Hellgurd, Emmy, Gaby from DW, Kathrin and me

Reading Pavel’s last entry as well as the one where he discussed the value of a degree, I’ve been thinking, too, about the value of studying foreign languages. It’s not just about new grammar and vocabulary, or being able to translate from one language to another. From my view, the value of doing so has more to do with learning how to express your ideas in a different culture – through a different perspective and perhaps in a context that helps everyone broaden their views. At the Global Media Forum, I met a number of people who serve as good examples of what I mean.

Simon was one. We met randomly at a table and introduced ourselves to each other. When I told him I’m from Buenos Aires, he said he had been there and liked it a lot, and that he actually speaks Spanish. When I asked him about his professional background, he told me about an initiative called Vensenya, a name made up of two Spanish words: “vencer,” which could be translated as “conquer”, “defeat”, “break”; and “enseñar,” which means “teaching.” The word “vencer” is particularly significant to Spanish speakers, especially in Latin America, considering its historical associations with political struggle and combat. Vensenya is about breaking down dogmas in our approach to education. The concept that their creators came up with can be grasped in a snap. This is not just a question of speaking another language. It shows how understanding another culture can find its expression in language.

At the DW headquarters in Bonn

More often than not, in the context of international dialogue, you find that concerns are shared across borders. Education systems pose challenges in every country. What differs is the social context and the historical path of each nation.

In this entry, I have touched on all of the things that made me enjoy writing this blog so much. On the one hand, it has been a struggle on many occasions. Putting societies in context and accounting for cultural nuances is hard. But on the other hand, it has been greatly satisfying throughout.

My friend Vira and me

After visiting Bonn for the DW Global Media Forum, I spent two days in Berlin with my friends. It had been almost exactly two years since I last saw them. It was a little bit like being back home.

I went back to the student housing unit I had lived in for a year and, suddenly, I stepped back into the conversations we used to have. I have missed them dearly. My friends stayed at the ECLA, and they are now moving into the fourth year of the BA program, in which they have to work on a project for a full year. Vira told me she is going to do her project on an artist who takes on the relationship between the capitalist market and art. We had good conversations about the creative process and the struggles we both have when facing it.

I was so very happy to see my friend David, as well. He is Mexican, so, as the other Latin American student at ECLA, the two of us became very close. Since I have been back in Argentina, he has been working very hard on his German, taking lessons at the Freie Universität, sometimes making presentations, and also writing essays in German.

My friends David and Dana

Dana also told me about her project and what she expects to do afterwards. She said she was definitely going on for an MA. As we talked, I realized this is the kind of conversation I missed: filled with reflections and the ins and outs of academic life. In the rush of the everyday working world with putting in your time in the office and everything else, this approach to conversation is quite rare indeed.

Right after travelling to Germany, I told my parents how I wanted to go back to university and study something else. I feel like I haven’t done it for some time, and I miss the challenge of it.

As I think back on all of this now, an idea occurs to me: Education – or, better, learning – is an attitude towards life. Accepting the challenge can take you far. The big question is how to make accepting this challenge possible for everyone. That means finding ways for many students to avoid frustration, perhaps by adopting a teaching model that does not rely on model students, but, rather, that is open to everyone alike.

People like to talk up new technology in education, but there is a catch...

On Wednesday, the third plenary session of the DW Global Media Forum focused on education as the milestone for sustainable development. Denis Goldberg, a social activist from Cape Town, South Africa, argued, “The focus of education should shift to sustainability because we depend on it.” Doing so requires taking action on issues including overpopulation. One of his suggestions for limiting population growth was expanding social safety nets. By doing so, people move away from the idea that having children is the only way to ensure a stable future.

I thought to myself that he was right. However, the entire debate seems to be missing something. The other speakers at the plenary each discussed how to get young people – teenagers and children – more interested in education, in terms of everything from reading habits to new media and new technologies applied to education. That is all well and good, but from my point of view, we must not forget the basics of personal development. In a poverty-stricken region, if a child does not go to school and is not getting an education anywhere else, it is probably because he is also not well fed.

Aside from the basics, we need to consider what kinds of opportunities we are providing people. Professor Barbara Ischinger (Director, OECD Directorate for Education), presented three stages in maximizing the use of skills educators try to impart: in the short term, putting skills to use; in the mid-term, training in different skills; and in the long term, developing relevant skills according to each country’s economy. Her presentation was very relevant to the NGO where I work. We are developing a new online platform aimed at vocational education. The objective is to provide information on different career paths with a focus on science and the energy industry. One of the discussions we have is whether or not to include training programs for specific skills, since we want teenagers to feel encouraged to take the university path.

Traditional educational outlets, like libraries, got less attention at the conference

The truth is, though, young people these days often need to start working at an earlier age in light of their lacking economic stability (if they have any at all). Another presenter spoke about permeability –the idea that a person could start in a vocational training program and then later be given the chance to continue their studies in a university. Employing people, giving them skills, is the foundation of economic security, and these prospects must be in place for higher education to work.

