Do art and music have the same importance than technology in the cv?

The role of education is to prepare children for the modern world. Schools should cut art and music out of the curriculum so that children can focus on useful subjects such as technology. To what extent do you agree?

Nowadays there are more careers than there used to be due to the advances in many areas of the world. People have now more opportunities to choose what to do with their lives in the future. The role of education is to prepare children not only for the modern world, but also for life and whatever comes up. Education should leave the doors open for children for any opportunities in life, not only those involving "useful subjects", such as technology; Also those subjects that involve other creative manners of children, such as art and music.

Schools are prepared to teach us children how to deal with problems, how to communicate, to enlarge our knowledge, to open our minds to new ideas and different ways of thinking, to build values for life; It helps us make friends, and in that long path where we form ourselves, education helps us find what we enjoy and do not like. Art and music are as important in that path as technology is. Through those subjects juveniles can express how thry feel, how they think and how they see things in a different way from the rest. This type of subjects, like drama for example, gives them more confidence as well as the capacity of individually and in groups. When working in groups you learn to tolerate certain attitudes of people since they all have different reactions and you need to cooperate, so these subjects are helpfool to boost that characteristics we all have, some more and other less developed. When doing activities involving art, drama, music, etc. children need to focus so as to do well their work, the same happens with all subjects. 

I believe art and music are as important as technology in the curriculum since they allow children to develop different skills useful for their life and at the moment of getting a job.

Dead Poet's Society by Peter Weir

Let's Stop Brutalizing Society

Should people decide whether someone must live or die? Capital punishment is the practice of executing someone as punishment for a specific crime after a proper legal trial. In this essay the reasons why capital punishment should be made legal or not will be analysed.

Nowadays capital punishment is legal in many countries, however, it is only applied when severe crimes, such as rape or murder occur. One reason these countries put forward to justify death penalty is that by ending the criminal’s life they prevent other killings and rapes, as criminals may be afraid to be condemned to death for such a crime. Society use punishment to discourage criminals from unlawful action, for this it should use the strongest punishment available to deter punishment, and that is the death penalty. This method is known as deterrent effect. It also provides a closure for victims or related ones. Their grief might not be over with the murderer's’ execution, but it gives them a feeling of relief. Also, many people condemned to death take the opportunity to express remorse the time that have been before the execution.

On the other hand, people against capital punishment argue that death penalty does not teach the condemned never to do what he/she has already done. If this person is sent to prison he/she has the possibility to rehabilitate. As well as that does not dissuade criminals, it does not change their minds about killing people. Killing someone because he/she killed someone is an hypocritical act. It makes no sense to denounce the practice of murder by committing the same act. Is not the aim of punishment to teach us about things we should not do? Then the justice system should refuse to criminalise murder with killing. Misjudgement leads to miscarriages of justice, so wrongful convictions can occur at any trial. Inadequate legal representation, shoddy police investigations, eyewitness misidentification, racial prejudice, and falsified evidence are factors that contribute to wrongful convictions around the world. In the case of the death penalty, victims of wrongful convictions pay the ultimate price.

As to conclude, I believe capital punishment should not be legal as we have no right to decide if people should live  or die, especially as there are many other methods of punishment which do not include murder.

MadMen: The Smoking Pitch

In Thinking Skills we worked with credibility criteria, specifically with vested interest. What is a vested interest? Well, a vested interest is when someone has something to gain from benefiting one side over the other. As to achieve it, someone can present one-side arguments or select some specific evidence, reducing the credibility of the source. In class we saw an extract of the TV serie "Mad Men", where we can identify two moments where vested interest is used.

1. When Peter had an idea for a new propaganda of the cigarettes company

When he tells his new idea, he is telling one side of the story, which benefits the company. He compares the risk of dying with cigarettes with dying in a car accident, explaining that life can be dangerous, so if you are going to die, at least enjoy a cigarette. By showing this, Peter avoids the part where smoking leads you to death, benefiting the company.

2. When Don tries to convince everyone about his idea

Don explains that there are six more companies selling the same product, but he wants to show that the products from other companies are poisoned, while Lucky Strike, the company he is working for, sells toasted tobacco. All the cigarettes are toasted, but Don's idea includes just one side of the story.

