”Digital Humanities” in school
Photo © 2018 EPFL DHLAB Venise Quartier du Rialto
[ C H R O N I C L E ]
The 2021 reform of the French baccalaureate for secondary school students starting in 2018, has given rise to an unending series of psychodramas. Let’s look at one of them. In 2014, a report from the National Digital Council insisted on the need to develop computer education and evoked the lack of a digital culture in the French national education system. Some of its recommendations have been adopted, although there are some missing – for instance, insufficient computer science training for teachers. Among other things, the report considered an (optional) class combining humanities and digital. In the bac reform pre-projects, a “scientific and digital humanities” class appeared for all students. Defining a secondary school programme requires a balance and a global overview that I do not possess. I do not know if this class should have been kept, seen here more simply as a “digital humanities” class. However, it is interesting to look back on what it means and how it exploded mid-flight.
Initially, the term humanities computing, was mentioned, focusing on the use of computers in the humanities disciplines. With digital humanities, the focus was widened to include all research, teaching and engineering activities of the use of digital in these disciplines and, in particular, the notions of distribution to all and participation of all. There are many examples. One of my favourites is the Venice Time Machine, which collaboratively builds a digital archive of the cultural heritage of the city of Venise stretching back one thousand years.
Do the humanities not get somewhat confused when combined with the very concrete computer sciences? It is true that, computing was initially linked to physics and chemistry (for the integrated circuits that gave it life) and to mathematics (for reasoning and algorithms) and is one of the hard sciences. But any sort of data can be digitised, and a computer is a “general use machine”: the same database system or neural network software can be used for data, in history and in biology alike. With computing and digital date, a very wide spectrum of scientific (human or not) disciplines share tools and approaches, to lead to a convergence of methods and ideas. “Computational thinking” lies behind almost all the sciences today.
The class seemed almost ready – despite some opacity as to its content. But then, some lobbies (maths, physic-chemistry, life and Earth sciences) defended the blue line of hard science, and others (arts, philosophy, languages, history-geography) did not realise that the humanities are going digital in laboratories and companies. Result: RIP the digital humanities in secondary schools. The class disappeared.
What a shame! This class would have helped to break down the harmful barrier that exists between the human and social sciences and the so-called hard sciences. It had the advantage of teaching computing to students who are often deprived of this subjects and of breaking down the walls between disciplines. And, it could have motivated young people for the sciences, showing them that it operates in literary, economic, artistic, entertainment applications etc. It could have been an opportunity to reconcile young kids (especially girls) with science and technology, by showing them that they can also excel in scientific subjects.
All is not lost. Young students will no be obliged to select scientific, linguistic or economic/social options. And perhaps a teacher will conduct a digital humanities project in a specific class, like “digital and computer sciences” or (we can always dream) a “scientific teaching” class for all.
> AUTHOR
Serge Abiteboul
IT Researcher
Serge Abiteboul is an IT researcher at Inria and ENS Paris, a blogger at binaire.blog.lemonde.fr and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
