By Abandoning Fact-Based Teaching, We’ve Opened the Door to Disinformation
Nature abhors a vacuum. When the facts are no longer there, the void must be filled with something. And that something has become disinformation.
A new focus in some schools is helping students sort through the facts, tossing out disinformation, and embracing fact-finding.
An initiative in Florida designed to teach “digital literacy,” is one such program. (https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/980405254/as-bad-information-spreads-florida-schools-seek-to-teach-digital-literacy)
Michael McConnell, who spent his career in national intelligence and security, is working to get this type of instruction into schools. McConnell told National Public Radio, “We need to understand this so we can appreciate what’s happening to us, and be able to not only understand it, to be able to navigate through it,” McConnell said. “That’s what I call digital literacy.”
OK. Let’s rewind. We still have high school students who cannot read beyond a fifth-grade comprehension level, can’t name the seven continents or point to them on a map, and have no idea how to write a decent paragraph.
How does this relate to the mass consumption of disinformation? It relates in that adults who went to school after the country largely abandoned the fact-based teaching paradigm are now at a huge disadvantage: they just don’t know enough to tell the difference between fact and fiction.
We started abandoning fact-based teaching in the 1980s, just as my children were becoming school-age. It was always my assumption that they would be taught as I was taught. They would learn facts. And then they would have a basis from which to formulate ideas and questions in their minds. They would learn where the Nile River was and memorize their multiplication tables. They would know which trees were coniferous and which were deciduous.
Teachers “teaching” students was the accepted pedagogy. Instead, the pedagogy flipped to “students as learners.” What my children encountered in school, back in the 1980s and ’90s, were group projects for which one student mostly did all the work and the rest did nothing. They got consensus-building, and “soft-subjects,” like self-esteem and multi-cultural appreciation classes, where they made up acrostics with their own names and constructed piñatas. We were in the age of the experimental “Outcomes-based Education” model. It didn’t matter how long it took for a student to learn something. And Theodore Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools, with principles such as, “students as their own teachers,” and “teachers as facilitators.”
This, I’m afraid, is where we dropped the ball. I believe they called it Goals 2000. And there was money to be made by going about the country peddling teacher training in dubious models.
When children learned facts, they learned to trust what is true. They could check their answers and know for a certainty that they knew it. They found answers they’d looked up in an encyclopedia or textbook. And their teachers carefully graded their papers and made them go back and correct their mistakes. Sure, we have come a long way in our understanding of cultural bias. And we need to continue making changes as the facts become clear. Because the teaching of facts is an important preventative to making up and consuming disinformation. If someone told a third grader in 1960 that the Amazon River was in Africa, he could rebut the fact. “It’s in South America, you idiot!”
They told us that children no longer needed to know facts by heart. All the facts are on the internet, at the touch of a button. Well, a lot of disinformation is also on the internet at the touch of a button.
If we don’t fill our children with fact-based truths, as well as moral truths, through our careful teaching and example, they have not a leg to stand on.
Like poplar trees easily blown over in the wind, our children’s shallow understanding of the world will allow them to be bowled over by rancorous entertainment “news” that makes viewers to feel like victims. Group projects and consensus building will have groomed them for accepting disinformation lest they have to do all the work themselves.
I am not certain the new programs teaching students how to recognize disinformation is the answer. While such programs may help some students, in my view, it’s more important to have teachers who require them to memorize poetry now and then, and to read good literature, and get up in front of the class and read a fact-based report they’ve researched themselves. Kids need adults they trust to hold them accountable when they don’t get their facts straight.
Better to be embarrassed by a caring teacher for copying from a reference book when you’re eight than be arrested for invading the U.S. Capital when you’re 45. FFG
American Rescue Plan Not Only Impacts Family Finances, it Impacts Developing Brains
This is big news for the United States. With the passage of the American Rescue Plan on March 11, 2021, for the first time ever this country is moving toward a policy shift with tangible financial benefits for families with children. And policies that decrease child poverty, which this plan aims to do, are policies that increase children’s health, both emotional and cognitive. It’s a game changer – just ask any social worker or school principal.
I know child poverty is a nasty little subject, but one that I have seen in abundance over the years. I’ve spent a lot of time working in schools where low-income students on the reduced or free-lunch program far outnumber the kids whose parents can afford ballet and gymnastics lessons. And believe me, going without socks has never been a trend among 2nd graders. Why is this important? Because coming to school hungry and living with financially stressed parents decreases a child’s ability to learn by a lot.
The sad part is, kids have absolutely no blame in this. A second grader I had in a class – I’ll call him Marty – left for the afternoon bus without his “backpack program” supply of food for the weekend. The program provides easy-to-prepare foods for children who are most at-risk of food insecurity. When another little boy in the class saw the full sack sitting on a table, he became alarmed. “Marty forgot his food!” he said. “He needs it! He immediately asked permission to run the sack out to the bus before it left. I could barely restrain my tears. He’d made it just in time. The boy’s empathy for his friend taught me the degree to which even young children are aware of human need. My question is, why are so many adults reluctant to do anything about it?
One of the ARP’s benefits is the expansion of the child tax credit. (It’s not a tax deduction, which would only be a percentage of family income.) It’s a credit available even to low-wage earners that “will increase the amount from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under age 6 and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. Kids that were 17 at the end of the 2020 tax year also now qualify (they were previously excluded).”https://www.forbes.com/advisor/taxes/child-tax-credit-expansion-monthly-payments/
Who qualifies for the new child tax credit expansion? According to Forbes, “You may qualify for the new child tax credit expansion if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is $75,000 or lower for single filers (up to $150,000 for married couples). If you earn more than these amounts, you will see a reduced credit, or you may not get a credit at all.”
In addition, “For the first time in history, families will qualify to receive the child tax credit as a monthly stipend. These monthly payments will provide up to $300 per child starting this July through the end of the year (the remaining credit can be claimed on your 2021 tax return).”
And this, say supporters of Biden’s plan say, will keep families from having to make tough financial decisions like, “Are we going to fix the car or buy the kids’ new school shoes?”
Getting families on back their feet after dealing with lay-offs and company closures due to COVID-19 should be our first concern. But there’s also the residual impact of parents being stuck in low-wage jobs, single-parent families living on one income, the high cost of child care, the lack of paid family leave, and a general lack of family support in a highly mobile society.
The ARP isn’t a panacea. It’s a hand-up. The cost will be billions on the front end. But the savings at the back end, we’re betting, will justify the expense. Financial stability for at-risk families, including the monthly stipends and greater food security though an increase in SNAP benefits – also included in Biden’s package – will also increase the emotional well-being of children. And emotional well-being is essential for the healthy development of young children’s brains and bodies. It’s chronic stress that hurts them the most. (Bessel Van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score)
So let’s reassess those corporate taxes and put them back up where they should be. Experts are saying that any losses to the economy will be short-lived. After that, with billions allocated for jobs – green energy jobs – boom! FFG