In both cases, Peter and Don, just want their idea to be chosen, so they avoid important things about cigarettes so as to benefit the company by selling their product effectively. Don's idea is the one elected, due to the fact that Peter's idea includes the fact that cigarettes are dangerous for us. 

Another example of vested interest is the propaganda from the L&M company, which connected health with cigarettes using expertise recommendation. Whatever a doctor says we usually believe it, as they are experts in what they say, they studied to know what they are saying.

Bias

In the subject of Thinking Skills we have been studying credibility criteria, which has many types. One of them is Bias. Bias is when one person or a source pre-judges, taking one-sided arguments which makes them reject any type of evidence that is against their beliefs. This leads to the distortion of evidence, where sources end up being unreliable. It is almost impossible to have an unbiased source due to the fact that everyone has their own point of view. As to work with this topic, our teacher gave us te following pictures:

 

In the first set of images we can se how Hitler and the media are criticising Jews because of the misfortune of Germany after the First World War. They are shown as demons, killers and trying to poison other Germans. Hitler also blame them for the hyperinflation of the 1920's. This is a clear example of pre-judgement, which helped Hitler to turn Germans against the Jews. These judgements are senseless as the Jews fought alongside other Germans during the defeat of the First World War. This images also overplay what the Jews did, as people do not make sausages out of rats or drain the blood of other people. Those sources are not showing how Jews really are. This sources are not credible as they are all based on hate feelings towards the Jews.

The second activity is about a British propaganda during the Gulf War of 1990-1991, between the Allies and Iraq. In this source the British describe themselves in a good and heroic way, meanwhile Saddam Hussein is shown as an evil person. This source is biased as the British show themselves as if they were going yo save the world.

Wrongful Conviction

Michael Kenneth McAlister was wrongful convicted in 1986 after being recognised by the victim as the man who attempted to rape her. McAlister was then released in 2015 as the man who attacked the woman, Norman Derr, confessed his crime.

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking analyse and evaluate arguments. Arguments consists of a reason or reasons which support a conclusion and are designed to persuade someone about something. As to persuade it is necessary to use evidence to support it. The credibility of the evidence has to be judged (credible=believable). The evidence is taken from sources (a person, an article, a tv show, etc.)

There are many techniques which can be used to make the argument credible using sources and the evidence it provides, named credibility criteria, such as:

• Neutrality: the neutrality of a source shows it is impartial, it does not take sides. It has no motive to lie, distort evidence or to present information that supports only one side. They are the most reliable sources or evidences.
• Vested Interest: Someone, a person or organization, gain something from defending one point of view. Information would, probably, be distorted, they would ignore certainly evidence as to benefit themselves. Anyhow, if they have a vested interest it does not mean they are lying.
• Bias: Is sometimes a consequence of Vested Interest. Bias is favouring certain point of view, seeing things in a particular way.
• Expertise: We usually believe most things experts say. Training, knowledge, skills, and experience make them credible sources. Experts are humans so they may be wrong.
• Reputation: We tend to believe sources that have a high reputation. Despite reputation doesn’t mean that the information is reliable.
• Observation and eyewitness accounts: Eyewitnesses are usually more credible than second hand or hearsay evidence. This is due to the fact that eyewitnesses saw the event and it tends to be more reliable. As to consider its credibility it needs to be evaluated.
• Corroboration: They are the pieces of evidence that support each other and it actually increases the credibility of evidence. However, for example, if people are feared or threatened they may lie.
• Selectivity and representativeness: Evidence is usually selective due to its vast amount. Some groups or associations select evidence that only supports their view. We have to ask to ourselves: What kind of evidence is selected? Does it represent only one side?
• Context: Context means the setting or situation where the evidence is produced. It’s very important to have context as to judge the quality of evidence.

As to conclude, if we combine credibility criteria we can improve the assessment of the credibility of the evidence. Knowing how to compare credibility and truth is also important. Something that is credible does not mean true, it's just believable. While true is accurate and correct. The evidence, for example can be believable but not truth.