“You are who you are where you were when”
First coined by sociologist Morris Massey in the 1970s, this tongue-twister depicts the sentiment that values of our past directly motivate how we behave.
A boy who grew up during the Depression to a widowed mother found himself working the ranches of Nebraska at fifteen year old. Pawned off to relatives for the summer, he herded cattle in exchange for room and board. This same boy grew up to put himself through college, and law school, which was cut short by being drafted into World War II. As a young man he fought for his country and was shot in Italy, on the beaches of Anzio. He returned home with a purple heart but in true style of the stoicism learned as child of the Great Depression, never talked about the bullet in his shoulder. This man eventually married my grandmother, had my aunt, and then my father. It being his duty to provide the stability and security he never had growing up, my grandfather chose civil servant as a career. A job where he languished from boredom but comfortably provided for his son.
His son, in typical baby-boomer fashion, had no fear of poverty but certainly did of atomic bombs. My father, who followed in his father’s footsteps only insofar as to also be a solider sent to Europe. Stationed in West Germany, he was a welcome guest of the country my grandfather had fought against. While there, he met my mother (a fellow solider), married her, and eventually had me. A true product of his generation my father quit his secure 9-5 with Freddie Mac and struck out on his own; an entrepreneur with three kids in tow. He has no problem telling me his army stories and doesn’t mind that at 63 he’s still trying to make his million.
These men are who they were when. Their behaviour directly stemmed from the values of their respective pasts.
I am no exception to this rule. Raised in both the U.S. and Germany, I am a product of the transatlantic partnership forged during the years between wars these men fought in. Although never witnessed first-hand, I know the consequences of what happened when transatlantic relations failed and I’ve experienced myself the benefits of a relationship that works.
Most of my peers, however, have no idea. They are also who they are where they were when.
They are Millennials, who grew up being told their lives would be even better than those of their baby-boomer parents. We are a generation too young to remember the fears of the Cold War. For us, MAD was a fact of life – only now being called into question as North Korea tests the limits of the West’s diplomatic red lines. For both Germans and Americans alike, in our lifetimes, my generation has never had a war fought on these countries’ soils. Sure, soldiers may be sent off to far-flung places – but nothing really changes at home. We did not experience the starvation of our grandparents, nor the alarm of our mothers and fathers when they practiced atomic bomb drills in school.
We are so lucky, but also naïve.
For most Millennials, the importance of international relations is not understood. It is a vague concept thought to be a good idea until tax season rolls around and people start to complain about “how much” is spent on NATO and state departments, and international development. Understandably so, more immediate concerns come to mind – like how to afford a mortgage, or pay off student loans.
My peers are not intentionally ignorant, they are just reacting to the most immediate concerns in their lives; transatlantic relations simply have little value to them.
I propose we change that.
My classes in high school were taught from textbooks. I learned 21st century history from those dusty pages, but the lessons were not real to me until I ran my hands along the Berlin Wall, and toured Auschwitz with a Jewish friend. The importance of transatlantic relations became tangible when I explored war bunkers and saw lampshades made of skin.
I was privileged to have history made real for me, and it is a privilege – that if given to all high school students – could help transform the involvement of youth in the U.S.- EU relationship today.
While study tours and exchange programmes are wonderful, we realise they cannot reach every student and it is this gap I address here.
For those in the know, the international aid industry has been toying with new fundraising tactics recently by combining virtual reality and humanitarian advocacy. In an effort to evoke empathy and consequently, open wallets, organisations have been creating virtual reality (VR) films – as opposed to traditional documentaries – in order to highlight the suffering of vulnerable populations worldwide.
From post-earthquake Haiti to refugee-laden Lesbos, VR film crews have given residents of the West a new tangible understanding of these people’s struggles. Unlike traditional media, someone watching a VR film has the opportunity to feel completely immersed in another environment. A VR camera is merely one that can shoot from any angle and while wearing VR goggles, or even watching on a screen, the viewer has the ability to observe a scene from 360 degrees.
