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Mainz (dpa / lrs) - After 20 years as chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate History Teachers Association, Ralph Erbar has drawn an overall positive balance, but is also concerned about the future importance of the school and study subject.

"Anyone who fails to initiate historical awareness in school will hardly be able to correct this later," says Erbar in an interview with the German Press Agency.

"But a society that does not know the mistakes of the past is condemned to repeat them."

Erbar is critical of the merging of the subjects geography, history and social studies into the subject of social studies at the integrated comprehensive schools (IGS).

"This is a big catastrophe because there is no training for this subject of social studies, neither at the universities nor in the legal clerkship."

History is also devalued as a later subject because the students can hardly develop a personal access to it in terms of content.

At Realschulen plus there is the option of teaching either the three individual subjects or social studies.

History lessons have generally lost importance, says Erbar, who teaches at the Hildegardis School of the Diocese of Mainz in Bingen and trains trainee lawyers at the Bad Kreuznach study seminar.

"On the one hand, one laments this increasing forgetting of history, on the other hand, nothing is done to strengthen history lessons."

Erbar sees one reason for this in the fact that the MINT subjects - mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology - "have been on the rise for years because they are apparently much more relevant to business".

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Education Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) rejects the association's accusation.

Teaching the STEM subjects also contributes to the education of democracy.

Especially in the current discussions about containing the corona pandemic, it is important to be able to correctly assess scientific facts.

“But it is our goal to further strengthen the social science subjects,” says Hubig.

In grades 5 to 10 of the grammar schools, lessons include seven hours of history per week.

This should continue to be the case.

The social studies lessons are to be increased from three to five hours in the future.

In retrospect, Erbar sees positively that "the subject of history has changed significantly in recent years from a former drum subject to a subject for thinking".

Memorization of data and events has long been a thing of the past.

Diving into the past brings an encounter with fundamental questions of living together and with possible solutions.

These could not be transferred one to one to the present.

"But the students are sharpened in their thinking, in their critical awareness."

The history teacher Katharina Kaiser from Nackenheim (Mainz-Bingen district) was elected as the successor to the head of the association; Anne Sophie Schumacher from Speyer is her deputy.

In addition to the digitization of the association culture, Kaiser also named the promotion of historical culture in digital space as an important task.

"In conveying history, it is important to tie in with the students' world, with what touches them directly."

The 33-year-old teacher sees the association, with around 300 members, as a link between school, university, history and society as a subject.

"In doing so, we are opening up to cooperation with other historical-cultural initiatives."

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History teachers association Rhineland-Palatinate