We have a tendency to overlook some elementary problems when thinking about educational strategies. One of the conference speakers, Verashni Pillay (Online Deputy Editor, Mail & Guardian, South Africa) nailed the main problem in clear words: “Let us get the basics down before we bring in another futuristic view of education.”

The GMF's first plenary session took up fundamental questions about the role of the media

The Global Media Forum started on Monday with plenary session 1: “Rating vs. Quality: Media caught between market pressure and the mission to educate.” It was a very engaging discussion, and there were representatives from the US, Germany, Russia and South Africa. Above all, participant Trevor Ncube made a particular impression on me. He is deputy chairman of M&G Media Ltd in South Africa and chairman of Alpha Media Holdings in Zimbabwe, and he started by saying that when the media neglects Africans, it is generating misinformation.
He was referring to a video that we had seen before the panel started called “Colours.” It consisted of several people of different nationalities saying what countries they come from. Even though the piece intended to be universal, there were no Africans there. When Travor asked the audience, “Has anyone noticed anything wrong with the video?” He then proceeded to highlight the lack of Africans, which represent one billion members of the world’s population. I thought to myself: “Yes, that is true, and there are no Latin Americans either on the video.”

The audiovisual piece was not the only thing he took contention with. He also questioned the media’s role in education. “It is presumptuous to say that media has an education role,” he stated: “I always have the premise that my audience is more educated than me.” And with today’s access to media, they are also more informed than in the past. In his view, media’s role is to engage and be relevant to its audience, providing good quality content, analysis and intelligent commentary. Given that there is only a fine line between education and propaganda, Travor finds ascribing an educational role to publishers and other media outlets is rather problematic.

His view struck a cord with me. Ever since I attended the Salzburg Global Seminar on Media and Global Change, I had been thinking how I could transfer the knowledge I got there to others. It was at that seminar that I got to know the subject of media literacy for the first time – as well as how to transfer such knowledge to others in a systematic way. I attended the Salzburg seminar while I was in my last year of journalism school. Since then, I have seen media literacy as a subject that should be taught to teenagers in high school; in my view, people need to be conscious of how media works from a young age. I actually thought of designing a workshop for a high school in my neighborhood.

Fellow blogger Hellgurd with Amrita Scheema, a DW news presenter, at the conference

Trevor’s questions brought up a lot of other questions. Are people who read newspapers and watch TV really more educated than journalists in Argentina? The truth is: It all depends on what fragment of reality you are watching. In my country, poverty-stricken communities are now going through their third generation of non-professional citizens, unemployment and school dropouts. There is a huge phenomenon of retelling history on behalf of the ruling party (we call it “reinventing history,” when people manipulate historical facts according to what suits them).

There are two main actors involved in this retelling process: political representatives (through public speeches) and the national media. I prefer to hear all sides of the story in order to make up my mind. And when I do so, I become very conscious of my experiences in higher education. But what about people who didn’t even finish secondary school? Can they tell when reports are far from the truth?

I do believe that by promoting consciousness of these issues, you are working to provide a better quality of life. Learning how to think independently empowers everyone. Maybe the answer is not leaving the subject of media literacy in the dark – for fear of who transfers this knowledge. Instead, maybe the answer is to always work with the other person’s interest in mind, and not your own.

Productive dialogue: Friends from my university in Berlin

This is my last entry before we will all be writing from the Global Media Forum in Bonn (Germany). I was shocked to hear that Hellgurd’s entries will not be published any more due to the severe threats he received. It made me go back to the very beginning of the project and look at Hellgurd’s video presentation. He speaks of music as a universal language that can bridge the differences among people.
I believe that the chance to take part in an international dialogue is, in a way, trying to find a shared code. This doesn’t always have to do with speaking the same language, but, rather, building a dialectical context in which each element can express ideas and be understood in its individuality. Values like tolerance, empathy and modesty are a must. Violence should be out of the question.

The problem is when we grow so acclimated to violence that we are not sensitive to it any more. This touches me because Argentina is going through a very difficult process of social change right now. The current administration is taking radical action in the areas of business and economics, and ever since the beginning of Kirchner’s presidency there has been a divide in society. Nowadays, aggression storms the sky like bullets, and you are either on one side or the other.

Participants in the Salzburg conference

Sharp words are aimed at people’s feelings, their identities, their day to day worries, but the discussion never seems to focus on ideas. This is the main problem: We are not discussing ideas for a developed society; we are stuck in the small talk of prejudices and, in most cases, uniformed opinion. As I said in my second entry, our society has gone through a lot, and its wounds will take years to heal. This kind of violence in public discourse is nothing but detrimental.

One of the reasons I’m so excited to attend the GMF is that this international dialogue will be expanded and take on new life. I have had chances to experience exchanges like this before. In 2008, I won a scholarship to attend the Salzburg Global Seminar on Media and Global Change, and I spent three weeks discussing the main areas of journalistic ethics together with students from different parts of the world. Then, in 2009, I spent a year studying liberal arts in an international college in Berlin. Those experiences help you develop an attitude towards the other that has to do with listening, understanding more deeply, and comprehending your own reality from a different perspective.