Headlines and cover photos are no way to keep yourself informed about today’s world. Just seeing what is being labeled as BREAKING NEWS on 24 hour news channels will not suffice either. There is, seemingly, no end to the number of talking heads or 140 character news cycles that would like to be your guide to understanding the myriad of stories and issues facing the country and world today. They need your view, they crave your click - the advertisers are counting.
When forging their new nation the Founding Brothers of the American Revolutionary generation ensured the potential for a free exchange of ideas by guaranteeing communication liberties in the Bill of Rights. Like much of what they committed to paper, the Founders sought to ensure the system they envisioned by empowering the most important check on the power they allowed an independent press, the people. How do the People exercise that check? Where does the responsibility lie if the media serves the interests of advertising dollars or access to powerful leaders more than it serves the interests of their readers and viewers? And is it wrong if the readers and viewers choose to not vet them as a credible source or change the channel?
At the center of answering these questions is a movement that has been lumbering across the United States since the early part of the 21st Century. The new standards in education movement. At its core (see what I did there) is the student’s ability to think for his or her self. The challenge for educators in the early 2000s is to prepare their students to apply their ability to learn to new and novel situations, and remain adaptable, for the rest of their lives. Students do not need to be cogs in a machine. Rather they need to know how to take in and search for information at lightspeed and then interpret its usefulness and trustworthiness as applied to their current need for the information in the first place.
This weekend was filled with teachable moments about news, the media, truth and trust. The issue of immigration has been front and center. The US Government had been following a very strict interpretation of current immigration law and separating undocumented migrant adults from the children they traveled with. The backlash against these actions was swift and loud and, in kind, the support for the need to shore up our borders was as swift and as loud. I am going to focus on two things that happened.
Time magazine issued a cover with the President of the United States looking down at a crying child of color. The cover read simply “Welcome to America.” The cover is clear in its message. The facts, however, it did not get completely right. This child was not one that was separated from her family. The President never stood over her staring at her in person. It plays though to a left of center narrative of the events. Later in the weekend the Press Secretary was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant (refused service) for the views she supports and defends in her role. In this case, specifically, it was gay rights issues that caused her to be asked to leave the restaurant. There were countless stories, videos, talking head debates, tweets etc on this story and nearly everyone of them was aimed at providing the interpretation you should believe. The responses become increasingly escalating shouting matches on these events, sometimes the issues, but mostly on how the other side did or, said something wrong.
What really struck me, though, was a post I read on FaceBook by a college friend who I do not keep in regular contact with, other than on social media. He weighed in on one of these issues, which is out of character for his page. He started by saying, “I wade into these political waters very reluctantly. I know that putting my thoughts out there will surely solicit strong reactions.” His post was a pretty mild and middle of the road appeal to rational thinking. He explained how he listened and read a lot and then gave his appraisal. It was different than the two prevailing thought patterns being expounded upon through increasingly narrower and narrower lenses. It dawned on me that what really stood out in my friend’s post was the original thought. He took in multiple sources, compared and contrasted them, he vetted them and then arrived at his own conclusion based on the evidence he had. He was applying the skills we are trying to build in all of our students.
I think about the like mindedness that permeates mainstream thinking and how it is fueled by a media that feeds the extremes. The extremes get our hearts and heads racing. We watch until we are too angry to watch any longer so we share it, retweet it or send it along with some vitriolic message; but we feed it. I can write a mirroring sentence for those items we agree with, we feed those as well. The messages of the middle do not create the same reactions. The stories of compromise and conversation are not clickbait.
This reality requires critical thinkers to take in and therefore take on the media. This does not have to happen en masse nor does it need to be revolutionary. Rather, we need the people to know how to take it in, vet the sources and make independent decisions. We need people who know when they are being given news and when they are hearing an editorial. Public schools in America must take this on. We must challenge our students to become independent thinkers across our curriculum. The people will continue to have many questions. There will continue to be a media waiting to provide answers. For the Republic to maintain its direction and purpose the answers must be met with discerning and informed eyes, ears and emotions. In Orwell’s 1984, Winston comes to believe that 2 + 2 may, in fact, be 5. But if you have read, it you know that does not necessarily make it so.
If you attend a conference on education in the United States you are likely to hear something along the lines of preparing children for jobs that do not even exist yet. I think we also need to prepare students for the jobs that have existed but have changed so significantly they are unrecognizable. Most notably: informed citizenry.
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