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.

Dramatizing one of the LBE plays

I finally made it to Bonn, Germany, to attend the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum (GMF) on education, culture and the media. This week I will be writing my blogs from here on the diverse topics around this main theme.

So far the conference has been interesting. I attended one of the workshops dealing with fun ways to learn, hosted by the Deutsche Welle Learning By Ear (LBE) program. I think the LBE program offers a great way to learn using formats such as features and radio dramas. I have attended the Global Media Forum two times before, and I found this particular workshop very entertaining. Normally the workshops consist mainly of PowerPoint presentations and talks. In this workshop, we watched one of the radio plays scenes being dramatized live just so the audience could get a taste of how the plays are conceived – although of course they are mostly radio/audio.
I also sat on the panel for this workshop because of my work with youth in Kenyan slums where we develop similar formats for audiences in informal settlements. Joining me on the panel was a LBE representative from the DW Afghanistan department. He talked about the importance of such formats for places like Afghanistan, where sensitive topics such as sexuality and even the role of women and men in society are not for open discussion. Using edutainment formats to transmit messages and inform the public is therefore a very effective method of communicating. He mentioned that even the listeners do not realize that they may be learning along the way. They probably would not even describe the radio shows as education but simply as entertainment.

Visualizing a scene from an LBE radio play

In Africa, just like in Afghanistan, this media format is such a viable method of transferring information. Many people in Africa, for example, have access to a radio or a mobile phone but – surprisingly – these same people may not have any access to educational offerings. Media can bridge this gap, so they get at least some form of education using the devices they have.
LBE tackles several topics from health, Education, gender, culture, technology, youth and unemployment among others, and the production team decides on a topic after several brainstorming sessions and doing research. After the topics are decided, writers from the focus regions turn the ideas into scripts, which are then dramatized using actors from these regions. Later, after post-production, they are broadcasted by DW partner stations and other interested media.

I think edutainment formats such as these remain a largely untapped resource for transmitting information. They require extra work and time that go beyond the standard curriculum followed by schools, therefore they take a bit of open-mindedness from educators. Nevertheless, the education sector can take advantage of this by using it either as an extra method for educating or integrating it into what already exists in school curriculums.

The Internet offers a wealth of ways to continue your education

Many people in Russia used to believe that it’s enough to get your university degree – then you can start working and forget about education (until your children go to kindergarten, at least). They’d say you’ve developed your skills, so you ought to find a job and get on with your life. Many still think this way. Sometimes I discuss this topic with friends, and it’s great that our generation seems to have a more modern way of thinking: We believe that it’s natural to have a “second” higher education, to attend courses even as a grown-up or to change jobs several times before retiring.

That means we need something other than the traditional educational model of going from kindergarten to elementary and high school, then on to a university or college and, finally, to graduate school. This has been the model for a long time, and is promoted by the government (Also see my second and third entries for some of the problems I see with that model).

So what’s an alternative? The answer is simple – we shouldn’t forget self-education! There are so many possibilities out there!  You can get the skills necessary for a job – a process most associate with university education – by teaching yourself.

Libraries used to be quite popular for self-learners, but the Internet is changing that. Life is getting more dynamic while the majority of Russian libraries haven’t changed their basic model at all. They don’t offer Internet access to find certain types of information quickly, and they don’t get very many specialized magazines in foreign languages. So people treat libraries not as a source of enlightenment but as a place to get a book to spend several days with.

Online resources can be wonderful if you know a foreign language beyond the basic level. And in fields like medicine or economics, you’ll likely need specialized language skills in English. Clearly you also need Internet access to use such resources – although for Russians in rural areas, a fast Internet connection is often impossible to get. But once these requirements are met, you have the whole world at your fingertips.

Russian libraries have some catching up to do

Some well-known foreign universities offer online courses or lectures for free. That’s a contrast with many universities in my country, which do not promote their websites as independent sources of knowledge. As I see it, there is also a lack of such programs for teenagers before they get to college, at least in Russia.

Clubs or associations formed within schools or by external groups are good ways to learn, too. Here you’re only limited by your interests! For example, my friends own a bookshop that organizes regular lectures devoted to literature. They invite poets or professors, and the series has grown popular with families – not just with young people.

One thing I believe firmly is that you do not get educated FOR your life, you get educated THROUGHOUT your life – no matter how old you are or what step on the social ladder you occupy.