Posted: 18 Mar 2010 06:53 PM PDT

Managers told Rossov and dozens of other workers that 15 full-time employees would lose their jobs by the summer. The department plans to eliminate 18 other positions through early retirement or by not filling vacant positions. It's also planning to shut down the Madrid Theater in Canoga Park, the Vision Theater near Crenshaw Boulevard, and the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro. Art centers at the Watts Towers and Barnsdall Park would also close. The facilities could reopen later this year under the management of outside nonprofit groups.

When Sherrie Lofton — a cultural affairs employee for more than a decade — heard this, she thought of the families near those centers who'd lose out on summer arts classes.

"If you don't have something in a community that is an anchor for that community, it becomes volatile. So I'm actually not worried, like I said, we'll be back after the riots. They always come back and they always find money for programs after there's been a problem," Lofton said.

Fellow employee Kai El Zabar said the piano, dance and visual art classes at these centers do double duty by teaching arts and offering a kind of early gang intervention. "We left here feeling that because the politicians don't get that, we have to accept that we're up for slaughter and that all we can do is not rock the boat but accept it, lay down and accept it."

Cultural Affairs head Olga Garay said L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa directed her to carry out the layoffs. Still, she's ready to push elected leaders to protect the work of her department.

"We're in the process of trying to set up meetings with council members in whose districts these community art centers and theaters are located. And we're going to provide testimony to the arts, parks, health and aging committee on March 22nd at 11 o'clock at city hall," Garay said.

L.A. councilman Tom LaBonge said he supports the work of the Cultural Affairs department but doesn't think it's realistic to isolate it from cuts. "There's no money on the second floor in the treasurer's office to pay for our existence as we know it. Now we have to alter that existence."

LaBonge is the chair of the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee. He said he hopes Garay's testimony at the committee will lead to creative ideas to help the department save money and avoid more cuts.

Last month Cultural Affairs employees and supporters mobilized and packed an L.A. city council meeting considering cuts to Cultural Affairs. The council shelved a plan to cut the department's main source of funding.

Several cultural affairs employees said the today's meeting energized them to take up the fight again for the survival of publicly funded arts in a city that increasingly calls itself the creative capital of the world.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Event: Cultural Diversity Week - Better Health Channel

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 07:08 PM PDT

Zheng Xinmiao:Harmonizing cultural roots - English Eastday

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 06:17 PM PDT

Zheng Xinmiao, born in Shaanxi Province in 1947，is director of Bejing's Forbidden City Palace. He graduated from the Northwestern University and is a member of Chinese Writers Association.

Since I was invited to give a speech at the Second International Forum on World Expo 2010 Shanghai China, held along the banks of the beautiful Seine River in Paris in June 2004, I have kept a close tie with this event and watched the progress of its preparations unfolding with keen anticipation. Chinese Version >>

The theme of this World Expo is"Better City, Better Life."A global concern arising from the accelerating pace of urbanization across the world is how to build better cities that enhance the quality of life for urban dwellers. But how should we define a better city and a better life? We are talking not only in terms of towering buildings, convenient access to services or abundant material supplies. More importantly, we must encompass the preservation and development of urban culture and character.

The cultural character of a city is embodied in its history, traditions and heritage. That includes tangible things like historical buildings, archeological sites and cultural relics collected in museums, but it also includes intangible elements such as customs, language, folk literature and handicrafts. Cultural heritage embraces the memories and footprints of a city and holds the key to helping people address the challenges of today and the future. Shanghai is a city steeped in cultural heritage. Its personality and charm rests on this legacy. To achieve a better city and a better life, the preservation of that heritage is indispensable.

Maintaining urban cultural character does not mean keeping a city stagnant. Instead, it requires creative development that harmonizes with cultural roots. Broad-mindedness, openness and tolerance are hallmarks of Shanghai's culture and urban vitality.

This World Expo is a showcase of the cultural achievements of mankind. As the largest World Expo in terms of the number of participating countries, World Expo 2010 Shanghai China will promote a remarkable exchange among different nations and different nationalities, allowing all participants to absorb the best the world has to offer across a wide spectrum.

When striving for a better life, a city is also enriching its own cultural heritage and refining its own cultural concepts.

When I was attending the International Forum on World Expo 2010 Shanghai China in Paris, China was preparing for two global pageants: the Beijing Olympic Games and this World Expo. During my speech, I said the Chinese people held high hopes for the success of these two events. Four years later, the Beijing Olympic Games indeed amazed the world. Now, six years later, it's the turn of World Expo 2010 Shanghai China to add a splendid page to our nation's history.

Home > Hot Topic> Tributes From 100 Eminent Voices

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

International schools: Valid obsession or cultural ... - Jakarta Post

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 08:41 PM PDT

B. Herry-Priyono , Jakarta | Fri, 03/19/2010 10:32 AM | Headlines

Living in Indonesia seems to ensure anyone with a sense of absurdity. This is not to be taken as an insult, for it can be a source of excitement. Take away the "Centurygate" scandal, rampant corruption, manic lawlessness of Jakarta traffic, and other forms of idiosyncrasy in public life, and boredom would likely set in.