Many big name agencies have been jumping on the VR bandwagon, including Médecins Sans Frontières, the U.K. Agency for International Development (DFID), and the United Nations. Indeed, in 2015, a VR film called Clouds over Sidra depicting life in a Jordanian U.N. refugee camp was released. After showing the film at fund-raising events people took off their VR goggles in tears, and according to the U.N., it raised $3.8 billion from donors.
Imagine if we could implement VR in the education sector! Instead of showing donors a refugee camp, we could show high-school students a concentration camp. A student in rural Alabama who may never get the chance to leave the U.S. in her lifetime could nonetheless “go” to the WWII bunkers of London Tube stations and experience what life was like when the U.S. and Europe were at war.
She may always be who she was where she was when, i.e. a rural post-Millennial Alabamian, and ten years after graduating she may still have mortgages and student loans as the most pressing issues on her mind, but she would remember the visceral experience VR gave her. When it came time to vote, she just might care what her candidate’s views on foreign policy are.
Hello Katrina,
Thank you for your article, I enjoyed reading your personal perspective on transatlantic relations. It is sometimes amazing to think how many people (myself included) were born years after the Berlin Wall fell. Many people in the United States and Germany are isolated from conflict, and only experience war through news articles. Your proposal for the use of VR technology in education would provide students with an opportunity to more fully experience the history of their own and other countries. This can help them understand what is at stake, and the importance of international relations. Over time, do you think that VR will become a less effective tool? Although VR is currently cutting edge technology, as usage increases in the coming years, people may become as desensitized to it as they have to color television. This is not to say VR history films do not have an important role to play in the future of historical education. Students just might lose, as you write, “the visceral experience” which they would receive from viewing such films today.
Hi James, thanks for your comment. You raise an important point, and over time people may indeed become desensitized to VR technology. Given the rate of technological change, however, perhaps by that time a new even more visceral technology will exist!
Dear Katrina,
thank you for this personal account of transatlantic relations. You and @florian-dalstein should really cooperate on making VR possible for future educational programs! I entirely agree with you that showing American and European students the atrocities of the 20th and 21st century is a vital step to foster much needed empathy and understanding. I was lucky enough to having had a great history teacher, who organized trips to WWII photo exhibitions and concentration camps and even measured students faces to show whom the Nazi regime would have deemed ‘reinrassig’ (of pure race) and whom not. It was disturbing but absolutely necessary. Yet, many parents object to their children being confronted with something that could disturb or traumatize them. While I am entirely on your side, which steps could be taken to convince parents that it is inevitable for their kids to see what is happening elsewhere around the globe?
Hi Katrina and Christin,
completely true! The whole potential of VR still hasn’t materialized in education. What other applications than history could you see? Educational games, data sciences, etc would come to my mind.
Hi Henrik, I completely agree with you that when it comes to VR in the education sector, the possibilities seem endless! Off the top of my head I could see VR being used as a very visceral way to educate about climate change in the science field.
Hi Christin, thanks for your comment. This question of convincing parents that it is important their children see and experience disturbing topics is definitely a sensitive issue. Even how these VR films have been used in the aid industry to open donors’ wallets has been met with criticism, being called emotionally exploitative. I don’t have a clear-cut answer to your question, but I imagine we would handle this issue the way most topics are handled in the education industry – through experts determining what is appropriate materials for various age levels. This would of course be filtered through cultural lenses and the typical fights that occur in the education sector about what is “appropriate” material, but I think a middle-ground could be found. At the very least, various films could be made ranging in their “visceral” level, in order to allow parents to opt their children in or out of viewing the more sensitive footage. You raise a very pragmatic question though and I’m curious if you have any innovative ideas of how we can convince parents of the value of informing their children about difficult topics happening all over the globe?
Dear Katrina,
I was thinking long and hard about other innovative ideas how to convince parents that enlightening their children about the oftentimes negative aspects of both history and present, and am entirely convinced, now more than ever, what tremendous responsibility lies in the education of our children. I believe American schools to be more conservative and less open-minded to educating their children about Americas horrible past (e.g. slavery or genocide of indigenous people) since those events are mostly cut from the overall syllabus already. So I believe that a more ‘conservative’ approach is needed, before jumping head-first into convincing parents of letting their children use VR technology.
