The following is a transcript of the sermon I delivered on Saturday January 8, 2022 at Beth Shalom Synagogue, Columbia South Carolina.<\/p>\n
Rabbi thank you<\/p>\n
My name is Frank Baker. I am an education consultant. For<\/p>\n
more than 20 years I have traveled out state and elsewhere<\/p>\n
teaching \u201cmedia literacy\u201d\u2014a skill it appears MANY are lacking.<\/p>\n
The Talmud says\u00a0 that\u00a0 ONE\u00a0 of the groups of people that do<\/p>\n not merit to greet the Divine presence<\/strong> is liars.<\/p>\n The proof is out there:\u00a0 social media is being used to spread lies,<\/p>\n misinformation, fake news, conspiracy theory and much more.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not on social media, you won’t be exposed to it.<\/p>\n Yet, millions ARE on it and they see it and some will share it.<\/p>\n Think about this for a moment:<\/p>\n (Marshall McLuhan) The fish swimming in the ocean is completely oblivious to its<\/p>\n environment—the water.\u00a0 That\u2019s an apt metaphor for us and the<\/p>\n media. We swim in an ocean of media, yet few of us, or our<\/p>\n students\u00a0 are given the education opportunities to study it,<\/p>\n especially in K-12–an area I am intimately familiar with.<\/p>\n There is an epidemic in this country and it\u2019s called<\/p>\n Media Illiteracy<\/u><\/strong>\u2014the inability of many people to THINK CRITICALLY<\/p>\n to adequately comprehend what\u00a0 they read, hear or see.<\/p>\n I asked to speak here this morning because I am worried—worried<\/p>\n about the future of education but more so\u2026the future of Democracy\u2014<\/p>\n especially when there are so many<\/p>\n forces—domestic and foreign\u2014designed to create chaos and discord.<\/p>\n Quote from oped USA Today (December)\u00a0 Our nation is failing to foster critical thinking, media literacy and an ability to understand other perspectives. Just as young people should be taught coding, they must be taught the decoding of news and information as a prerequisite of informed citizenship.<\/p>\n The US Surgeon General recently declared that CORONAVIRUS<\/p>\n MISINFORMATION is a \u201cmajor public health hazard.\u201d<\/p>\n Make no mistake about it\u2014someone RIGHT NOW is manipulating a<\/p>\n headline, a social media post, a photograph or a video\u2014and they will<\/p>\n make sure it is seen and heard around the corner & around the world.<\/p>\n Thomas Jefferson famously said\u2014and I paraphrase here\u2014the health of<\/p>\n a democracy depends on an informed electorate.\u00a0 What happens when<\/p>\n the electorate is ill-informed—is media illiterate<\/u>—if they don\u2019t have the<\/p>\n necessary and sufficient critical thinking skills to question fake news,<\/p>\n conspiracy theory and the like?<\/p>\n I have helped teachers understand HOW to engage their students in<\/p>\n both critical thinking and critical viewing skills\u2014but the major problem<\/p>\n is: media literacy is NOT taught in our colleges of education. So<\/p>\n educators enter the classroom unaware of its importance. Adding insult<\/p>\n to injury: media literacy does not exist in the state\u2019s mandated teaching<\/p>\n standards. Imagine that?<\/p>\n Do you believe everything you see read and hear? I don\u2019t- I question<\/p>\n the media (and hope you do too) and I verify something that I think<\/p>\n needs clarifying.<\/p>\n Now you may ask, what is media literacy? You\u2019ve heard or read that<\/p>\n phrase in the news a lot in the past four years.<\/p>\n Media literacy is SIMPLY applying critical thinking to media messages.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s a problem for a lot of\u00a0 young people today—who tend to<\/p>\n believe what they read without question. Many NOW get their news<\/p>\n and information from SOCIAL media.\u00a0\u00a0 If you\u2019re not ON social media,<\/p>\n you may not understand it.\u00a0 Today’s young people MAY BE media<\/p>\n savvy, but they are NOT all media literate.<\/p>\n Allow me to ELABORATE:\u00a0 Evidence exists that many students<\/p>\n nationwide are lacking in their thinking about what they consume<\/p>\n online.<\/p>\n The Stanford History Education group issued an alarming report<\/p>\n after studying the habits of 8000 middle, high school and college<\/p>\n students. Among the findings:<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a082%<\/strong>\u00a0of middle-schoolers couldn\u2019t distinguish between an ad labeled<\/p>\n \u201csponsored content\u201d and a real news story on a website<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0More than two out of three<\/strong>\u00a0middle-schoolers couldn\u2019t see any valid<\/p>\n reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that<\/p>\n young adults need more financial-planning help<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0nearly four in 10 high-school students<\/strong>\u00a0believed, based on the<\/p>\n headline, that a photo of deformed daisies on a photo-sharing site<\/p>\n provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the Fukushima<\/p>\n Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, even though no source or location was<\/p>\n given for the photo.