Two films about education

The class

Rainer Wenger addresses The Wave members in The Wave.

The film “The Wave” is based on an incident, which took place in 1967 at a high school in Palo Alto, California.
A popular teacher is assigned to teach a week- special project of autocracy. The students are initially unimpressed, and especially bored about the mention of Nazis. So, rather than explains autocracy, the teacher does a real demonstration of this movement.
The film shows us how the totalitarianism can grow easily in modern and democratic societies.
In the film the students have a comfortable life, but if we observe them with more attention, we notice that some of them feel alone, without motivation, without ideas in life and with families who don’t pay attention them. They end up by turning into easy victims of the “Wave”.

The pupils, little by little, starting to feel comfortable with the ideals of “the Wave”. They discover in the group values like unit, force, and identification. In the film, the individual behaviours contribute to collective desires.
Nowadays, realities like social inequality, the need to belong, the rootlessnes help in the promotion to fascist movements.
Among the students, the most weakness character are the first to giving in “the Wave”, others leave the group because they have some values or beliefs, other students go against it, but on the whole the class follow the teacher, who becomes the leader.

The teacher insists on orderly behaviour and suggests everyone adopt a simple uniform (plain white skirts and jeans). The teacher forgets the original point of the experiment and he finds himself by having fanatical followers.
The film is interesting because make us ask ourselves if a new dictatorship is possible in a modern and civilised society.

The Class (between the walls in French) is an interesting journey into a multicultural high school in Paris over the course of a school year. The class is a mix of a documentary and dramatic plot. It is not difficult to empathise with the main character, the literature teacher François Marin. He struggles to maintain order in his class of young teenagers, trying to create a good environment. We can see the process of educating a fresh class of bubbly and wide awake adolescents in a Paris suburban school. Today, teaching in public schools is more democratic, and the teacher allows student participation, and the student is encouraged to talk and become an integral part of the education.
Everything he tries to teach in class is constantly rejected and he finds himself arguing with the students that he so clearly wants to help. As the school year progresses the tension rises, until François finds himself in a difficult position. In my opinion, the students want to find their own identity in the hostile and tough society they live in. In the film the frustration of parents and teachers are clearly portrayed.
The film shows the difference between the education before versus the education now. For me, there are some values, like the respect, that now don’t exist in the classrooms. The lack of motivation due to new technologies and the low quality of education are some of the most problems, that existing in own societies. The quality of public schools is decreasing each year because of the high number of immigrants’ students that comes from different countries. Africans ands Asians are now citizens of France. The student Suleyman says in the film: “I have nothing to say about me because no one knows me”.
In this film the teacher is not a revolutionary person with innovative ideas like Mr Keating in the film “Dead Poets Society”. Mr Keating helps his students with original methods, but in “The Class”, Monsieur Martin tries to do his job the best he can, and sometimes he makes mistakes and he has to assume the consequences. I think the film is very realistic and very accurate.

DE FACTO. JOAN FONTCUBERTA. 1982-2008

I recommended you an interesting exhibition: “De Facto. Joan Fontcuberta 1982-2008. “From nature photography to the nature of photography: That might summarize the artistic career of Joan Fontcuberta.

In this exhibition are showed a selection of works from eighteen of the artist’s projects. In these works Fontcuberta tries to explain, poetically and ironically, the role of the image perceived as a document. He suggests a critical practice of photography. The artist rejects the simple description of reality, which has been historically the traditional concept in photography, so he investigates with humour and imagination in the paradox of the image.

Before starting the exhibition to understand it better I recommended you to watch the documentary where the artist explains their works and read the supporting text to fully capture the real meaning of these images. Like a kind of provocation, he organizes photographic jokes that often question the basis of knowledge (the science ant the monopoly of the reality). The works seen here include Herbarium (fake biological and botanical discoveries), Googlerama (a series of photo-mosaics using Google) and Sputnik (a story about a Russian astronaut who is still lost in the space).

But the project that more shocked me it is “Desconstructing Ossama”. In this work Fontcuberta explains the theory that all the images we see of Al Qaeda are part of a vast conspiracy to manipulate the viewers. The men in the images are, in fact, actors. In 2006 Ben Kalish and Ben Sallad, photojournalists for Al-Zur discovered that a leader of Al Qaeda’s military wing was in reality an actor and singer who had appeared in soap operas (the lies of power, the power of lies).

Finally, Fontcuberta is more interested in the philosophical possibilities than the pictorial qualities of photography because he makes us think as much as look.

Positive squatting

Days ago I read an article in a Spanish free magazine “calle 20”, the magazine of the new culture about new tendencies in the squatter movement. A group of artist squatters live in a large house in Leytonstone near London. Immediately I started to be interested in this new and I read more about “positive occupation”
The word squatters often provoke negative thoughts in people, but little by little the situation is changing. The new generation of squatters seems less politicised than its predecessors. After two decades of decline, statistics showed that the number of people living in squats in Wales and England has risen by 60 per cent since 1995. The growth has been particularly pronounced in large commercial properties, disused houses, offices and cinemas.
Today’s squatters are highly organised and efficient. Many have full-time work and drug problems are rare.
The occupants of the 491 Gallery in Leytonstone, east London, have transformed an old warehouse into a clean, attractive home. This group of artists has changed the space in a white-walled gallery with airy rooms and a big garden. The housemates invite the local community to use the space for artistic and environmental events. For some artists the squatting is the only way to get their utopia, because pays a rent in London costs between 1000 and 1500 euros. In this house a fair principle is applied and people who have financial resources pay a modest fee that help to those who cannot afford to pay. Positive squatting consists of occupying buildings and turning them into community resources.