There are already educational approaches in place – obviously without VR technology – that tackle traumatic issues in a manner both informative and sensitive to the children. As a German, most of my educational history was about the Holocaust and I remember that already in primary school, we read children’s books about this topic (An albino mouse that was loathed by the other mice due to the mice’s’ leader believing that only ‘pure-race’ mice should belong to their group). From then on, we had Holocaust survivors visiting our school, went to photo exhibitions and discussed novels and films that became more clear-cut and drastic the older we got. Maybe the traditional way of informing children about sensitive issues can remain until they are older to work with and understand VR technologies and the trauma they are about to witness. […]
Another idea I had was to create VR material that allows the children an insight into other cultures they otherwise would not experience. E.g. they can visit a school in Yemen or (to stay more transatlantic) settle on the shores of the ‘New World’. After each sequence the children will analyze and discuss what they have seen and slowly begin to broaden their mind to a world that exists outside of their immediate habitat.
For older children, these sequences could end with a precursor of something negative that is about happen, without actually showing these events to the children. In the Yemen case, for example, children could hear the sound of bombs falling and see the scared faces of the Yemeni pupils in the classroom. In the settlement of the New World, colonists could appear in the scene with enslaved Native Americans. Once the scene cuts out, the children will automatically want to know what has happened, as we successfully created a “cliffhanger”. In a more sensitive and traditional way, which I have outlined above, these topics can be tackled without traumatizing the children.
As you see, I am quite passionate about different possibilities to teach and educate children about relevant topics, so I love your idea tremendously.
Hi Katrina,
Thanks for sharing your story! I am very excited about all the possibilities of digital technology. Using VR to get students immerged in history is a very exciting example of its benefits. I only fear, that we`ll still need a lot of time to implement VR in history classes. Most schools at least in Germany are far behind in adapting digital technologies, as far as I can tell.
Hi Katrina,
thank you very much for your essay. I, too have been toying with that idea and actually thought about writing my master thesis on it. I think your ideas on concrete implementations in the history class room are pretty inspiring. I share some of Justus concerns with regards to German schools being behind on digitalization and modern technology, however, I am a bit less pessimistic about the outlook of such an enterprise. There, actually, have recently been more and more funds made available in universities for VR in education. Some colleages of mine are currently working on a comparable program dealing with environmental polution and geography in high schools. Major business players like KPMG have, also, shown a vested interest in this regard. I believe that after federal elections, with the CDU having made digitalization part of their program, using the momentum, this could very well be turned into a prestige project for the new government and many black state governments. The who where when should favor it.
Hi Katrina,
Thank you for sharing your personal account. I had no idea how powerful a VR film (like the Clouds over Sidra) could be in raising donations! I’m not sure how your history curriculum was set up, but in Massachusetts high schools, European history is an elective class that students can choose to enroll in. Therefore, those who are generally not interested in transatlantic affairs do not take the course. In order for your VR education plan to have the greatest reach, do you think that a US-European course should become mandatory in all public high schools?
Hi Johanna, thanks for your comment. I also was so surprised when I first learned about how successful the VR films were in the humanitarian aid sector! You mention a very good question when it comes to history curriculums. I myself only studied European history at my international high school in Germany, and sometimes feel woefully ignorant of U.S. history. Regarding your question, I wouldn’t go so far as to say a U.S.-European course should be mandatory in all public high schools. (While it may be ideal, it is unrealistic to think fifty distinct states would adopt this requirement). This is namely because the continents two contemporary histories are interwoven, so to study American history is to naturally get a taste of European history, and vice versa. In my article I used the examples of a London Tube Station war shelter or concentration camp, but American examples could also be found and integrated into a U.S. history class.
Hello Katrina,
I really enjoyed reading your article and am definitely also fond of the idea of using VR technology. Having experienced the use of VR in documentaries myself, albeit in a different context than described here, I certainly agree with your point. I am interested in what you would like to portray, in terms of content, using VR technology. Would you only focus on historical events (and how far back?) or would you maybe also include modern day scenarios that show day-to-day life on the other side of the Atlantic?