The amount of absurdities is such that one problem can hardly stay around long, because another is always lurking in the wings, ready to break out and reinforce more amnesia to cloud over yesterday's problems. Perhaps only a sense of irony can rescue us from paranoia.

Amidst the hurried campaign against terrorism on the eve of Obama's visit, something less eye-catching is worth noting: it is an absurdity that has been with us for some time in the form of a craze for anything "international". In this instance, it concerns the so-called international schools. I must admit, this time I could hide my elation since the National Education Ministry brought this issue to the public's attention. Of course, my elation was not without reserve, for any state office in Indonesia has a notorious penchant for strong thumbs and no fingers.

The term "international school" can mean many things. It includes schools designed exclusively for children of diplomatic corps; it can also refer to schools devised with explicit curricular contents directed toward international assessment standards; or it can be schools with "international" labels. To this list we could add a variety of schooling programs with "national-plus" or "global" labels.

Save for the term "international" applied to embassy-based schools that have the right and duty to educate children of diplomatic staff in the cultural traditions of their home countries, the issue of "international schools" is problematic.

We can argue endlessly, usually in the name of globalization, about the virtues of having schools with explicit "international" and "global" content in their curricula. Surely we all would wish our children were well equipped with the cultural idioms of the day, although in many cases this argument is overblown. Equipping children with cultural idioms of our globalizing world is indeed part of today's education, but "global world" is not the only order of the day. Here comes something crucial that tends to be kept hidden and is likely to remain suppressed, perhaps because it upsets the status quo.

Let's just be blunt. I have never come across "mature" nations that do not guard their education systems fiercely. Again, save for embassy schools, the likes of France, the United Kingdom, Germany or the US would never let anyone roam around freely setting up international schools within their educational systems. Even if the governments of these nations granted some license to such schools, there would not be unusual for pupils to be obliged to learn the national language therein — the issue of compulsory study of religion is another matter warranting different treatment.

We may argue that what has been practiced by these "mature" nations cannot be any guide to the future. The point is well taken. But to argue, say, that "it is impossible for our students to learn Indonesian" is not unlike the act of free riding. It is to profit in your neighbors' yards, but you censure anyone doing the same in yours. Alas, the asymmetric game in the global powers will make such censure look natural.

Again, let's be blunt. The obsession with international schools has created a vast market among the upper-middle class in Indonesia. It is no longer secret that this "tidal wave" among the upper-middle class has helped turn education as culture into education as an economic commodity. This is precisely what happened in the unnoticed ideological shift underlying the controversial 2008 Law on Education (UU BHP).

As an educator myself, I cannot hide my fear that this shift will have detrimental impacts on the status of education within the overall nation-building agenda. Being sundered from its status as a fulcrum of the cultural evolution of the nation, education is now regarded mainly as a handmaid of economic transactions, the logic of which is "the highest bidder wins".

We should not be surprised then that sooner or later, when the trajectory of national life calls for educational institutions to play crucial roles in the political, social and cultural development of the nation, we will be left with an impossible task. This prognosis is not without cognizance that there is a distinction between "education" and "schooling". However, the distinction is that in the end schooling is the core part of education. That's why all "mature" nations fiercely guard their school systems, no matter how hard it is under the tidal wave of globalism.

So what does this have to do with our obsession with international schools? While the National Education Ministry should be careful in addressing this problem, and be supportive to any parties genuinely helping Indonesia's children to be well conversant with the global age, it should not be deterred by demands arising from the heat of the moment. Never before has it been more urgent for the ministry to bring education back to its raison d'etre as a cultural affair. If in this process the obsession with international schools is unhelpful, it would not be a crime to inject some dose of civilizing restraint. It goes without saying that the level of competence on the part of the ministry staff should also be seriously improved.

All this may sound unpleasant, but the situation on the ground has really reached an absurd and alarming state. In the past few years I have had acquaintance with owners, managers and many teachers of these international schools. One of the routine demands posed by an increasing number of pupils' parents is to abolish Indonesian from the curricula. The reasons vary, but most common is that they want their children to be fluent in English not Indonesian, let alone local languages.

While international schools could help our children become more aware of global challenges ahead, if the situation on the ground is such, it cannot be called education for global awareness. Rather, it is cultural pathology. Indeed, if the point is to inculcate our children with a global awareness, there is hardly any need for "international" mania. Global awareness is one thing, but international schools are another.

It is time for educators in Indonesia to stand up, for the stakes are high: instead of being leaders of Indonesia, in future culturally uprooted children may be good at simply being unscrupulous brokers. This would be akin to cultural suicide.

The writer is a lecturer in the postgraduate program at The Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Cultural

Thursday, March 18, 2010

“L.A. Cultural Affairs staff vents frustrations over ... - 89.3 KPCC” plus 3 more

“L.A. Cultural Affairs staff vents frustrations over ... - 89.3 KPCC” plus 3 more

0 comments:

Post a Comment

FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed

Popular Posts