Elena Kazakova: "If we continue to read, there is hope of not losing the battle with artificial intelligence"

At the time of the advent of online education, it was very easy to create digital content. Previously, even if a teacher conducted a lesson as a "talking head," if they used a decent presentation where something moved on the video, it was captivating to a viewer, simply because there was a novelty effect.

Professor Elena Kazakova, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University 

The online education market is oversaturated, which means that only the product that attracts the user in some way and is different from everything else is sold, said Elena Kazakova.

Traditional "suppliers" of educational content, the publishing industry, are also asking the question: what kind of textbooks should be published today?

Professor Kazakova is sure: "Education is a means of preserving and developing culture. The teaching and learning process is a system in which a person interacts with the text of culture for the sake of its appropriation and transformation." That is why the main tool of the teaching and learning process is reading. Today, what is highly problematic for us is reading, experts are convinced, and these problems originate in childhood.

Parents do not instil in their children an interest in reading, the need for reading for pleasure and joy gradually fades away. The sensitive period, i.e. the period of the highest opportunities for the most effective development of the psyche, is up to 10 years. If by this time a child has not loved reading, this will most likely not happen later, scientists say.

This raises the question: what to do if a person does not like to read, and reading is the most important and integral element of learning? Elena Kazakova explained: the educational text, i.e. textbooks, manuals, educational content, should be structured in such a way that it has an internal navigation system. A student needs to go through the path inside this text, pay attention to certain postulates, and not "skip" important points. The text should be systematised, it should reflect concepts. After going through one fragment of the text, a student should be able to stop, systematise what they have covered and work with the educational task. The basic knowledge testing technique will come in handy. You should become certain that the text has been read only when you have given the task and your reader has generated a response text.

There is no need to create a text that covers all the information, she said. "The principle of air in the text was once proclaimed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A reader must be given an opportunity to make discoveries," Elena Kazakova said.

It is also essential to remember that educational activity is not individual. This means that a text must contain tasks or messages to discuss, supplement and change the text.

"When we talk about a modern educational text, we understand that it should perform several functions. It should help to understand one’s own motives and meanings of reading this text. Everyone should understand why they are doing this, for what purpose."

There is a paradox arising from school today, she said. On the one hand, all teachers are concerned with the question of how to teach students to study educational texts. On the other hand, they themselves wean them off reading in the broadest sense of the word. Between 70% to 85% of teachers, when asked "if something needs to be explained to students, will you give them a textbook to read or tell them the contents of the paragraph yourself," respond that they will explain everything themselves. This is most often due to saving time (it is faster), poor quality of textbooks (many mistakes and complex presentation) and the confidence that otherwise the student will not understand anything.

"If family reading atrophies and later for 11 years school teaches that reading is not a tool for learning, lessons do not involve educational texts, there is no natural practice of reading, then how will a person develop this skill?" asked Elena Kazakova.

Scientists have come to a conclusion that modern pedagogy prefers to set very simple tasks for students, simplify texts and tests. Today, it is already becoming clear that very soon the solution of simple problems can be completely delegated to artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is progressing very quickly, and artificial intelligence cam solve all routine, so-called reproductive tasks, with ready-made answers in educational materials. If not, artificial intelligence is not far from it. What is left for us is only complex tasks that require intuition, creativity, and imagination. Complex reading, as a basic tool for preserving and developing culture, the most important part of education, can just become one of the tools for solving complex problems.

"We must continue to read at any cost. Then, there is hope of not losing the battle with artificial intelligence," Elena Kazakova concluded.