Recognizing fake news now a required subject in California schools::undefined
I like that it’s a critical thinking subject, but it would be much better if you taught generic critical thinking, and used “recognising fake news” as one of the applications for critical thinking.
Every school already teaches generic critical thinking.
Lots of people don’t learn it, but lots of people don’t learn basic algebra either. It’s still taught.
“Write 3 to 5 sentences explaining Gatsby staring across the bay at the green light of the far pier.”
This is a common type of prompt that most school systems use and in theory it fosters and develops critical thinking. Why would Gatsby stare at the light? What must he be thinking about? Why did the author choose a light? But (american) school systems never actually explain what critical thinking is. Only a set of minimum requirements that students struggle through.
I hated those prompts. They seemed like the teacher was just fishing for a specific answer. Sometimes the color doesn’t mean anything and the author thought it just looked nice. It wasn’t until I had a sociology teacher explain it with a poignant example that it really clicked.
He asked us “Is suspending a student good punishment?” He went on to elaborate that a student that skips class gets detention. Well if he skipped class why would he go to detention? So he skips that and gets suspension instead. This student didn’t want to be in school so the school ultimately punishes him by not having him in school.
Reductive and simplistic, sure. But the idea that you approach a problem or thought from many different angles to see all facets of it didn’t really gel with me until that moment. We need more of that. We need the “why” of critical thinking.
Don’t lots of people complain when education is too theoretical and they don’t get a sense of “how are we ever going to use this?”
What would “generic” critical thinking even look like? You need some subject matter to apply critical thinking skills to. News is already a very, very broad subject. What kind of critical thinking do you think is important but not teachable in the context of news?
Here’s the syllabus for the Cambridge Critical Thinking AS & A level
https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/597412-2023-2025-syllabus.pdf
They used to offer it as an end of GCSEs subject in grammar schools in the UK when i were younger (Maybe they still do, i don’t know). My Ex took it.
I (a pleb) went to a plebs school though so didn’t get the opportunity
it would be much better if you taught generic critical thinking
That’s pretty much what you get from an English (or history) class in HS. Can you extract information from a text, can you synthesize information from multiple sources, can you interpret what the text means and support your interpretation based on evidence, can you understand motivations and perspectives of characters, and recognize information from unreliable narrators, etc.
Sometimes when a problem becomes immediate enough, teaching the general case isn’t enough. Not sure whether we’ve reached that point, but there’s a lot of general teaching that people complain isn’t specific enough. “Why don’t they teach how to do taxes?”-- because they teach math and following directions, and it theoretically shouldn’t be more complicated than that.
Except education is not general, it is hyperfocused on topics that lead into higher education.
I can agree with that to a certain extent, but how is math not general? How is understanding characters from a book not general?
how is math not general? How is understanding characters from a book not general?
The general math and reading skills I learned stopped at 8th grade(or earlier in the case of English)
I didn’t need to write a 10 page paper on 3D trig for general math. Nor how to transpose a matrix.
I didn’t need to learn about, well actually in English I didn’t learn anything, we just kept doing the same imagery fan theorizing from 8th grade to graduation.
I didn’t need to write a 10 page paper on 3D trig for general math. Nor how to transpose a matrix.
I don’t think that’s what most people learn in terms of math. If you’re not going to college you probably don’t need trig or calc, but a basic understanding of algebra and geometry is useful IMO.
we just kept doing the same imagery fan theorizing from 8th grade to graduation.
Sounds like a problem with a shitty school or poor teachers, rather than a defect of English lit education in general. All the stuff I mentioned above is written into Common Core standards.
All the stuff I mentioned above is written into Common Core standards.
A significant share of people finish common core curriculum long before graduating. That’s why AP, IB, and other advanced courses exist.
As for English, I don’t think so, I just think there’s only so much to cover. I got a 35 on act reading, and many of my classmates were similar. How’re you going to teach them basic reading better?
I meant Common Core in terms of English, like the basing your interpretations of a text on evidence, etc. Catching students up in basic reading skills is a real problem, but I don’t think that’s an issue with how the curriculum is designed, but rather a problem with the basic economic functions of the country, where parents don’t have time to meaningfully interact with their kids because of job pressures. Starting kids on literacy young is hugely important, but a parent with 3 jobs isn’t going to have time to read to their kids every night.
So there’s pressure on the school to get kids up to grade level without economic support, and there’s pressure on the parents to help their kids without having any time to deal with it… turns out stagnating wages in favor of the millionaire class for 50 years wasn’t the solution after all.
A significant share of people finish common core curriculum long before graduating. That’s why AP, IB, and other advanced courses exist.
As a former teacher, this is not how educational standards work at all.
Once I got to college and took real critical thinking classes in philosophy I was shocked at how pathetic the English classes were where we imitated the tools and concepts we would learn and apply in college. I think that people who study English do not learn critical thinking well enough in most cases and are better at teaching composition and the reading of fictional stories.
I didn’t need to learn about, well actually in English I didn’t learn anything
I found why you think school doesn’t teach things that school definitely teaches.