<\/p>\n The researchers described (today\u2019s) student\u2019s abilit(ies) to access<\/p>\n information sources as \u201cdismaying,\u201d \u201cbleak,\u201d AND \u201c[a] threat to our<\/p>\n democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n In November of 2018, a follow-up survey of four thousand high school<\/p>\n students by Stanford found that more than\u00a096 percent<\/strong>\u00a0failed to<\/p>\n consider that ties to the fossil fuel industry might affect the credibility<\/p>\n of a website about climate change.<\/p>\n Now let me tell you what\u2019s happening in South Carolina. For the past<\/p>\n years I\u2019ve worked with Rep Seth Rose to get our legislature to pass a<\/p>\n \u201cmedia literacy\u201d bill\u2026a simple measure that would have required the<\/p>\n State dept of education to create an advisory task force to look into<\/p>\n media literacy and how it\u2019s represented in our schools.<\/p>\n To my utter surprise the state dept of education OPPOSED the measure<\/p>\n and made sure it was defeated in committee. Now why you might ask<\/p>\n did they oppose it? I will tell you. State education representatives<\/p>\n CLAIM that we already teach students media literacy.\u00a0 That\u2019s a claim we<\/p>\n have refuted.\u00a0\u00a0 The state dept of education provided us evidence that<\/p>\n students in SC are taking a course on media literacy\u2014unfortunately<\/p>\n only 2 thousand students actually took that class.<\/p>\n In addition, the State dept of education has clear and convincing<\/p>\n evidence that most middle and high school students failed that part of<\/p>\n the test when it comes to identifying bias and the credibility of<\/p>\n information.<\/p>\n Let me be clear\u2014public school students in SC are not getting the<\/p>\n necessary instruction on how to analyze media messages—and their<\/p>\n teachers are not prepared to teach it. THAT IS TROUBLING.<\/p>\n The phrase TECHNIQUE OF PERSUASION (aka Propaganda techniques)<\/p>\n no longer exists in our state teaching standards.<\/p>\n It has been replaced by ARGUMENT.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, ADVERTISING,<\/p>\n a powerful and influential force in young people\u2019s lives\u2026barely gets<\/p>\n attention by teachers and students.\u00a0 Do you think they should be aware<\/p>\n of the techniques advertisers use to get us to buy things; or vote for a<\/p>\n Politician? I certainly do.\u00a0 If people, including students, don\u2019t recognize<\/p>\n when marketing and advertising tries to persuade: they might be<\/p>\n sucked into believing a politician\u2019s message; buying a brand of peanut<\/p>\n butter; or a snazzy car, or something worse like falling for fake news.<\/p>\n MEDIA LITERACY: The Most Critically Important Skill The best answer is to ALWAYS QUESTION & VERIFY what you consume.<\/p>\n Appropriate Media literacy questions like these are recommended: One solution already promoted by the Stanford group is to encourage<\/p>\n LATERAL READING when online<\/u>. That means: instead of reading a<\/p>\n webpage from TOP TO BOTTOM; you simply open a second<\/p>\n Tab in which YOU RESEARCH THE SOURCE of the original page.<\/p>\n Another solution:\u00a0 Fact checking.\u00a0 <\/u>Too many of us tend to believe<\/p>\n something without taking the time to verify it.\u00a0 Today more than a<\/p>\n dozen different fact checking organizations do the work for us.<\/p>\n Another solution:<\/u> our local media, radio, TV, newspapers need to<\/p>\n help consumers but not only reporting the news, but ALSO reporting<\/p>\n when it is wrong or misleading.\u00a0 I want to regoznize Channel 19 WLTX<\/p>\n which has a regular news segment entitled VERIFY\u2026.<\/p>\n Lastly and perhaps most importantly<\/u>, I want to urge everyone of you<\/p>\n listening and watching to ask your elected representatives, school<\/p>\n board members, child\u2019s teacher or principal:<\/p>\n what are you<\/u> doing to ensure this generation receives important<\/p>\n media literacy skills?\u00a0\u00a0 Every teacher in every subject in every school<\/p>\n should have the opportunity to be trained on how to incorporate media<\/p>\n literacy into instruction.\u00a0 Folks, it\u2019s not rocket science.<\/p>\n I wish to leave you with this quote: “Democracy has always relied on a critical thinking electorate, but never has this been more important than in the current age of fake news and international interference in the electoral process via propaganda disseminated over social media.”<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about you, but I want to do everything in my power to ensure that our students have the necessary skills to think critically about the media.<\/p>\n Thank you very much.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following is a transcript of the sermon I delivered…<\/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-31434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31434","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=31434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31436,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31434\/revisions\/31436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/u>
\nSo Frank you\u2019ve shared with us the problem. What is the solution?<\/p>\n
\nWHO IS THE AUTHOR; WHAT IS THEIR AGENDA
\nWHAT TECHNIQUES ARE THEY USING TO MAKE ME BELIEVE SOMETHING
\nWHO OR WHAT MIGHT BE OMITTED AND WHY
\nWHO PAID FOR THE MESSAGE
\nWHO BENEFITS FROM THIS MESSAGE
\nWHY IS THIS MESSAGE BEING SENT<\/p>\n
\nfrom a new book entitled CALLING BS The Art of Skepticism in Data Driven World.<\/p>\n