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It boggles my mind that we don't have a semester of "Critical News Consumption" (aka "Defense Against Fallacies") required in public grade school.

by ethbr0 5y ago

imwillofficial 5y ago
It boggles my mind they allow people to graduate without being able to read, write, or do math.
jackson1442 5y ago
Every high school english class I took covered this, save for British Literature. The problem is that grade school is inundated with busywork, memorization, and standardized test prep that no one but the top students cares about anything beyond their SAT score, if not just passing classes. Grade school needs to be rethought entirely. It's completely broken for the Information Age; no one needs to bother with memorizing minutia anymore, we need to focus on critical thinking.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Personal hot take: memorization still serves both practical and brain developmental goals. Most kids nowadays can't even do basic single digit multiplication in their heads. Because they never memorized tables. How they're going to work through complex higher math problems efficiently, when every multiplication (and therefore every division) is a trip to the calculator, is beyond me. And furthermore, I can't believe all that memorization happened without changes in brain structure, especially at those ages. IMHO, we need to re-evaluate what we're having them memorize, and probably reduce the amount in favor of more critical thinking, but there's still a requirement for it. If nothing else, so that you're prepared for higher education, where one of the goals is to cram the fundamental information for your profession into imediate recall.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    Right, yes. There are certainly some things you need to know off the top of your head to facilitate learning. Generally the sets of data we explicitly have to memorize are fine- I’m more talking about exams where you’re tested over minutia rather than your understanding of the content as a whole. For example, I took a history exam where it asked “which of these books was not important to the civil rights movement?” listing three books explicitly mentioned in one sentence of the text and one that wasn’t. That’s the kind of memorization we need to get rid of- we need to be teaching people how to analyze concepts as a whole rather than simply being able to regurgitate the text.
lostphilosopher 5y ago
But who would teach it? Who would write the text book? Who would design the curriculum? How would this be protected from the same abuses that an "anti-misinformation" project would be susceptible to? How would this happen at meaningful scale without drawing a response like "CRT" is drawing now and "evolution/creation" did before and in some areas still does? How do we prevent it from just deepening existing divides? The misinformation age worries me more than any other current threat because it compounds every other problem and I don't really see a solution. I think it's actually just getting started. (And yes of course propaganda is not new, but the scale, effectiveness, and saturation of it has increased observably in my own lifetime. As a species we are getting better at it.) If someone convinces me this is solvable or not a real problem you'll genuinely make my day; I really want to be super wrong about this...
- gmadsen 5y ago
  the textbook already exists, and has for a couple thousand years. Just study, master and apply Aristotle
- tester756 5y ago
  >How would this happen at meaningful scale without drawing a response like "CRT" is drawing now What do you mean?
  - lostphilosopher 5y ago
    CRT = Critical Race Theory Some groups (in the US) are actively trying to ban teaching it (or some definition of it) in school and some groups think it's essential learning. I'm guessing most have no idea what actually was or wasn't being taught, but that's another issue. The point here isn't whether they're right or wrong to do so it's that obviously education isn't "neutral territory" or something the country is comfortable leaving to the education community. Creation/evolution is the "classic" example of this. As soon as you try to do media studies or critical thinking at scale somewhere in K-12 someone is going to think that you're doing it maliciously to advance or attack a worldview and it's going to become a mess. Another commenter mentioned letting kids dissect Fox and CNN - how long before those kids say something to their parent that Really Believes one of those channels and that parent goes to the school board with a mob of other Believers? Or someone tries to get a class started or teach a class that claims to be critical thinking but focuses all its time on the flaws in a particular perspective?
da_chicken 5y ago
I work at a K-12. Digital citizenship and online critical thinking is 100% a part of the curriculum at every grade level. I've gone into classrooms at elementaries, middle schools, and high schools and seen materials explaining how to evaluate the credibility of information online. Unfortunately, approximately 85% of the voting population will never benefit from these classes, because the idea of them being necessary or useful had not occurred to anyone when they were in school. It's the same reason nobody over 50 learned how to use a computer in grade school. They did not exist. This is a problem that will become vastly less serious three generations from now.
- gmadsen 5y ago
  hopefully society can wait that long
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Do you have any keywords for looking up current curriculums? Is it in whatever they're calling Social Studies nowadays? All schools are local, etc., but with family in K-12 education, I haven't found great or numerous examples of it being taught.
  - da_chicken 5y ago
    The subject is usually called "digital literacy", although it's often paired with "digital citizenship" because they're closely related or taught together. You might also include "credibility," "media literacy," or "social media literacy." Including "K-12" or "curriculum" will get you more resources that teachers might use.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Thanks! I'll check them out.

