Teaching Kids to Vet Fake News
Did you know that Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say, “Let them eat cake!”? Yup! Fake news has been around for centuries and as you can see, it this particular statement has been repeated so often that it has ended up in our history lectures still today. But today fake news is so prevalent that most students (in all grade levels) don’t have the critical thinking skills to decipher what’s real and what’s fake. So here are ways that teachers – and you – can help students wade through all the propaganda thrown at them.
According to teacher Scott Bedley (who was interviewed by NPR’s Sophia Alvarez Boyd), you can play Simon Says to encourage students to make their own educated decisions about what’s true and what’s false in the news. Students should consider the following before answering:
- How reliable is the source? (Was it written by a major magazine or legitimate expert?)
- What does your gut say? (Does it sound possible?)
- Does it make sense?
- Can you find 3 other sources to verify this same finding?
- Have experts in the field commented about it?
- Does it have a copyright?
Bringing awareness about how easy it is to create fake news on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media is the first step in preparing students for wading through the junk they read on the internet. Then making sure that students don’t perpetuate or inadvertently spread these lies by sharing news that they don’t carefully vet is the next step. These are things that we all need to do to maintain truth in social networking and information sharing. Instant access to information can be a blessing and a curse.
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