Best regards,
Max
Hi Max, thanks for your comment. I’m curious, in what context did you experience a VR documentary? Regarding the content to be portrayed, I think using both historical and modern day events would have the most impact. The examples used in my article were indeed historical (and the first that came to mind) as they depicted times when the U.S.-European relationship was in shambles. I was trying to think of very visceral negative examples, but a balancing-out with positive examples is probably just as important. Taking a view of more cultural exchange, we could indeed show an American or German “day in the life” of the average school student. For historical events, you ask a good question, how far back should we go? My reaction would be to say as far back as is relevant, but that being said, I don’t think we’d need to go further back than about WWII. What is your take on this question?
Dear Katrina,
Thank you for your article and the proposed idea. To me, it seems a fresh and interactive approach on how to improve transatlantic relations and on how to promote a mutual understanding.
I would like to know if your idea implies solely VR, or if you consider also a personal contact in “real life” with the other culture? Who can I ask questions about what I saw? Who do I discuss with when I watch a VR-movie with my peers that are in the same situation as me? In short, how would you organize a comprehensive method that includes critical discussions for students to learn about the other place?
I’m looking forward to your answer!
Best,
Katharina
Hi Katharina, thanks for your comment. I must admit my initial idea was solely VR. The whole idea being to make the experience as easily available to all students as possible. Of course personal real life contact with the other culture is ideal, but we realise this kind of cross-cultural exchange on a mass scale is unfortunately unrealistic. For students wishing to ask follow-up questions (and let’s hope they do!), the classroom setting they watch the VR films in should allow them this opportunity. I imagine these films integrated into school curricula which are designed to anticipate and encourage students’ questions.
Dear Katrina,
Thank you for this powerful piece. I agree that VR can be a very effective tool in education. I’d like to take a step back and also look at teachers’ training for a moment. I think in order to implement these kinds of technologies and create more engaging and personal courses/course segments, it will be crucial to reach out to universities and schools with workshops on VR and other innovative teaching techniques. History and social studies teachers have a huge responsibility but they’re also facing time pressure, the constraints of a rigid curriculum and potentially the criticism of principals or colleagues. Do you agree and how would you get teachers/schools on board? Best, Carolin
Hi Katrina, I really like your ideas and I think that the usage of VR technology can actually make a difference! I was fortunate to meet contemporary witnesses of the Second World War in person but due to the demographic effect such opportunities will become increasingly rare. VR film could truely help to preserve remembrances of the period. But whether these videos will turn out to be a success will also depend on the director. And one should keep in mind that images as well as videos only show a specific part (photographers/filmmakers are in power of selecting).
Hi Katrina,
Thanks for your article. I absolutely be with you that one policy that has led to a sea change in the school education sector and transformed it completely is the integration of technology into classroom teaching. From state government projects to identify tech-savvy teachers to initiatives by private schools to introducing smart boards or tablets, integration of ICT into school education is the reality of today. In my opinion one of the major changes in classroom teaching has been the introduction of smart boards, laptops, tablets with pre-loaded content, and introduction of YouTube into tutorials. Now we have an opportunity to move to the next step of the learning process, beyond mere recall and retention of concepts, to application and analysis. So I think there are a lot of opportunities for the virtual reality industry. A newly released study says that the percentage of broadband homes in the United States that plan to buy a VR headset within the next year has nearly doubled since early last year. Do you think Germany is ready for this challenge or not yet so far advanced?
Greetings
Tim
Katrina,
I love your idea and thought process! Using digital media in education makes total sense! For every generation, including new technologies into many educational arenas creates an awareness not afforded to so many. I love the idea of walking in the footsteps of others. It gives us all an opportunity to experience life through the eyes of others. It’s a way to create compassion for humanity in a way that is easy, fast and experiential.
Thanks so much for sharing your insights! As a member of the baby boomer generation, I love learning from younger generations – especially the millennials!!
Cheers, Lynn