My first exposure to special needs in the educational setting happened with Helen Keller. We all know her powerful story with Anne Sullivan. I know she was an advocate for special needs, education and so much more. However, one day, while I was scrolling social media, I read that she also supported eugenics. My mind immediately jumped to racism and I questioned if Helen Keller was a racist and believed in advancing one race over another. Seeds of doubt started getting planted in my mind. I made a mistake that many of our students make, believing fake news.
Fake news has become a dangerous consequence of making information readily available through a few clicks on the internet. Companies pay lots of money to promote their websites and products. Sometimes, when researching something on the internet, you don’t get the most accurate resource first, you get the source that was the most expensive. This can lead to dangerous consequences for readers. Misinformation about politics, leaders, and health information can lead to ramifications that hurt the wellbeing of individuals and institutions. In my EEND678 class on Effective Tech Integration into Lessons and Curriculum, we learned about how important it is to teach students to discern from fake news and real news and how easy that process can be.
First, all teachers in all grade levels should be teaching media analysis. For example, teaching math skills is a foundational skill. Students improve their understanding every year. Just like that, how to analyze information, media resources and fact check information should be a skill that we start building in Kindergarten. One prime example is the lucrative YouTube show, Ryan’s Toy Review. We know our elementary students watch his channel numerous times throughout a week. However, do they know that all of his toys are sent to him for free? Do the young viewers know that his parents are not buying all of those toys? Just knowing that basic premise of how ads work, students can make purchasing decisions based on fact, not passion or greed. In the class discussion for EEND678, teachers from all grade levels agreed that teaching students about fake news shouldn’t be saved for the high school level only.
The process doesn’t even have to be complicated. Through a class assignment, I developed a three-question checklist that students can use to determine what they are reading is fake or real.
- Is the domain name legitimate? Is it .edu, .gov, or .org? If it’s an unfamiliar domain name or .com, the student’s radar should be up.
- Is the information shocking? If it does seem shocking, try to find three other websites that verify the information you are seeing.
- When was the article published and did you google the source? Sometimes, we can simply google the name of a website and Google will tell us if it’s liberal or conservative-leaning. You can also find out who pays for the website and the information it’s releasing.
With this easy checklist, students can get better at identifying real resources and using that information to advance on their educational journey. Regarding Helen Keller, upon using the checklist from EEND678, the website was a .com, the information was shocking and I couldn’t find three other websites that verified the misinformation and the article I did find was on a right-wing bias opinion website. Upon further research, I found out that Helen Keller did support euthanasia for infants with severe disabilities. She wanted them to be released from a lifetime of pain. That is a far cry to what I originally was led to believe. Seeds could be planted, but if you don’t provide it nutrients or water, you can focus on other real information instead of fake news.