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As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

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Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#41

Post by BitwiseFool »

sfblah wrote: post #28
BitwiseFool wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you spoken to the school about your concerns? Do your children know about your reservations with what they are being taught?

I'm not overly concerned about it. It's my job as a parent to modulate the information they receive with school, and I'm fine with that. The most challenging part about it is they are asked to do assignments whose responses contain a strong political element, meaning there is a "right" opinion the teacher wants to hear. Again, that doesn't overly bother me. That's life, and my kids need to learn to operate in politic…

You're more at peace with the situation than I would be. I have an angry reaction to the idea that my children are being politically indoctrinated in such an obvious way - especially with such a shaky and activist foundation.

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#42

Post by sfblah »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #36
sfblah wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read the rest of my comments on this thread. I don't think you should pull your kids out of school. Simply sit with them and help modulate the information. Learning to operate in the context of CRT is simply part of how their lives will be, assuming they live in / remain in the US.

I did read your comments. And we do provide a wide array of view points. We are currently home schooling because of COVID. However, I will not reward a school district with government funding attached to my children if they are going to be a mouthpiece for political indoctrination. There is danger in allowing CRT to persist in schools. You are able to modulate the ideas for your children. But, the concern, as you hav…

I hear you. I just think it's important for my kids to be in contact with the culture, such as it is. I don't envy them having to grapple with the concerns you mentioned. I agree that DARE (which had its share of issues) was a lot less questionable than the current social agenda.

Schools are always mouthpieces. Where I grew up in the 90s in Southern California, the public high school I went to was proud of the fact that they'd figured out a way to have a school-funded evangelical christian club that met weekly on campus (and had hundreds of members). My English teacher taught a class called "Bible as Literature" which was overtly religious even thought it wasn't supposed to be, and she was well-known to be a born-again christian. The P.E. teacher at my public middle school used to make us all stand on our numbers while he told us stories about how Jesus got him through his time in the Marines.

None of this is great, but it's just the way life is, and I believe it's important for my kids to understand, in context provided by my wife and I, how society all fits together. School is an important part of that, in my opinion.

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#43

Post by Gunax »

Syonyk wrote: post #31
legerdemain wrote: post #9

What you call "bad information" I call "a difference of opinion." And I call your attempts to institute mass re-education in "digital literacy" to "combat" this "bad information" suppression of free thought and oppression of contrarian and non-mainstream voices.

It depends heavily on what you're calling "bad information." There are certainly cases where there's a difference of opinion - different interpretations of some external reality. But there is also "bad information" in the form of "literally made up, entirely, with no basis in reality." There exist clickfarms that do literally this - make up fictions for some "legitimate sounding news site" for nothing beyond the ad r…

I don't think anyone has a problem with what we might call objective facts.

The issue is that there is a feeling that the 'objective facts' narrative is simply being used as a Trojan Horse to teach things which are much more nuanced (like the effect and pervasiveness of racism), and treating any questioning or disagreement as wrongthink which much be corrected.

Not saying this narrative is true per se, that's just how its being perceived.

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#44

Post by teachtwolearn »

Surprised this isn't more common. I had assumed these classes were already part of most curriculums, because it was taught when kids were in their early-mid teens when I was in primary school ~15 years ago.

They called it something like "library technology" at the time, but the topics focused on how to find and vet information online.

This was also when Wikipedia was still new. One of my 8th grade teachers was so annoyed by the platform that they planted false information in the page of a historical figure that we were writing an essay about.

On the one hand, I'm surprised at how creulous the average person seems to be today. But I also felt that way 15 years ago, and how long have people been saying "there's a sucker born every minute"?

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#45

Post by InitialLastName »

lordnacho wrote: post #20
germinalphrase wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do people use more often to get work done. MS Word or relational algebra?

Purely because they don't know any relational algebra. If they knew both they wouldn't use Word.

I can know as much relational algebra as I like, but I just had a fun interaction with a set of lawyers (in my day-to-day life business, not work) where the Word skills were still necessary.

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#46

Post by legerdemain »

nullserver wrote: post #30
teucris wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Underpaid, low status jobs To me this is the critical problem. Education is an incredibly important part of a well-functioning society, but we treat teachers very poorly. We need to elevate teachers, both in the training & expertise needed as well as the pay and autonomy we provide them.

Married to a teacher. Logic has no part in most elementary classrooms. I argue we need to go dumber. Have a basic certification that you can teach vowel sounds. Bring in plenty of cheap people to lower grades and have them work 1 on 1 with each student. Seen way to much of teachers teaching to what the kids are supposed to be capable of, vs what they actually are.

I've seen the inside of an elementary grade classroom before, and I agree with you 100%. So many American children and even adults mispronounce vowel sounds, it's scary. Something around 60% of American adults look at a simple word like "iron" and say something that resembles "I yearn." Did no one tell them how it sounds?

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#47

Post by brighton36 »

legerdemain wrote: post #46
nullserver wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married to a teacher. Logic has no part in most elementary classrooms. I argue we need to go dumber. Have a basic certification that you can teach vowel sounds. Bring in plenty of cheap people to lower grades and have them work 1 on 1 with each student. Seen way to much of teachers teaching to what the kids are supposed to be capable of, vs what they actually are.

I've seen the inside of an elementary grade classroom before, and I agree with you 100%. So many American children and even adults mispronounce vowel sounds, it's scary. Something around 60% of American adults look at a simple word like "iron" and say something that resembles "I yearn." Did no one tell them how it sounds?

I like you. Including your username. I'm surprised your comments aren't down voted more. They're honest. People don't seem to like that these days.

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#48

Post by sjg007 »

sfblah wrote: post #32
mastre_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My kids are being taught a lot of critical race theory concepts in their middle school which, to put it charitably, don't have a whole lot of objective data behind them. Can you give examples of the concepts you mention your kids are being taught in their middle school?

I'm concerned about saying something political that triggers a flood of downvotes, so I'd rather be pretty vague here. One example is their primary US history textbook is kids version of Howard Zinn's People's History of the US. I have no problem with Zinn's book in general, but I do think it's best read in the context of knowing the "official" version of history. I normally view his book as a useful critique and ext…

>"official" version of history

What's that?

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#49

Post by bad_username »

lupire wrote: post #3

30 years ago we called this "critical thinking", something schools have always had a lot trouble with, in part because critical thinking is a weapon against illegitimate authority, which schools also have a lot of trouble with.

"Critical thinking, as we’re taught to do it, isn’t helping in the fight against misinformation", argues NYT [1]. I profoundly disagree, but this way of thinking seems to be the modern trend, influenced by postmodernism.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/fake-news-media-a...

Re: As Bad Information Spreads, Florida Schools Seek to Teach 'Digital Literacy'

#50

Post by nullserver »

legerdemain wrote: post #46
nullserver wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married to a teacher. Logic has no part in most elementary classrooms. I argue we need to go dumber. Have a basic certification that you can teach vowel sounds. Bring in plenty of cheap people to lower grades and have them work 1 on 1 with each student. Seen way to much of teachers teaching to what the kids are supposed to be capable of, vs what they actually are.

I've seen the inside of an elementary grade classroom before, and I agree with you 100%. So many American children and even adults mispronounce vowel sounds, it's scary. Something around 60% of American adults look at a simple word like "iron" and say something that resembles "I yearn." Did no one tell them how it sounds?

Was in a senior in high school French. Teacher was explaining how to translate present participle. Complete blank stares. Only thing anyone knew was noun and verb. Teacher had a complete meltdown.

So for next week em the entire school, every English class was School house Rock videos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCdt8-H1BFY&feature=youtu.be

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