leaps in our understanding of how human brain works, that happened in the 20th and 21th century. And maintaining those educational systems in their current fashion is unsustainable.

My favorite subject this term

My favourite subject, in this term, was Analysis of Fixed Images, taught by Rafael del Villar. I like it, because this subject speaks about the behaviour of communication media; about microcultures, like videogames, anime, comic, and such; about how society imposes you ways to behave, and how can you confront that pressure, through your inner world. Also, it speaks about how music videos are made, the theory of pulses, and the correlation between pulses, images and sound.

I've learnt, in this term, how do different communication media, or supports, correlate themselves. For example, when you are consuming a cultural product, you are doing a lot of things at the same time: you are browsing the Internet, you are listening music, and that wasn't so before. Technologies change perceptions. I've also learnt that, in the eastern culture, there's no notion of subject, because there is an equilibrium between imaginary and symbols. In our western, Catholic culture, however, there is a notion of the subject, a subject who must seek his own development through serving others.

Jorge Lanata, a great argentinian journalist

In my field, the journalism, it's very hard to say who is the best. But I think Jorge Lanata is a great representative of latinamerican journalism.

Jorge Lanata is an argentinian journalist who born in Mar del Plata in 1960. He started his career at 14 writting short news for Radio Nacional. Since 1977 he was a collaborator of several written media: Siete Días magazine, Clarín Revista. In 1983, he entered the news program of Radio Belgrano and made investigation reports for Sin Anestesia show, while collaborating with Humor, El Periodista and El Porteño magazines. Outside Argentina, Lanata had worked in El Nuevo Herald of Miami, The Washington Times, El Espectador of Bogotá and El Diario de Caracas.

In 1987, at 26 years old, he co-funded Página 12 and was its journalistic director for seven years. Today, Página 12 is one of most importants newspapers in Argentina.

In 1998, he founded with the important chronicler Martin Caparós and other journalists, the Veintiuno Magazine. The next year it called Veintidos and finally, in 2000, it named Veintitrés, the same name it has at present.

In 2008, Lanata founded the newspaper La Crítica de La Argentina, but recently he renounced to his job as a director.

In TV, he hosted Dia D (D-day), a very popular TV show that achieved Martín Fierro award for best journalistic television show in 1996 and 1997, and Clarín Award for best TV show in 2003. Lanata himself achieved Marín Fierro award for best journalistic TV host in 1996, 1997 and 2004. Also, he conduced "Viaje al Fin de la Noche", "Luna" and "¿Por qué?".

In Radio, he conduced "Hora 25" and Rompecabezas, that, like in TV, achieved Martin Fierro award in 1995. In 2007 he returned with "Lanata AM"

In cinema, In October 2004, he premièred Deuda, a documentary on foreign debt and his opera prima in cinema discussing bureacratic corruption and ignorance, a film which was nominated for many awards.

I like him because he is a journalist with a great trajectory. He had worked in different places and he had provided Argentina and journalists with big knowledge about how to make journalism in controversial situations, specially with power. His irony and sarcasm for present news, his non-prejudiced attitud in his reports and books and his acid humor makes him one of best journalists of Argentina and Latin America.

I would like to talk about his books, like a example of his work. In 1987 he published El nuevo periodismo (The New Journalism) as a compiler, and the following year La guerra de las piedras,Vuelta de página (Turn of the Page, 1997), a collection of press articles written throughout his whole journalistic career. In 2004 he published "ADN, mapa genético de los defectos argentinos" (DNA, Genetic Map of Argentine Faults, essay). I think this last book it should be very interesting, I haven't read yet, but an investigation of argentinian's faults would to make happy to chilean people jajajaja.