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These skills should already be covered by English Lit and History though surely? History especially, it’s all about looking at as wide a range of sources as possible, assessing for bias, credibility etc. taking all of that into account to come to a conclusion as to what’s most likely to be the truth

I'm lucky enough to be the daughter of two journalists with a lawyer stepparent. Some of the stuff I was taught from like, age 5, is still borderline mystical to others and it baffles me. I think adults need these classes, never mind kids.

No way the Dept of Education allows this in 2025. They need generations to keep getting dumber and angrier.

Smart class for them to be able to take in elementary school. Teaches them to be able to parse information for misinformation and other problems at a young age. Quite helpful to have as they go through primary school

Start with literacy and work your way to media literacy

We absolutely did this ss part of homeschooling. My kid checks sources more than I do now. 🤣

Those are life skills, like Home Ec, and Sex Ed, that should be taught by parents at home… you know, the parents that each work 50 hours a week, commute an hour each way everyday, who themselves were never taught those same skills, or were misinformed, which they’re expected to now teach their kids…

Check out Finland, where media literacy is a mandatory annual course from kindergarten and through all succeeding school years. Population awareness rather than attempts at censorship.

Just watching the latest autofocus video as I'm reading this haha, any plans on doing a video on the Xiaomi SU7 if you get your hands on one?

I hope you realize you'd be a a chapter lesson in "how to spot a veiled ad for a corporation" lecture.

We have this as part of the curriculum in germany in some classes like history and german - but desinformation and such are still rampant here too. So either this isn't working or it's been done wrong.

Sadly MAGA won’t let that happen, they thrive off misinformation and ignorance right now

It's an overdue must

No downside for the individual or society as a whole. But where a control of the education level of constituents keeps them from questioning leadership it may become a vilified agenda by those who want to remain unquestioned

That would be the ideal situation and a great idea!

Okay but it’s a little hard to take this seriously when you went out of your way to play devil’s advocate for a clearly faked Tesla event. It feels like you’re trying to stay pretend apolitical while maintaining a relationship with a literal government official.

But then billionaires can't lie and control us

This should be covered by civics classes. “Cite your sources kids, who funded this?” That’s what we taught our offspring. I learn a lot from my children.

As a parent of two kids who just graduated from college, I 100% agree this should be a mandatory high school class.

I think I’ve been talking about this for 10 years, lol.

And learn how to detect phishing/scams.

Is the problem with the kids or their parents/grandparents? How do we get a bunch of 50-70 year olds to sit down for this training? (I'm in this demographic myself and have been appalled by the complete BS I've seen peers regurgitate online.)

The wife started teaching some civics and media literacy in her adult ed and high school student government classes. It's sad most don't learn this stuff

The problem being there is a large and powerful political movement in this country that does not want children to be taught critical thinking and media literacy skills.

Always has 😅

In Sweden this is part of the National defense. bliintelurad.se/en/

New age new adaptations! Nothing wrong in that

Speaking as an English teacher: Media literacy is usually taught in many schools’ English and social studies classes, but standardized testing has pushed it out.

It wouldn’t make it in a red state. They’re trying to give out bibles in schools. There’s a book that needs fact-checking because there are so many versions and interpretations over the centuries, who knows what Jesus said. If I were God, I’d sue.

Yep. Evaluated speech was supposed to be what made free speech worthwhile

I think it needs to start earlier than high school with how immediate a lot of sketchy forms of media become available to kids. Not an easy thing to teach to a young kid, though. "Welcome to this world where lies are powerful and rewarding to their wielder when delivered en masse."

Republicans: That's indoctrination. Here's a charter school instead that does not teach that.

Critical thinking and basic fact checking should be added to the list.

“Think critically” is not the answer you think it is, you tell them that and they’ll start thinking critically of vaccines and the our scientific institutions and coming us off with the dumbest conclusions you have ever heard, “give a retard a calculator and he’ll try to turn on the TV with it”

UK has it available to choose. One of the "easy" subjects early on. I'm not convinced it really changes much.

I would be happy if they graduate with the ability to read

Absolutely! Please post a syllabus!

"They" don't want that. There is a reason they are letting the misinfo fly rampantly

Damn, that seems almost as vital now as Computer Class was when I was a kid. I just would worry about *who* gets to decide what that cirriculm is. If its a public school, how do we divorce it from the petty bickering of local politics.

Next you'll be suggesting that kids learn how to properly source information and think critically. You know, the things that half of the state legislatures are busily trying to outlaw?

This used to just be a part of Social Studies in middle school. Weekend homework every week included bringing in a newspaper article on Monday and a short breakdown of what it was about, how informative was it, and what information it may have lacked.

The problem obviously would be who's teaching it 🙃

of course it is, but most people are pretty set in their beliefs once that's set in their mind, whether it's politics, religion, etc... plus some people are unfortunately just are born not being able to separate from what they're taught by their parents growing up!

Too late. The right-wing has already been brainwashed by the masters of false narratives that can bring their mob armies to bear on any effort like this. They'll call it wokism or indoctrination or accuse it of suppressing speech or violating parental rights. Just like they have with social media.

That's ok as long as they use the entire scientific method. Saying you don't know (first step) has been used to discredit science. Sometimes you learn something but you still don't know - we found out about atoms but still didn't find the smallest thing. etc.

Might need to be earlier than highschool, geared specifically towards them and how they learn today, They teach math and writing in school, but a lot of the concepts don't really stick. How do you make this topic something that every kid will care to learn about.

The new guy would never allow students to see how flimsy his lies are

IIRC Finland actually has a class in it's schools that teaches kids the difference between fake news and real news, and how to spot each one.

