We risk a look into the future: What will education look like in 2050? How will pupils learn about National Socialist injustice and the Holocaust in a few decades? Are games, social media, and AI all that will matter – or will traditional teaching methods still be used?
For me, 2050 sounds like the distant future at first. The debates and specialist discourse on learning in the culture of digitality, changing teaching-learning settings, and related didactic issues are gaining momentum. I am convinced that learning culture and learning itself will have changed fundamentally in 26 years: this concerns the places where learning happens, the implicitness with which digital media are intertwined with analog media, and also the way in which learning processes are designed and learning progress is mapped and tracked using digitally recorded data.
Digital media will be as much a part of learning as pens and books used to be, and the label “digital” will be unnecessary. My ideal vision is that schools and extracurricular learning spaces will be equipped with Wi-Fi and functioning devices as a matter of course and, above all, none of this will depend on how financially strong the respective municipality or parents are. In 2050, educational equality will hopefully be more of a guiding principle than it is today.
We are already testing serious games and AI-supported learning systems in the teaching of history. In the future, these systems will be professionalized and differentiated for teaching history. Several examples, such as the “Dimensions in Testimony” project, are already impressively demonstrating the possibilities. The USC Shoah Foundation has processed interviews with survivors of the Shoah so that learners can ask questions about their lives and survival and the historical eyewitnesses report interactively with the help of AI. This is a unique opportunity to experience moving and impressive testimonials even many decades after the National Socialist era and to integrate them into learning processes. In addition, AI applications can help to make sources and contemporary
documents accessible to a wider audience, for example by translating learning content into the native language of the learners or into easy or simple language, thereby contributing to increased accessibility.
Learning processes will become more individualized in the culture of digitality. Taking the specific example of learning about the National Socialist era, this could mean tailoring the learning processes to the interests of individual or smaller groups. Perhaps a learning group would like to know more about the life and survival of the Jewish population in Denmark. Or use the biography of Anne Frank to work on how people from her neighborhood supported Jews in hiding. Maybe they would like to learn more about how the National Socialist regime affected life in other countries in Europe or the world, against the backdrop of family biographical references. As a result, pupils take more responsibility for their own learning processes, and the multitude of possible research questions automatically creates multi-perspectivity in the learning process. Digital support systems reinforce this development in the direction of individualized learning by making sources and documents available digitally. Open Educational Resources (OER), for example, multiply the number of available teaching and learning materials significantly.
My hope is that, in addition to encouraging critical questioning of sources, AI-supported fact checking will also be standard in 2050, so that a warning exclamation mark appears on the screen if, for example, a historical document is placed in an incorrect or problematic context.
Or a photo is used as evidence for an event even though it comes from a different geographical or historical context. In the next step, an AI or a teacher also provides support in reconstructing the interests and intentions behind the possible decontextualization of a historical document.
Speaking of teachers: Educational staff in extracurricular learning settings will certainly still be the all-important variable for successful processes in learning about history and National Socialist injustice in 2050. Indeed, there will potentially be far more pedagogical materials and digital tools at our disposal than today. But even so, learning will continue to be a social practice that takes place in dialog and in interaction. All the more reason, therefore, for well-qualified teachers to accompany pupils in their learning processes, motivate them to delve deeper into research and exploration, and support them in sharpening their questions and reflecting on their own learning process. The role of teachers in learning about the National Socialist regime and its effects will continue to be crucial in guiding pupils through ethical questions and developing connections to their own present, social participation, and responsibility for a community based on human rights.
On so many levels, all of this is highly demanding and requires well-trained teachers who are able to create successful learning settings, both technically and in terms of educational approaches. Therefore, it is about time that both teacher training and continuing education for all professionals in the field are adapted accordingly. After all, 26 years will pass faster than you might think.
Author: Bianca Ely, Head of the “Concepts and Qualification” field of activity in the Forum Education Digitalization
The Forum is dedicated to systemic change and sustainable digital transformation in the education sector.
Learn more here
