Maybe, just maybe. Resources to support media literacy and civic engagement

Maybe. Just maybe.

Maybe it’s not that our students are gullible. It’s that they’re too cynical. Maybe it’s not that our students don’t believe in the facts. It’s that they don’t know who to trust. Maybe it’s not that our students can’t think critically. It’s that perhaps they’re thinking deeply while interacting with the wrong resources.

I get it. The events of the last few weeks support the idea that we need more social studies. More civics. More difficult and controversial conversations. (Especially at the elementary level.) Couldn’t agree more. We do need more social studies.

But I’ve been in a lot of classrooms and know a lot of great educators. There is already amazing social studies instruction happening in lots of places. So maybe we need to step back, take a breath, stop talking about requiring civic exams in order to graduate, and be more intentional about building on the good stuff that we all know is already there.

What might that look like?

The Week. It’s the 2019 version of our favorite Weekly Reader that your kids need

I spent the majority of my grade school years at Alta Brown Elementary School in Garden City, America, working on my three Rs. It was pretty traditional stuff – snacks every afternoon, keeping the metal slipper slide super slick with our waxed milk cartons, lots of math drills, straight rows of desks, and, of course, the very awesome Weekly Reader that showed up every Thursday.

Surely you haven’t forgotten the Weekly Reader.

For those of you who didn’t have that particular grade school experience, the Weekly Reader showed up, well . . . every week. Designed for elementary kids, it highlighted current events and always included interesting feature stories. And it was glorious. At least for a budding social studies nerd like me.

My memories were jogged a week or so ago when I ran across the

Real or Fake? Factitious is breakthrough tool for assessing student online literacy

Real or fake?

Biased or unbiased?

Trustworthy or untrustworthy?

During a recent trip through different parts of Texas, I got the chance to lead several teacher conversations around these three questions. We worked together to share strategies and resources designed around creating knowledgeable, thinking, and active citizens.

With a specific goal of training our kids to be effective consumers of online information. So our conversation wasn’t just about fake news – it was also about online civic literacy.

We started with a series of images:

Tip of the Week: Bias, civic literacy, and historical thinking skills

Back when my youngest was in fourth grade, I asked her to preview the very cool You Are the Historian website. It’s an interactive tool that asks elementary kids to use historical thinking skills while addressing the site’s guiding question: What really happened at the first Thanksgiving?

The site led her through primary sources, to video clips of colonial historians, and to the exploration of different artifacts. After she was finished, I asked her what she learned by “playing” the game:

The past is what really happened. History is what we say happened.

I couldn’t have been prouder. That’s exactly what I hoped to hear. (And good job, BTW, You Are the Historian creators.)

History is our interpretation of evidence.

We have a problem. We look at evidence. And we figure it out. But I’m not always sure that we’re teaching our kids how to do that very well. Part of the problem is bias. We don’t always make it clear enough that everything we have our kids use to solve the problems we give them is biased.

And just as there is no such thing as unbiased primary evidence, there is no such thing as unbiased secondary evidence. All news, photos, media sites, books – it’s all biased.

Need a few examples?

Making connections to the real world

I’m spending the day at the KSDE Impact Institute – loving the learning and connecting with teachers from around the state. This afternoon has been spent nerding out with Kim Wahaus, awesome Olathe South HS government teacher. We talked about a ton of stuff but my walkaway?

That as social studies teachers, we need to be deliberate about connecting our social studies content and process with the lives of our students.

Nothing new for most of you, I know. But it was a good reminder of how important this idea really is.

Real world connections are used to help students see that learning is not confined to the school, allows them to apply knowledge and skills in real world situations, and personalizes learning to increase and sustain student engagement.

Kim shared some ideas of what that sort of conversation might look like. She started by showing a New York Times Learning Network clip highlighting the timeline of the recent Orlando shooting. Ask kids to use this clip and article to collect basic information.

Five W’s and H – who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Then she suggests showing a clip from the TV show

7 ways to survive the election season while making your kids smarter

I’m not necessarily fond of politicians but I do love the political process. I love elections and all of the conversations that come with them. The commentary. The analysis. It’s like March Madness bracketology and the NFL playoffs all rolled into one. For a political science nerd like me, a brokered Republican convention? Yes, please.

But even for me, some of what’s taking place during this year’s election season is a bit much. Seriously? Hand size?

So a couple of tips to help you and your students survive the next eight months: