Vol. Teac. XVII Dickens Part II

     In this text, We will read a brief biography of Dickens, the sources is from: Victorianweb.org    -    42explore.com    -     Education.goodmantheatre.org     -    BBC.co.uk    -    Infed.org    -    Dickens2012.org   -   OMF.UCSC.edu

     Charles Dickens started to work at twelve-year-old, when his father was imprisoned for debt, with the exception of Charles, all the family was to jail. The good fortune of being sent to school at the age of nine year-old was short-lived because at twelve he had to quit. At fifteen, he started to work as an office boy while studied at night. His brief stint at the factory haunted him all of his life and became a source of creative energy and of the preocupation with the themes of alienation and betrayal which would emerge, mostly notably in David Copperfield (1850). At twenty- two year-old, he became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the newspaper Morning Chronicle. Three years later he published his first book ¨The Pickwick Papers¨(1837), which made his characters the centre of a popular cult.

      Despite Dickens to have attended school sporadically, he was an avid reader. He exhibited warmth and humor and great understanding of humanity, besides writing, he busied himself with charities that included mainly schools for poor children. His writing empathized with the poor and the helpless and mocked or criticized the selfish, the corrupt greedy and the cruel.

     In the 19th mid-century, 80% of London`s population were poor, which was the largest, most polluted and economically polarized city in the world. ¨A Christmas Carol ¨ (1843) orphans were meant to illustrate the idea that only education would release the poor from the vicious circle of poverty and ignorance.

     As well as a huge list of novels he published, he edited weekly periodicals, wrote travel books and administered charitable organisations. He was not a merely a concerned bystander but an active participant in almost every major issue of his time such as: education of the poor, penal reform, child labor, prostitution, copyright laws, bureaucratic red tape and he also lectured against slavery.

     We need to note his campaigning around education, his harrowing accounts of schooling in Hard Times (1854) for example in the cause of educational reform are example of this.

      Dickens is of particular significance as an example of a writer that is concerned with popular education or what is described as social education, the educative power of newspapers, novels, and various forms of entertainment ( nowadays, I`d put also music and movies). There are Dickens efforts to facilitate self-education through the publishing of a weekly journal ( Household Words 1850-1859) and ( All Year Round 1859-1870).

      Dickens believed of education on sound principles to all citizens. He was a pioneer in introducing the theme of education into prose fiction, and proved in his journalism and speeches, that he had great familiarity with the subject. In the year of his death, parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which raised the standard of teacher training and inaugurated compulsory schooling. If Dickens made any contribution for this end, it was by reinforcing the public`s sense of moral feeling and providing additional momentum for change.

      Dickens believed that enriching people`s life with knowledge and enjoyment of the arts was key to building a fair society and creating opportunities. Dickens2012.org is committed to following Dickens`s educational mission by supporting learning activities around the world, from teacher`s conferences to writing competitions.

   

Vol. Teac. XVII - Charles Dickens

     7th February 2012, marked British writer Charles Dickens 200th birthday. His characters, his words continue to inspire generations across the world, in the text below we will learn a little more about him. The source is from Wikipedia.

     Charles Dickens (1812-1870) enjoyed a wider popularity than any previous author during his lifetime and remains popular, his work has been praised for its realism, comedy, unique personalities, by writers such as: Tolstoy and George Orwell. He is famed for his depiction of the hardship of the working class and for the characters he created. All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens, this is very noticeable, specially in David Copperfield (1850).

      He was a fierce critic of the poverty. In Oliver Twist (1839), he shocked readers with its image of poverty and crime. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute Nancy. he ¨humanised¨ such women, regarded as ¨unfortunate¨ second-class citizens with no rights at all. The prejudice toward their activity shown ignorance and was indeed used to discriminate and to try to do they accept their subhuman conditions.

      He elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutions apparatus: the interminable lawsuits and the inefficient corrupt offices. His idealism serves to highlight his social commentary. Many of his novels are concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people`s lives, for instance, the hypocritical exclusionary class code in ¨Our mutual friend¨ (1865).

      As Karl Marx said ¨ Dickens issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all moralists and others put together.

      ¨A tale of two cities¨ is his best-selling novel, the novel has sold over 200 million, since its publication in 1859.

Data, data everywhere.

      This report was published at Economist.com at Feb. 25th 2010. This is a summary and the title is above.
     
