“Anthropology is in crisis all over the world,” warned Israeli professor and linguist Elitzer Bar-Asher Siegel, who reflected on his innovative proposals for a “future” university curriculum aimed at “Students are exposed to the greatest amount of knowledge possible for greater digital, cultural and artistic products”.
Bar-Asher is director of the Faculty of Philology, Linguistics and Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), where he directs that institution’s “Humanitas” program of innovation and works to propose the remodeling of the university’s curriculum. We do.
During his visit to Argentina, the professor spoke with Telm about the “nomination crisis in anthropology” and defined the proposed adaptation as “the course of the future”.
“In general, there is a worldwide crisis in which fewer and fewer students are coming to the humanities. We live in a rapidly changing world, with the prospect of artificial intelligence, and where universities are lagging behind, becoming more conservative. Right now, you have to reestablish the relationship,” Bar-Asher explained.
In this sense, the main proposition of the researcher is based on the fact that the “product”, in the context of the production of anthropology – mainly academic articles -, should be extended to other areas.
“An (academic) article is a product, a very important one, but it has only one form. I think it is bad if this is all we have and nothing more,” he said.
At this point he said that it is time for artificial intelligence and change with the industry. “It is our responsibility to be part of what is happening. If we think only of articles it goes in one direction, but if we think of digital, artistic, educational products, we can see different concepts and forms. can think of,” he graphed.
When asked whether application to new formats would be detrimental to theoretical production, he assured that “it is not about replacing it”, but that “an application component must be developed, but it is an aspect and That should be part of what we do in universities.”.
“Today, students create articles, that’s the product. But we can have more products. For example, a history teacher can create an exhibit in a museum, others can create a podcast, we can work on a digital application. can do.” ,
These examples are “different from the products of the humanities – articles – and what we need to do is try to develop that and if a student wants to do it, they know how,” he said.
On the official website of the Jerusalem Faculty, which runs the curriculum innovation program, “the importance of developing a culture that is oriented from theoretical research to delivering practical products, establishing a business community, building relationships with industry, and building Development of business-oriented projects”.
This model, Bar-Asher assured, put at stake the link between “government, universities and industry”.
Referring to the “global crisis” that anthropology is going through, he warned that it was not due to a lack of interest in the humanities or consumption of their productions, but “the problem is that people are not interested in studying”. ” them in universities in a professional manner”.
“I do not agree that people are not interested in the humanities, but many are not interested in university. The question,” he reflected, “is how do we connect with the public, and how do we make it relevant?”
In their proposals, there is the expression “for joint development between industry people and university professors”.
“We really want more and more people to study humanities, but not only humanities, so we also ask ourselves how do we make good development in all fields of science knowledge, and how do we update it. What we do now is needed”.
Regarding the teaching role, Bar-Asher said that “teachers are not trained to think in terms of products and they don’t have the knowledge to do it, and to do it quickly”, which is the reason she chose to leave the industry. With emphasis on expression.
“Universities have to do it, but not all professors have to do it. So we need to make it part of the curriculum. I think if there is a professor, just like students writing projects, be part of that guide and Work together This is a training that must be developed and improved to find new ways.”
In terms of curriculum, he recognized that both Argentina and Latin America “have the ability to change quickly and be more flexible with curriculum.”
“The difference between making changes to the curriculum is that you have to get a broad education and making sure that students have as much knowledge as they currently have,” he concluded. (Telam)
