The role of humanities in the course of transmitting social memory

National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), Department of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science, Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: marina.kalnej@yandex.ru

Abstract

The article examines the contradiction between the transformation of information technology into an integral part of contemporary educational activities and the threat of reducing the quality of the educational process and dehumanizing the individual, resulting from the implementation of digital educational technologies. The need for distance work and remote communication is particularly evident in the situation of the pandemic, which requires, on the one hand, restricting direct interpersonal contacts to prevent the spread of infection, and on the other hand – continuing labor activity to prevent an economic downturn. The disadvantages of the distance framework in the educational process concern a decrease in discipline among students, a deterioration in the quality of learning of educational material, economic inaccessibility for low-income families, insufficient coverage of territories with cellular communication, as well as housing conditions that do not allow organizing remote work and training. These shortcomings become a threat to increasing social stratification due to the impossibility of general access to even basic education. The essence of the protests against distance learning shows that the problems are seen not only in the lack of organization of the learning process but also in the very fact of abandoning the traditional learning model. One of the factors of such a threat is the absolutization of the role of information technology in the learning process, which leads to a deterioration in the level of education. To resolve this contradiction, the authors propose to consider the role of humanitarian knowledge as a meaningful aspect of the educational process.