Last year at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference, we covered a panel that was held on the topic of El Sistema – a highly admired and emulated program developed in Venezuela to improve the lives of children through classical music. El Sistema began 33 years ago, and as evidenced by last year’s panel, the program has gone on to inspire a great number of teachers and musicians both here in the United States and elsewhere across the world.

In Venezuela, the program continues to thrive and currently provides 310,000 children free access to musical instruments and instruction, according to a recent New York Times report. By 2015 the program’s founder José Antonio Abreu hopes to increase this number to 500,000. The success has been enough to earn it government support to the measure of approximately $64 million annually, in addition to a large base of financial support from private donors and foundations.

Here in the United States, the example of El Sistema has inspired organizations such as El Sistema USA to attempt to recreate the success of the program among American children. Across borders, the core philosophy of El Sistema remains the same: using music to foster cooperation, dedication, and feelings of community among children. The program’s goal: to raise children above some of the poverty and adversity they may face, brightening their future.

An internet start-up from Slovakia may have figured out how to get people to pay for news online.  The full story at The Columbia Journalism Review.

Watch an interview with the company’s founder and CEO, Tomas Bella:

Interview with Tomas Bella, CEO of Piano Media from Bill Baker Blog on Vimeo.

source: Wikimedia commons

Anyone who has read E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler fondly recalls the “behind-the-scenes” view into the Metropolitan Museum of Art provided by Claudia and Jamie’s extended sleepover there. Published in 1967, this book is often one of the ways children first become aware of and excited about the Met. Over 40 years later, it is still one of the most asked-about by children visiting the museum.

Sesame Street’s “Don’t Eat the Pictures,” which took the entire cast of characters on a field trip to the Met, is another example. With its launch in 1969, Sesame Street marked a milestone in the use of media for education, and this special episode, which aired on PBS in 1983, continued that mission, exposing and introducing young viewers to the wonders of the Met’s collections.

As 21st century mass media culture has continued to develop, more and more people have realized the power of literature and/or films to engage children in learning and exploring new subjects or new places. Read More …

“All of us have become the unwitting workforce for social change.” -Marshall McLuhan

Lincoln Douglas debates (source: wikimedia commons)

In nineteenth century America, it was common for citizens to gather and listen to dense political oratory for hours at a time.  At the first of the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858, Lincoln proposed that the debate be split in half to make it easier on the audience.  The two men would share the podium for just four hours before lunch and three hours after—even with the break, an excruciating stretch of time by today’s standards.  Yet the crowd that day reportedly listened with rapt attention for the full seven hours, only breaking their silence to express support or disagreement, or to applaud a well-turned phrase.  Nineteenth century audiences regularly gathered by the thousands to perform similar feats of sustained attention.^[1] Neither Lincoln nor Douglas were considered prolix, yet just one of Lincoln’s responses that day ran to over sixteen thousand spoken words.

In contrast, the entire televised debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in September of 1960 ran to fewer than ten thousand words. Read More …

A thing of the past? (credit: Susan Lesch)

In five years–though maybe not four months, as the Atlantic proposes–print editions of even the most venerable papers could join phone booths, video store late fees and Saturday mail delivery as quaint relics of the past.

Read More …