It boggles my mind that we don't have a semester of "Critical News Consumption" (aka "Defense Against Fallacies") required in public grade school.

by ethbr0 5y ago

It boggles my mind that we don't have a semester of "Critical News Consumption" (aka "Defense Against Fallacies") required in public grade school.

imwillofficial 5y ago

It boggles my mind they allow people to graduate without being able to read, write, or do math.

jackson1442 5y ago

Every high school english class I took covered this, save for British Literature. The problem is that grade school is inundated with busywork, memorization, and standardized test prep that no one but the top students cares about anything beyond their SAT score, if not just passing classes. Grade school needs to be rethought entirely. It's completely broken for the Information Age; no one needs to bother with memorizing minutia anymore, we need to focus on critical thinking.

ethbr0 5y ago
Personal hot take: memorization still serves both practical and brain developmental goals. Most kids nowadays can't even do basic single digit multiplication in their heads. Because they never memorized tables. How they're going to work through complex higher math problems efficiently, when every multiplication (and therefore every division) is a trip to the calculator, is beyond me. And furthermore, I can't believe all that memorization happened without changes in brain structure, especially at those ages. IMHO, we need to re-evaluate what we're having them memorize, and probably reduce the amount in favor of more critical thinking, but there's still a requirement for it. If nothing else, so that you're prepared for higher education, where one of the goals is to cram the fundamental information for your profession into imediate recall.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  Right, yes. There are certainly some things you need to know off the top of your head to facilitate learning. Generally the sets of data we explicitly have to memorize are fine- I’m more talking about exams where you’re tested over minutia rather than your understanding of the content as a whole. For example, I took a history exam where it asked “which of these books was not important to the civil rights movement?” listing three books explicitly mentioned in one sentence of the text and one that wasn’t. That’s the kind of memorization we need to get rid of- we need to be teaching people how to analyze concepts as a whole rather than simply being able to regurgitate the text.

lostphilosopher 5y ago

But who would teach it? Who would write the text book? Who would design the curriculum? How would this be protected from the same abuses that an "anti-misinformation" project would be susceptible to? How would this happen at meaningful scale without drawing a response like "CRT" is drawing now and "evolution/creation" did before and in some areas still does? How do we prevent it from just deepening existing divides? The misinformation age worries me more than any other current threat because it compounds every other problem and I don't really see a solution. I think it's actually just getting started. (And yes of course propaganda is not new, but the scale, effectiveness, and saturation of it has increased observably in my own lifetime. As a species we are getting better at it.) If someone convinces me this is solvable or not a real problem you'll genuinely make my day; I really want to be super wrong about this...

gmadsen 5y ago
the textbook already exists, and has for a couple thousand years. Just study, master and apply Aristotle
tester756 5y ago
>How would this happen at meaningful scale without drawing a response like "CRT" is drawing now What do you mean?
- lostphilosopher 5y ago
  CRT = Critical Race Theory Some groups (in the US) are actively trying to ban teaching it (or some definition of it) in school and some groups think it's essential learning. I'm guessing most have no idea what actually was or wasn't being taught, but that's another issue. The point here isn't whether they're right or wrong to do so it's that obviously education isn't "neutral territory" or something the country is comfortable leaving to the education community. Creation/evolution is the "classic" example of this. As soon as you try to do media studies or critical thinking at scale somewhere in K-12 someone is going to think that you're doing it maliciously to advance or attack a worldview and it's going to become a mess. Another commenter mentioned letting kids dissect Fox and CNN - how long before those kids say something to their parent that Really Believes one of those channels and that parent goes to the school board with a mob of other Believers? Or someone tries to get a class started or teach a class that claims to be critical thinking but focuses all its time on the flaws in a particular perspective?

da_chicken 5y ago

I work at a K-12. Digital citizenship and online critical thinking is 100% a part of the curriculum at every grade level. I've gone into classrooms at elementaries, middle schools, and high schools and seen materials explaining how to evaluate the credibility of information online. Unfortunately, approximately 85% of the voting population will never benefit from these classes, because the idea of them being necessary or useful had not occurred to anyone when they were in school. It's the same reason nobody over 50 learned how to use a computer in grade school. They did not exist. This is a problem that will become vastly less serious three generations from now.

gmadsen 5y ago
hopefully society can wait that long
ethbr0 5y ago
Do you have any keywords for looking up current curriculums? Is it in whatever they're calling Social Studies nowadays? All schools are local, etc., but with family in K-12 education, I haven't found great or numerous examples of it being taught.
- da_chicken 5y ago
  The subject is usually called "digital literacy", although it's often paired with "digital citizenship" because they're closely related or taught together. You might also include "credibility," "media literacy," or "social media literacy." Including "K-12" or "curriculum" will get you more resources that teachers might use.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Thanks! I'll check them out.