Sometimes squatting is a good way to maintain the occupied buildings while the organisations planning for its future. For example it is very expensive to pay 24-hour security for an empty building. Squatting can save this money and allows recycling spaces. Sometimes squatters focus their activities on offering a wide range of services to the local community. What’s more, occupying empty buildings is positive because if a property is empty it can get damaged.
Some people who live in occupied houses are very proud of giving artistic spaces to people who need time and places to make beautiful things, like paintings or sculptures.

In this video we can see an example of “positive occupation”. In this house squatters have transformed the place from a derelict house into a comfortable place. For some people squatters are very pleasant neighbours and squatters help elderly people when they are in trouble.

Anorexia in the media

Young girls are taken into hospital every year for eating disorders but do you thin it’s the media’s fault?
The general public appears to be obsessed about media celebrities. This obsession can be dangerous for young people, especially teenagers who can be an easily influenced public.
Some women and teenagers are fascinated with the latest fashion tendencies and when they notice that this fashion is not the better for them, they can fall ill. I think there is a connection between the increasing of so many celebrities and the fast rise in eating disorders such as anorexia. The media contributes greatly towards young’s people images. If a little girl sees a variety of thin celebrities on TV, in magazines and she think they are beautiful, if she decides to start to lose weight, they can be very dangerous. The most important thing is that there are a number of women who have uncomfortable thoughts about their bodies and they feel guilty because they can’t emulate the bodies of models and celebrities. Most people want to be happy and successful. The media especially ads and commercials for clothes and other fashion’s items, suggest that we can be successful and more happy trying to modify their bodies into copies of the icons of success. Young naïve women feel that if they follow their idols they will be popular. If we read between lines of many ads we can find dangerous messages in a few words (“the thinner, the better”). Some many famous people are thin because they feel that they will be more popular, good-looking and admired. Some young models are under a strong pressure from the media.
It is the responsibility of the society to show young girls and women that beauty is not a synonym of ultra-thin bodies. It is necessary to encourage girls to enjoy themselves with their beauty in a healthy, natural way.
On the other hand, governments have to create an anti-anorexia legislation that bans anorexia promotion in media. For example, Spain had banned ultra-thin models from catwalks.

Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom

I found this video about the book Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom.

The book is based on studies that used brain-scanning methods to investigate into our minds and to study the influence of the advertisement in our shopping preferences and unconscious desires when we choose among different products.

The video explains which are the subtle factors that motivate us to buy what we buy and how powerful a brand or advertisement is.

For me publicity shows the most positive side of life to encourage people to buy. This kind of practice is sometimes based in lies because daily life is normally less marvellous than publicity world.

Publicity influences in our behaviour and we don’t know what is the information that really goes into our heads when we see an advertisement or when we hear a marketing slogan.

What do you think about this video? Do you share Martin Lindstrom conclusions?

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

For me it’s a very strange way how the took is written. The sentences are short and its structure very simple. I think that using simple sentences Christopher tries to communicate and order his own world. Harder, the writer tells the story with a delicate sense of humour and even with tenderness making us see and understand Christopher’s problems. All Christopher’s conversations, feelings, experiences and events are explained from his own point of view, so the reader can easily enter to the Christopher’s private world ant try to deal how difficult is living in this world.

The story starts with a simple event, the killing of a dog, but it’s only an excuse to develop a more rich and complicated plot. Christopher ends the novel being a much mature child than he was when the story began.

In my opinion the book depicts perfectly the way people with Christopher’s illness, a kind of autism (Spargle) act. For example, Christopher’s obsession with tidiness, with mathematics, his insensitiveness regarding to feelings in other people, even with his father.

I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for parents to cake care of children with this problem.

The planet languages

Since 2005 I am studying at the EOI of Esplugues, according to our teacher the most beautiful school in the world. In 2005 I tried to start studying English. I wasn’t lucky with English, but I got place in the first course of French.

The following year I tried again with English, and this time I achieved it. Therefore, I have been studying English and French at the same time since 2006. It means a lot to me given my limitation to study languages. But well, I have arrived at this point, and I expect to continue with the experience even though sometimes I still say “yes” instead of say “oui” and mispronounce some words. There is a class that it is special for me in the first floor. This class has a big balcony. My English time is usually from five to seven. I love the view I can see in winter from this class. We can observe a wonderful sunset from this class. I contemplated the garden and a marvellous horizon, the clouds were coloured slightly orange because it vas nearly evening and the sun was going down. After finish my English class I went up to the second floor to start my French class, another different world, and then when I have finished the class the sunlight had disappeared and it got dark.

Last year when I was studying French we had to do a dossier, very similar to the blog this year. We had to do things related to the knowledge of the language: going to conferences, watching films in French, reading books, and writing, writing, but especially about all the things that we had watch, listen too or read. My French teacher, an intelligent and charming woman, did not force us to read any given books, the final choice was ours. I didn’t choose very extensive books, because even though I really love read, doing it in a language different to mine, is very hard to me. When I read books in English or French I spend a lot of time looking up words in the dictionary, so it takes me a long time to finish reading a book. I suppose that to advance in the reading it’s better to be left to guide by the context. One of the books I read last year in French was “Soie”, "Silk" in English by Alessando Barico. This book is very well-known, I think it was a best-seller and It has been translated a lot of different languages.

I am thinking now that there are a lot of people who choose the Official School to learn different languages. The most important are from the big Europeans countries (English, German, Italy and French). This variety of languages demonstrates that the diversity in the education it should not be a problem, but rather a pedagogic advantage.