Learn anything past 8th grade yeah. I took as advanced courses as were offered, but it didn’t teach anything new. Just a higher burden of homework. (That’s largely what IB classes were)
Yes this means that you failed to apply yourself appropriately, because you failed to learn.
Fun fact, I used to teach high school. I am literally an expert in what you should have learned.
Been advocating this forever. Teach a boy how to avoid bullshit, he’ll avoid bullshit forever
I’d really like to see the curriculum. And examples.
I feel like this is not an easy task. I suspect if someone thinks it’s not that difficult, then they are not willing to actually use political examples.
But maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t know. When I was in school NOTHING touched actual politics. Maybe that’s why I can’t conceive of how this will work when focused on that topic.
What am I missing?
Edit: When I say politics was never covered, I can give a weird anecdote:
Shortly after high school I was with some friends and asked them about the conservative/liberal thing. And they asked me a few questions and then said I was liberal, I think.
The kicker: one of the two friends went on to be a false elector who signed the documents in my home state on Jan 6th. I saw their name during the hearings.
I haven’t seen the current curriculum but this kind of thing was an area of research for me (the spread of information on social networks).
There was a study done - I want to say that it was about 40 years ago - that used a single lesson to teach young kids the basics of literary criticism and deconstruction so that they could dissect what the Saturday morning cartoon ads were trying to say. They were able to identify that the ads were implying that eating a sugary breakfast cereal would get you more fun friends to play with, and so on. A lot of it had to do with social pressures.
In any case, there was a measurable increase in the kids’ ability to resist being influenced by the ads, once they knew what to look for. I suspect they’ll take a similar approach here.
Nothing is ever going to be 100% successful, but if you pull back the curtain and show them that the Grand Wizard is just a little man pulling their levers, it’ll have a helpful effect on hopefully enough people to matter.
Fascinating.
It’s definitely not that difficult.
We had these lessons in Lithuania in the late 90s though not on fake news per se just how to evaluate text sources. It’s the same stuff you get taught for paper writing but in reverse. Check sources and use basic logic.
I don’t think politics are needed to be taught explicitly though, just basic logic concepts. For example, I do wish kids were taught about Baysian perspective outside of math settings. Just understanding that would eliminate a lot of misinformation dangers.
critical thinking is against most religions. its antithetical to their being the source of ‘truth’ and ‘morality’
the religious masses in the unites states are, to be blunt, morons. its designed that way.
Simply teaching kids that they can’t trust everything they read online is 50% of it. Explaining how and why information gets posted and why anyone might want to share disinformation, how outrage porn manipulates us… now we’re at 75%. The rest is a common sense approach to considering the source of information, understanding a news organization vs. a blog, finding more than one source for information, understanding what Wikipedia is and is not.
This is totally common sense and politically neutral.
The GOP would fight this so hard in red states
Really? Seems like something they’d run with, as long as they got to pick the curricula and decide what the reputable sources are. You could continue to galvanize a base into believing they now DO have critical thinking skills.
Well yes, even California is going to decide what to focus on. Which will be mostly politics I’d imagine. Neither one of them is going to focus on who the real problems are: rich people deciding what gets covered so they remain in power.
Absolutely, two arms of the same machine.
No way would the GOP fight something that helps more people wake up to the reality that CNN is fake news
Sorry, I heard “Fox News” can you repeat yourself?
Fox is reputable, unlike CNN
Go back to Truth Social, grandpa.
Begone bigot
Feeling like a minority, snowflake? Good.
It’s a required subject in Finland
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/world/europe/finland-misinformation-classes.html https://www.nordicpolicycentre.org.au/media_literacy_education_in_finland https://finland.fi/life-society/educated-decisions-finnish-media-literacy-deters-disinformation/
If Finland didn’t educate its children to spot media bullshit, it would be overrun by Russian media bullshit, which devotes no small amount of energy to the task of convincing Finns that they’d be better off as a Russian vassal state.
For that matter, if the US did educate its children to spot media bullshit, our voters wouldn’t fall for such stupid nonsense on the regular
I took a media studies elective in high school (Canada) and it dealt with a lot of critical approaches to media, we had to consume different media and break down target audience, purpose, identify weasel words, etc. We even had a few media people come in like a film director and marketing consultants. Led to me taking further courses about related subjects like media theory and journalism.
Was definitely very worth it, just to get these concepts in people’s minds and the different angles you can consume and analyze media from. It’s not even just for the educational or critical benefits either, but also for the enjoyment. I used to have an elitist attitude about making sure I only consume “good” media and sort of judged people for liking shitty things, but after learning more I could appreciate a lot more of media for what it is, and criticize it on a more meaningful less individualized level than that. So I’ve found learning about media has also extended to not judging people as much, and more enjoying how things can be shitty. Obviously with journalism and politics this is a lot more significant than a bad movie or tv series though.
cool, now do fake people
Now do reddit bots.
Recognizing bias in news (because tabloid news was too silly to be taken seriously) was a large segment of critical thinking. Maybe we’re getting back to recognizing an obedient, credulous population is not necessarily a good thing.