    The world contains an unimaginably amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done. Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account.
    But they are creating a host of new problems. Despite the abundance of tools to capture, process and share all this information, it already exceeds the available storage space. Moreover, ensuring data security and protecting privacy is becoming harder as the information multiplies and is shared ever more widely around the world.
    The effect is being felt everywhere, from business to science, from government to arts. The business of information management, helping organisations to make sense of their proliferating data, is growing by leaps and bounds. This industry is stimated to be worth more than $100 billion and growing at almost 10% a year.
    Chief information officers(CIO) have become somewhat more prominent in the executive suite, and a new kind of professional has emerged, the data scientist, who combines the skills of software programmer, statistician and storyteller to extract the nuggets of gold hidden under mountains of data. Hal Varian, Google`s chief economist explain,¨ data are widely available, what is scarce is the ability to extract wisdom from them.¨
     There are many reasons for the information explosion. The most obvious one is technology, 2 billion people use the internet. Moreover, between 1990 and 2005 more than 1 billion people worldwide entered the middle class. As they get richer they become more literate, which fuels information. The results are showing up in politics, economics and the law as well.¨ All these data are turning the social science upside down¨, explain Sinan Aral, Professor at NYU,¨ researches are now able to understand human behaviour at the population level rather than the individual level.¨
     The amount of information increases tenfold every five years. As the world is becoming increasingly digital, aggregating data is likely to bring huge benefits.
     ¨The data-centred economy is just nascent,¨ admits Mr. Mundie of Microsoft.¨ You can see the outlines of it, but the technical, infrastructural and even business-model implications are not well understood right now.¨

Volunteer Teacher XVI

    That report of NYtimes, show us how internet can contribute to democratization and a better governance through in a way that allow a lot of public participation and more transparency in the government´s actions and results, allow the people compare facts and figures with others countries and between states and cities within the own country. But more transparency is possible.
    In Brazil, also there are many webpages that allow this popular participation, I, myself have participated of some webpages such as: ¨Peticaopublica.com.br¨. In this site, I voted in two proposals that I consider important . One have the title in English, We freedom and peace for mankind. This ask the presidents of all country of the world to work for freedom in the internet . Another, have the title ¨ Justice for a better Brazil¨, that ask harsh punishment for who kill in the traffic.
     Beside these two, I have voted in two other that has own webpage: ¨naofoiacidente.com.br , this has the title of ¨popular initiative on traffic crimes involving drunkenness driving. And ask harsh punishment for those who kill in traffic driving being drunk. Another it is: ¨dezporcentoja.blogspot.com¨, and ask the policymakers to raise the investment in education to reach 10% of the Brazilian GDP, nowadays this investment is around 5%, by the way, many researchs has shown that education is fundamental to lower crimes and deaths and to increase citizenship and justice.

Democracy 2.0 Awaits an Upgrade

                  This report was published at NYTimes.com at September 12, 2009. And was written by Anand Giridharadas. This is a summary and the title is above.


                The headlines from Washington today blare of bailouts, stimulus, healthcare. But it is possible that future historians looking back, will fixate on a quieter project of Barack Obama`s White House: its exploration of how government might be opened to greater public participation in the digital age, of how to make self-government more than a metaphor.
                Federal agencies have been directed to release online information that was once sealed; the new portal Data.gov is asking citizens to create their own applications using government database. But the most efforts have been in ¨crowdsourcing¨- in soliciting citizens`policy ideas on the internet and allowing them to vote on one another`s proposals.
                The people in this camp point to information technology`s aid to grassroots movements from Moldova to Iran. They note the new ease of extending reliable scientific and scholarly knowledge to a broad audience. They observe how internet, in democratizing access to facts and figures, encourages politician and citizens alike to base decisions on more than hunches.
                But their vision of internet democracy is part of a larger cultural evolution toward the expectation that we be consulted about everything, all the time. Increasingly, the best articles to read are the most e-mailed one, the next book to read is one bought by other people who bought the last book you did. In this new age, our consent is gathered every few minutes, not every few years.
               There is no turning back the clock. We now have more public opinion exerting pressure on politics than ever before. The question is how it may be channeled and filtered to create freer, more successful societies, because simply putting things online is no cure-all.


               Blare - sound loudly.
               Grassroot - the most basic level of an activity or organization.
               Hunches - belief that something is true, based on a feeling rather than evidence.
               consent - agreement.

Brazil went up in technology`s ranking but shortage of skilled labour worries.

     This report was published at BBCBrasil.com at 27/09/2011. It is a summary and the title is above. Translation by me.
   
     Brazil advanced in the sector of information`s technology ( IT ), but could have grown more if were not the bureaucracy and deficit of the specialists, says a ranking made by Economist Intelligent Unit.
     The growth of the Brazilian pontuation in the category ¨ research and development ( R&D )¨ was the main responsible for the Brazilian evolution, that now is 39º, however, remained stagnated in the category ¨quality of  technological skills¨, creating fears about the shortage of  professionals to meet the demand.
     It is estimated that there are 90,000 vacancies no fulfilled in this sector.
     Progress in the category ¨infrastructure of I.T.¨ , also brings advance, like the enlargement of cellular telephony, which penetration goes over 100%. On the other hand, the slow pace of the broadband expansion is mentioned like a negative aspect.