- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Children will be taught how to spot extremist content and misinformation online under planned changes to the school curriculum, the education secretary said.
Bridget Phillipson said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against “putrid conspiracy theories”.
One example may include pupils analysing newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help differentiate fabricated stories from true reporting.
In computer lessons, they could be taught how to spot fake news websites by their design, and maths lessons may include analysing statistics in context.
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This is great, honestly.
If you go back to antiquity, education was about philosophy. It was about learning how to observe, and think critically, and see the world for what it is.
And then in modern times, education became about memorisation - learning facts and figures and how to do this and that. And that way of teaching and learning just doesn’t fit any longer with what our digital age has become.
In my opinion, we are heavily overdue for a revamp of what education should be, and what skills are most important to society in this post-truth world. Critical thinking is an important foundation to real knowledge that we don’t teach enough.
“Critical thinking” was a buzzword when I was at school in the 80s.
Memorisation is a component of learning, but the vast majority of any learning I’ve done has been understanding.
Certainly children need to learn to be skeptical, but I hope we can do better than showing them biased articles from newspapers.
Is it a buzzword though? I always took it as the ability to understand AND question in order to prove/disprove/ build upon said understanding.
We were shown different news articles from about the same event and were given the task to point out their biases based on the differences. Do schools over there do that too?
I honestly don’t remember. That’s not a yes or a no but “I’m not sure”. The critical thinking they were talking about wasn’t necessarily relating to media though, but more general - like a habit of challenging assumed knowledge.
I did in history class, the point being that when trying to assess historical evidence you have to take into account the source of the information to understand the biases contained in it.
It wasn’t in general classes though.
The difference between intelligence and wisdom. We have been prioritizing the former at the detriment of the latter.
This is how you end up with people like Elon Musk who I will give the benefit of the doubt and say he isn’t dumb, but Christ he’s a moron.
I have mixed feelings. The UK has an incredibly broad definition of extremism. Socialism and antifascism are considered extremist ideologies.
The justification is to stop people like the ones doing pogroms rn, but giving the state power will always be a double-edged sword, one where the edge that swings left is sharper.
Idk critical thinking skills might be good as long as it’s not politically backed to single out a specific ideology or propaganda source.
I don’t know about you, but I have a sinking feeling that a country organized on liberal principles will integrate liberalism into its education.
This already happens, most people that become socialists only do it by university age, I still think teaching kids to identify fake news is a good thing, maybe they radicalize even earlier thanks to that.
I know it already happens. I’m worried it will intensify.
I myself became a socialist late into middle school, but I recognize that I’m an edge case.
giving the state power will always be a double-edged sword, one where the edge that swings left is sharper…
Uhh, beg pardon? How so?
Capitalist economies accumulate wealth and power into the hands of capitalists. Capitalists are not threatened by fascism, they’re threatened by socialism. Therefore, capitalists will always attack the left more strongly than the right, and they wield more power than the working class in a liberal society.
Just teach the kids elementary logic. That shit did more for my critical understanding of the world than anything. You can actually mathematically lay out an argument and prove it.
If more people understood the fundamentals of logic, Conservatism wouldn’t stand a chance. Not a single mainstream conservative ideal passes a logic test.
1000%. And the fucked up thing is that I didn’t (formally) learn about it until college, and even then, it was an elective course that basically nobody took. The only reason I ever took it was because I hadn’t declared my major yet. Turned out to probably be the most important classes I ever took throughout my entire education.
As someone in a STEM field, it’s a major bummer to see how one-dimensional a lot of my peers’ education was. And it becomes pretty obvious, pretty quickly.
I get why it’s silo’d like that, but I really wish majors like engineering would require a bit of a more well-rounded education. I may have inadvertently turned a 4 year program into 5.5 years, or whatever (plus all that additional debt), but I think it was worth it in the long run because now I can understand the reasons my society is collapsing while I watch, rather than just watching!
This is nothing new. I was taught about analysing bias etc in news sources during “citizenship” classes 20+ years ago. Before that, it was called PSHE if I remember correctly.
it seems like an updating , reanalysing and emphasising in the curriculum
Correction. English children will be taught this. Education is a devolved matter in the UK so this will not apply to the other parts of the UK
Can someone teach the boomer generation too? They are vastly more susceptible to believing anything they read online
Online literacy is really impacting boomers and elder gen x. Like QAnon or Covid Vaccines - some of them flip and just go psycho to the point it impacts their lives.
One example may include pupils analysing newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help differentiate fabricated stories from true reporting.
In computer lessons, they could be taught how to spot fake news websites by their design…
and maths lessons may include analysing statistics in context.
That these lessons haven’t been at the core of those subjects since forever is horrific.
We have the same problem in NZ. Several generations of citizens generally lacking basic information processing skills. I suppose they make better consumers.
“Kids, when you see someone talk about the climate catastrophe or rebellion, report them immediately!”
I know this is a bit of a shitty take, but there just isn’t a fix for shitty information constantly streaming in. As long as we allow some insane people that think maximizing profit above anything else to own the means of communication, things are going to continue to get shittier.
Isn’t critical thinking taught everywhere?
Lol, no. How would shitheads get elected that way?
If that were the case, the world wouldn’t be as fucked up and run by morons as it is today. Unfortunately, a lack of critical thinking makes someone very easy to control and mislead, so not teaching critical thinking is very much in the interest of the ruling class to keep the populace subservient.
Get them all some fine excerpts from ml comms
“Extremist content” == “not wanting Palestinians to be dehumanized, dispossessed and murdered by Israel”
Hopefully this is more aimed at far right anti immigration bullshit
Hopefully it tries to be as neutral as possible, and just gives kids the general tools to spot when something’s fake/exaggerated.
Introducing this sort of thing without trying to be strictly impartial sounds like a slippery slope.
this class sounds like a malicious teacher could easily introduce bias and radicalize children… :/
A malicious teacher would probably already be doing that.
I’m an oldish dude with fairly conservative liberal views and I think it’s absolutely essential that our children get taught this. The risk that this is Orwell’s 1984ish is minimal and the benefits far outweigh it.
1984 is a direct result of not teaching critical thinking etc.
Maybe sanction the media outlets for pumping the hate and bullshit out, gbnews for example with all of the blatant racist bullshit they push.
The BBC also do it, but is generally state sanctioned and much more insidious, e.g. support for Israel, attacks on the left.
This is rich, coming from the government that labels pro-palestine protestors as extremists and antisemites ( yes I’m aware that the government changed, but looks like the new ones are more than happy to continue the policies ).
There are many people in a government, and different people pull in different directions.
Regardless of other policies, this is a step in the right direction.
This is the UK: whatever New Labour or Tory politicians say should be presumed to be complete total crowd-pleasing bollocks until proven otherwise (by it actually being done, in the way it was promised and properly funded and supported, which is a pretty rare outcome over there).
Just show The Alt-Right Playbook in classes. In particular, “How to Radicalize a Normie”