Agree, but seniors like Elon should be allowed to enrol too

In 1986, there was a set of lessons that were basically, "This is how advertisers lie to you," aimed at kids in elementary school. I don't know how much favor handing out similar lessons today would receive, because the rich benefit from people spending money on stupid crap.

@waltmossberg.bsky.social You guys could make generational change together. New literacy lessons taught by MKBHD.

We have this exact class in The Netherlands, it's implemented starting at kindergarden and runs all the way through high school. Topics include social media, gaming, privacy and online bullying.

I could see this being a subsection of a larger critical thinking class. Even beyond media literacy I think the ability to think critically and question everything is a huge life skill.

i think we could include internet security also, how to avoid scams and stuff, once in a while someone asks me about the veracity of a website, usually online stores, and most of the time they are scams, god damn

I mean I took a digital literacy class in high school and college and it basically teaches you how to make sure what info you’re getting is correct. So, you could literally just update the class syllabus.

Make it mandatory. Maybe as part of English.

I’ve imagined this since 2008. So far, not going well.

Anecdotally, as I am not a teacher: No one coulda told me how important marching band was gonna be for ultimate frisbee was gonna be for jiu-jitsu was gonna be for yoga was gonna be for writing was gonna be for coaching [...] You learn a thing & then apply it to other things to see what happens!

Sounds great…in theory. In practice, it would sadly devolve into discussions about “Whose facts?” “Masks are helpful!” “No they aren’t.” “Vaccines are effective!” “No they aren’t.” “New York Times is a reputable source.” “No they aren’t.”

fwiw, here's what I did with 3rd graders in my media center in Newnan, GA: www.dalelyles.com/2009/01/06/f...

English and comp are supposed to cover this but people did not pay attention :(

Here in Finland it is I would say quite a major part of our language studies to understand different kinds of media, fact check, source check etc. It always comes by passing but there definitely was at least one course in my time fully dedicated to it

Finland added media literacy and how to spot fake news to their school curriculum years ago. It's paying off massively. toolbox.finland.fi/life-society...

We already have that learning experience in everday life. The problem is it's been hijacked by people who want to shape it into only seeing one side of things. That is the real danger. You want to help people in society? Teach civics. Teach citizenship.

There's no need to be that specific, just require critical thinking classes starting in grade school

That's not taught in the US at all?

that's never gonna happen when this guy is their god www.rxddit.com/r/Destiny/co...

This. It's no coincidence that the new administration wants to kneecap education and that education suffers more on average in red states

We literally had a class called "Media Literacy" I thought that was standard. Taught us how to critically analyze everything from music to TV to English literature. As a Catholic school it kinda backfired because when you critically analyze the Bible, well...

Hard agree but Our schools won’t even allow history to be taught anymore so not optimistic

...did you guys not take an english class?

Bring taught by a teacher that believes in the non fact checked media

Business literacy would be awesome, too. My nieces and nephews are leaving school soon. I asked them what tax was the other day and neither knew much about it. 🫠

This should be a requirement to graduate. I remember my history teacher bringing up “everything is propaganda” whenever he could. Also “Who writes history? Winners.” Just so we would continue to question the intentions behind why information is shared in a specific way.

@myke.social Our school system something like that, beginning in middle school. They call it "digital literacy." One of the biggest eye openers our kids had was in AP National State and Local Government. That really helped them understand many of the issues & importance plus spotting misinformation.

As much as I'd love to fix the education system in the US, I think focusing on rallying against not eliminating the DOE altogether is probably the better starting point now. The bar has been lowered. Then again, if everyone knew how to fact check, Trump wouldn't have had a shot in hell so...

I actually had a media literacy class in elementary school. I'm not sure if they still do it anymore though

Yes! This! Media literacy and critical thinking. And basics on how our brains work (how vulnerable/exploitable we all are).

The school my wife teaches at does that. On X they call that indoctrination.

Sounds like my schools personal finance class. People who are interested enough will learn it on their own. Not sure how viable considering over half the country reads below a sixth grade level, really shocked to learn that.

I had this class. We were taught to consider the difference between fact and opinion, and to ask if something was made up. Like sure, we were also basically taught newspaper = true, silly magazine maybe not. But it put the concept in my head at a young age. This was early 2000s in the UK.

I think this is what learning.com is trying to do.

Critical thinking was probably the most valuable class I had the honor of taking

My elementary school had a library skills class where we learned how to search book databases and how to use Boolean operators. That skill is the one I use to this day on Google

My seventh grader has a class called Social Studies Research which is basically this.

True, but community notes are more important than facts according to the oligarchs.

I got bad news buddy, this is just English class and I can confirm that they are not paying attention

Might require a lesson or five on cognitive bias. Might have to get in there before middle school.

Isn’t that just English class?

That exists but its called “English class”. Im sure the curriculum does need to be changed to address modern things like twitter posts

When I was in high school it was a class. I was surprised to hear this isn’t included in most curriculums.

Downside would be the death of the democratic party.

Media literacy is so important! We should be learning this in high school English class but unfortunately so many students are not proficient readers so teachers are working tirelessly to get their students caught up

Add civics and personal finance and I’m sold

I see one downside. The current administration has been unabashed in it's propaganda. Trump media literacy 101: "if a dem says it it's a lie."

I remember one of the most important things I learned in a History class was that bias itself wasn't a bad thing - it's when you let that bias shape your perception. Biased sources teach us about the viewpoints of different people at the time.

This is what they do in Sweden in primary school and Finland in kindergarden

Republicans would never let that happen. Anything that might pierce their stranglehold on the undereducated is labeled "woke".