Frank Baker\u2019s Keynote Remarks: 2020 SCASL Regional School Librarian Meetings
\nThank you so much for inviting me here today.<\/p>\n
As many of you know, I\u2019ve been advocating for media literacy for a long time. I want to thank those of who HAVE attended my workshops AND for incorporating elements into your own work and sharing it with your teachers & students. You are at the heart of battling misinformation and I consider every one of you partners in teaching media literacy. Today I am hear to acknowledge you and to say emphatically: I appreciate you.<\/p>\n
In 2018, dictionary.com declared MISINFORMATION the word of the year. In 2020, Frank Baker declares VERIFICATION as the word of the year. From my POV, not enough students (or adults for that matter) are bothering to verify what they read. That\u2019s a huge problem.
\nDuring a workshop I conducted on fake news, a teacher told me \u201cmy students don\u2019t care if it\u2019s fake\u201d and if that\u2019s a widespread sentiment, then we better also deal with their apathy.<\/p>\n
Recently the Media Literacy Now organization initiated a campaign to get all 50 state\u2019s legislatures to pass \u201cmedia literacy in education\u201d measures.\u00a0 I approached them and they pointed to a \u201cmodel media literacy\u201d bill which I took to my local lawmaker. I urge you to read HB 4673 because it\u2019s very comprehensive—and includes information literacy and much more. I am happy to say it was pre-filed in the legislature this past November.\u00a0 It would require the State Department of Education to insure that media literacy is taught. If passed, it tasks the State Department with creating a task force to provide recommendations: I have already told the SCASL leadership that I would NOT serve unless school librarians have a seat at the table. There is no guarantee this measure will go anywhere this year, but I am simply WAVING the red flag—trying to get people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
One of the most striking reasons why media literacy is needed is revealed by a close examination of the 2017\u00a0 2019 SC Ready test results. Among other things, a report commissioned by the State Dept of Ed\u2014evaluating those test results— called for more English Language Arts (ELA) instruction in middle and high school because in 2017 those students were weak at \u201cevaluating sources for relevance, credibility, and validity.\u201d\u00a0 In 2018, they were found to be weak in the standard that says \u201cGather information from a variety of primary and secondary sources and evaluate sources for perspective, validity, and bias.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those two standards are at the heart of what you as library media specialists teach.<\/p>\n
The timing could not be more critical. Why? \u00a0The new owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Times said recently that \u201cfake news is the cancer of our times.\u201d Powerful words for sure.<\/p>\n
There is an explosion of fake news and disinformation all over the news media, especially the social media many of our students attend to.\u00a0 They don\u2019t tend to think critically about what they consume. Thomas Jefferson famously said (and I paraphrase here) the health of a\u00a0 democracy depends on an informed electorate.\u00a0 I ask: what happens when people are \u00a0ill-informed; who are media ILLITERATE, who don\u2019t think critically about what they read?<\/p>\n
Why is teaching critical thinking about media important?\u00a0 Studies have already pointed to foreign actors who not only tried to interfere in our election process in 2016, but also continue to do so today. \u00a0Many of the Russian fake clickbaits WERE believed\u2026websites such as PROOF FOUND THAT OBAMA WAS BORN IN KENYA and POPE FRANCIS FORBIDS CATHOLICS TO VOTE FOR HILLARY.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just the Russians: you can find (and realistic looking) fake websites for Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. How are students supposed to know what is authentic and what is not?\u00a0 How many of us remember when the website MartinLutherKing.org fooled millions of students who thought IT was a legitimate webpage.<\/p>\n
Why is this important?<\/u>\u00a0 We need to look no further than an important Stanford History Education Group study from mid-November\u2026which found more than 96 percent<\/u><\/strong> of high school students surveyed failed to consider that ties to the fossil fuel industry might affect the credibility of a website about climate change.\u00a0 Last year, the National Center for Education Statistics found that \u201cmore than one-third of eighth-graders in the U.S. say they \u201crarely\u201d or \u201cnever\u201d learn how to judge the reliability of sources\u201d,<\/p>\n This comes on the heels of the Stanford group\u2019s 2016 survey of 8 thousand MS, HS and college Ss which found that:<\/p>\n – 82% of middle-schoolers couldn\u2019t distinguish between an ad labeled \u201csponsored content\u201d and a real news story on a website The researchers have concluded that current digital literacy instruction is inadequate and that students research skills are \u201ctroubling\u201d and \u201cdismal.\u201d<\/p>\n Thankfully, the Stanford Ed Group, recognizing the weakness in how students read information on the web and in social media, created a free online curriculum that I want you all to be\u00a0 aware of.\u00a0 (And you\u2019re going to write this one down.) If you GOOGLE the phrase CIVIC ONLINE REASONING, you will come to their excellent, field tested, lessons plans and accompanying \u00a0assessments. \u00a0It includes lessons like Evaluating Wikipedia; Website Reliability; Another recommendation from this group is that we start to teach students how to READ LATERALLY. \u00a0Instead of students reading a web page from top to bottom, it recommends that they open a second tab—and begin investigating the source of the page they\u2019re on.<\/p>\n
\n– More than two out of three middle-schoolers couldn\u2019t see any valid reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that young adults need more financial-planning help
\n– nearly four in 10 high-school students believed, based on the headline, that a photo of deformed daisies on a photo-sharing site provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, even though no source or location was given for the photo.<\/p>\n
\nEvaluating Claims on Twitter and YouTube and much more.\u00a0 I urge you all to become familiar with it and use it.<\/p>\n