Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy • Hacker News Board

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#31

Post by lettergram » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

Growing up in Illinois and going to public schools, I have to say this is just making the situation worse.

My wife (who went to the same school district) and I both recall situations where politics were in the classroom. I recall in grade school with vivid detail my teacher saying “anyone who voted for bush is an idiot” and kids in the class becoming upset and the teacher doubling down. My entire time at school (through college) conservatives were demonized. Quite literally, I watched teachers call them evil. Anyone who spoke out would get punished. You could see the unequal treatment.

Conservatives are against equality, their racists, they cut education budgets, etc. when have any one here seen positive discussion about conservatives in your lives? think about it.

Just last year, during the pandemic, my wife’s younger brother was doing a zoom class behind me. His teacher was telling the students in home economics that “we need to reduce taxes or give universal income to black people”. She went on and on about inequity and how whites were evil.

I’m sure some of you believe I’m being hyperbolic, but here’s a near by school district:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/critical-race-theory-i...

This will be just a further weapon to indoctrinate and marginalize. People I know in the younger generations (in their 20s) who are conservatives are scared to speak and have been for years.

Now let’s consider something they may teach.. are they going to teach to check citations? I want you to open CNN or MSNBC right now, look at a few articles and check the citations. You’ll see why this is a problem.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#32

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

> Students say they often didn't see why, for example, a company writing about climate change receiving funding from the fossil fuel industry could skew the story. Many assume that if a social media influencer has tons of followers, it means they're trustworthy.

I see a similar outcome among adults, but these are adults who I know were raised to be skeptical (in the sense of science or critical thought), to think independently and critically, to look for bias in themselves and others, and to distrust power. I know they thought that way for most of their lives.

And now they accept things that have a paper thin veneer of truth and deep flaws, things that they would have easily penetrated just 5-10 years ago. If I examine it with the tools we've used our entire lives, conversations we've had many times in the past, I find myself beyond the pale, unwanted in the conversation.

Why? I don't know. I haven't before lived through mass insanity and mob psychology though I know it's happened, such as in Nazi Germany and arguably the Soviet Union. What are they doing? One thing I've noticed is that the 'reactionary' movement (I don't know another name - it's amazing that it's unnamed even at this date) first attacked postmodernism (while continuing to embrace its skepticism where it serves them), and as people were swept along and embraced that, they unilaterally disarmed themselves against the threats of personality cults, mob psychology, and other mass delusion.

But why? My impression is that ruining their game, as if we were playing Monopoly and I was seriously questioning the economics of it. But my real question is, how could they embrace it? How could they make such an obviously grievous error that will destroy their lives, their relationships (the poison affects all their behavior and thinking, not just about politics), communities, country, and world?

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#33

Post by vmception » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #19

weimerica wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget that COVID isn’t a threat and to head on down to all the nice restaurants in Chinatown!

It will be over in April! A lot of people were just wishing it away

I've run into a variety of people that made savings, travel and career choices based on that idea, and it wasn't good for them. Of course they were from the midwest and so likely all of their influences would have been reinforcing the words of the President, but I also don't understand how that would be convincing, given how viruses work. Given how this virus works and spreads.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#34

Post by bko » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

I don't understand why they wouldn't use historical examples or stuff about aliens or big foot. History is a great filter and we can now somewhat reasonably understand smear campaigns and propaganda from decades ago. It's not as clear what's being manipulated at the current moment.

This just seems more like a way to influence children's political leanings.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#35

Post by vmception » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #32

> Students say they often didn't see why, for example, a company writing about climate change receiving funding from the fossil fuel industry could skew the story. Many assume that if a social media influencer has tons of followers, it means they're trustworthy. I see a similar outcome among adults, but these are adults who I know were raised to be skeptical (in the sense of science or critical thought), to think ind…

My metrics of success:

My opinions having weight

Followed by being able to afford multiple appeals courts (which also suggests my opinions match the reality I perceive, more than the generally assumed reality)

Followed by people assuming I'm part of a lizard race masquerading as human, thats when you know you've made it by every metric.

The first one has had various rungs, from casual conversation, to product managers agreeing without even playing devil's advocate, to board rooms. But being amplified across broad populations is even better. Being on this path, I can see how a lot of the population is susceptible. Its not really just about critical thinking or having been a critical thinker in one field before, its just degrees of susceptibility where certain formats of ideas occupy open registers in people's minds.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#36

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

> this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis no matter how you teach them, so any particular bias that might be getting instilled probably doesn’t matter too much. If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research about the Jews,” then whatever the teacher thinks stops being relevant after ab…

> If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research ..."

That's not what is being taught, according to the article.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#37

Post by psychometry » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

Sounds like your news literacy deficiency is being unable to judge the relative importance of news stories, given your ridiculous examples.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#38

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

refenestrator wrote: post #26

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

That lab leak theory is the most amazing example of widespread bias on all sides I've ever seen. We went from it being banned on Facebook to it having mainstream acceptance in like a week despite ZERO change in the underlying evidence. The evidence was always just "well there's a lab there". The only thing that changed was Trump isn't president anymore. It's the perfect rorschach issue for underlying bias, free of an…

There was that scientist who said it wasn't a lab leak but it turns out he may have been paid by China.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#39

Post by mattzito » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

While this might be the first time a state has put this in the curriculum, I can say as the son of a school librarian that news and primary source disinformation/literacy education has been a standard among more forward-thinking library programs for the last 5-10 years. The need to have students be able to find a piece of information and then critically assess the validity of it, and if necessary explore alternate sources is a really important part of good research skills in the modern era.

In fact, when my mother got her masters of library science, I was suprised at how much of the curriculum was basically 101-level comp sci- databases, Unix, basic programming, Internet tech, etc. Being a school librarian is basically about Internet and news trust, maker tech, and research skills, rather than books and literacy.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#40

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #22

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion. You could have spared yourself that dig, it's beside the point and stupid. The comparison with religion is actually good. In some countries religion is taught in school because religion is part of human culture, which is firmly within the bailiwick of school. So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) an…

> So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either.

Religious authorities have a long history of oppressing free thought, including questioning the authority or tenants of the religion, and rationality, such as science. I would not say they are usually 'mainstream', unless we circularly define mainstream as whatever the religion says.