2021 Testimony Given \u00a0 2\/9\/21 to the SC House Subcommittee on Education & Public Works<\/p>\n
Thank you for this opportunity.
\nMy name is Frank Baker and for more than 20 years I have taught in media literacy in our state\u2026<\/p>\n
Should we be teaching students how to differentiate fake news from real news? OBVIOUSLY YES. But that\u2019s not happening in South Carolina.\u00a0 The fact is media literacy\u2014teaching critical thinking about media– does not exist<\/u> in today\u2019s teaching standards.<\/p>\n
Now the State Dept of Ed will tell you it IS being taught, but let me rebut that.\u00a0 We know that the ability to judge information, especially that online, is more important than ever. But In 2017, 2018 and 2019 the state department of education\u2019s own assessment of SC READY test results showed the majority of middle and high school students failed at the ability to assess the credibility of information.\u00a0 Consultants recommended MORE instruction was needed.<\/p>\n
SDE will tell you that the Computer Science & Digital Literacy standards<\/u>\u00a0covers media literacy. It does not. Now it would be beneficial if EVERY STUDENT eligible took that course. But that\u2019s not happening. [According to the SDE: during the 2019-2020 school year only\u00a02200 students were enrolled in this course<\/u>\u00a0which is only 10% the of 9th<\/sup>-12th<\/sup>\u00a0graders who are eligible to take it.<\/p>\n Propaganda, which surrounds us everyday –is only found in Social Studies during study of WWI and WWII.<\/p>\n And the ELA (English language arts) standards are very PRINT-CENTRIC, paying lip service to how media communicate.<\/p>\n . The actions you take here today will decide if we continue down the same path, or change direction.<\/p>\n Media, especially social media are powerful forces in the lives of young people. That I think we can all agree on.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0What we\u2019re NOT teaching young people today is: HB 3332 simply tasks SDE with creating an advisory committee to examine the problem of the absence of media literacy in our schools and make recommendations.\u00a0 Last year, during a hearing before THIS subcommittee, SDE testified they were not opposed to establishing such a task force. Did they? No. SDE will tell you this bill is not needed: that we are already teaching this. We beg to differ. The teaching standards SDE has previously identified are weak at best.\u00a0 And I can point to several states that have stronger, better worded and implemented standards.<\/p>\n Time is of the essence. Moving this measure to the full committee, and the House, and hopefully the Senate and to the Governor\u2019s desk for signing would send a strong signal. I hope you will.<\/p>\n THANK YOU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2021 Testimony Given 2\/9\/21 to the SC House Subcommittee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29397"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29403,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397\/revisions\/29403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWe\u2019ve just come through UNPRECEDENTED TIMES the last four years—in which misinformation was rampant.\u00a0 And HOW did that happen?\u00a0 Perhaps because many (people who received no MEDIA LITERACY education) believed what they consumed WITHOUT QUESTION.<\/p>\n
\nhow advertising works;
\nhow social media can steal your personal information;
\nhow Smart TV\u2019s send your viewing information back to advertisers;
\nhow PROPAGANDA didn\u2019t just happen during WWII;
\nhow to understand stereotypes and bias and much more.<\/p>\n