This was a thing back when I was in highschool, it was part of computer literacy class.
Same, social studies in elementary school, Little bit in highschool too
Media literacy.
Talked about advertising techniques, persuasive writing, author intent, etc.
how many times is this going to be posted
Feels like simply teaching media literacy would do this job. Is that what they mean? I thought that was a given in any English curriculum.
How about you read the goddamn article
AB 873 passed nearly unanimously in the Legislature, underscoring the nonpartisan nature of the topic. Nationwide, Texas, New Jersey and Delaware have also passed strong media literacy laws, and more than a dozen other states are moving in that direction, according to Media Literacy Now, a nonprofit research organization that advocates for media literacy in K-12 schools.
So yes, it is exactly that.
Haha guilty as charged. Cool rage by the way. Neato
I dunno if that’s really a possible thing to teach. I think most fake news takes advantage of distrust in institutions and primary sources, I dunno if you’re ever going to really be able to fix that. Short of seeing something yourself, which is pretty hard to come by, and also not a solution because evidence may not be immediately obvious, and is subject to the same sorts of post-hoc rationalizations as reading the news. You could try to teach logical and argumentative fallacies, and that might help, but I think you’d probably get a good proportion of students which would totally misunderstand what you’re saying and just apply it to everything they don’t like, and then you’d just get a bunch of annoying kids succumbing to the fallacy fallacy, and treating comment sections and conversations with other people like debate pervert encounters, where the only formal win they can get is the one they give themselves when they get an epic own.
It’s also not like real news is much better, as you can tell from almost any war reporting, a subject where evidence is thin and technical phrasing and abstraction tends to be high. Deaths are referred to as casualties, people are referred to as potential threat vectors, any violence done against us is terrorism and any violence we do to anyone else is self-defense, pre-emptive or otherwise. A bullet leaves a gun and happens to strike an unarmed black man, in liberal media, and in conservative media, who cares, actually, because we’re gonna dig up all of the previous run-ins this guy had with the police and do some character assassination so we can help justify a narrative of contextually blind self-defense. It’s more complicated than “fake news”, it’s more nuanced than that, sometimes the evidence is real, but is just getting twisted to fit a narrative.
Ultimately I think misinformation is subject to inhabiting an alternative information landscape, false, twisted, or just alternative in vocabulary, and then, subject to death by a thousand fallacies. You make the decision to discount this piece of evidence here, this news story there, and pretty soon you’ve built yourself an entire alternative information landscape where maybe a couple times a week you’re faced with some alternative piece of evidence, in a vacuum, and you are faced with the choice of, do I abandon literally everything I’ve ever known and believed, and scrap most of it, and instead believe in this random factoid, or do I just easily handwave the factoid and maybe get a little bit frustrated and that’s about it? I think lots of high-schoolers are probably already in those boats, because of everything else about their environment.
It’s a much better position to be in, to where you can try to find a way to absorb every piece of information and rationally put it into it’s own self-contained perspective, and construct your own perspective from the many internally consistent ones that exist, but I think that’s asking a lot of empathy and thought out of most people, who are already totally overburdened with things like schoolwork, work, and poverty. I think the approach, constantly, that education is the way out, education is the way forward, the way of the future, if only we educate the next generation enough, somehow, they’ll save us, they’ll save themselves, that’s bullshit, at face. You can only put through so many students to college before someone else falls victim to the zero-sum game, you can only get so many students good, well-paying jobs, some of them have to remain unemployed and homeless and poor for the system to work. Someone has to be a fry cook. I think that’s part of why teacher turnover is so high, and wages are proportionally so low to the psychic damage you take, cause the system as a whole is kind of irreconcilable, and you know that a certain percentage of the kids in your class are gonna get shot, die in some horrible way, go to prison, get cancer and not be able to pay the bills, despite whatever you might try to do to improve their chances, and it’s hard to dehumanize these kids as not trying hard enough when you know that their parents aren’t in a great place and you have to see those kids every day.
If it’s CNN, it’s fake news. Easy
They need to expand on it and include propaganda, thats a larger threat to society than fake news.
But that would mean they could figure out when they are being manipulated by advertisers… and those advertisers are buddies with politicians on both sides of the aisle.
buddies with politicians on both sides of the aisle.
You managed to “both sides” a situation where one of two parties primarily deals in objectively fake news. You made a point, but was it the one you wanted?
I wasn’t very clear. The more you educate someone, the easier it is for them to formulate a reasonable opinion. The more they understand the techniques that can be used to manipulate them, the more they can counter such techniques. However, I could write a news story about how a star guided three magi to Jerusalem approx 2000 years ago where baby Jesus was born by a virgin and schools can’t say that is fake news… hell they’ll be singing carols about it in school choir. And the Democrats will be using tax dollars to pay for people to lead them in prayer about it in Congress, and our currency will claim that we all believe in this holy divine spirit. To kids, a lie is a lie. Are you going to feed them the American Dream, and whitewash American History too before you teach them to recognize fake news?
My translator reads: “Indoctrination of state propaganda will now start for young children at schools” Weird must be broken.
