Our Current Affairs teacher pulled this move, spring of '89 for context:
Paper boy drops off a stack of the afternoon edition, teacher picks one up and seriously peruses it for a minute.
Reading from the paper: “Please pay attention. ‘President George Bush has announced that an offensive action has begin against Iraq. US Air Force tactical bombers led the assault on Baghdad at 4AM this morning while grounds troops have taken positions on the outskirts.’” And so forth. “Discuss.”
We excitedly kicked this around for 20 minutes. First time GenX was at war! He then showed us the headline: Local Man Wins Regional Bike Race.
“Every one of you believed what I said because you thought it was written in the newspaper.” Stunned silence. “Discuss.”
He was county or state teacher of the year for '88 and promised an automatic A to anyone who could make him smile, even once. We had no clue if he was a Democrat or Republican, no clue as to his opinion on anything.
And just look around lemmy. Hundreds of upvotes because people thought Vance made a serious comment about Greenland being cold. (It was an obvious joke to the troops if one had taken a moment and thought, “Surely fucking not.” and watched 25-seconds of video.)
Something rubs the the wrong way about how the teacher presented that problem. Was the lesson supposed to be “don’t believe anything unless you can verify it yourself”? In his example, he was the unreliable source. I’m assuming he was infering the paper can also be an unreliable source? I’m hoping he went into the importance of checking multiple, credible sources to get a larger picture, rather than just leaving it at “you always might be lied to”. A blanket “don’t trust so-called authorities for facts” is how we end up with people questioning vaccines and flat earthers turning from satire to something troubling.
Critical thinking not being a core class in the curriculum is hurting student’s critical thinking. Its not something you develop by default.
Our Current Affairs teacher pulled this move, spring of '89 for context:
Paper boy drops off a stack of the afternoon edition, teacher picks one up and seriously peruses it for a minute.
Reading from the paper: “Please pay attention. ‘President George Bush has announced that an offensive action has begin against Iraq. US Air Force tactical bombers led the assault on Baghdad at 4AM this morning while grounds troops have taken positions on the outskirts.’” And so forth. “Discuss.”
We excitedly kicked this around for 20 minutes. First time GenX was at war! He then showed us the headline: Local Man Wins Regional Bike Race.
“Every one of you believed what I said because you thought it was written in the newspaper.” Stunned silence. “Discuss.”
He was county or state teacher of the year for '88 and promised an automatic A to anyone who could make him smile, even once. We had no clue if he was a Democrat or Republican, no clue as to his opinion on anything.
And just look around lemmy. Hundreds of upvotes because people thought Vance made a serious comment about Greenland being cold. (It was an obvious joke to the troops if one had taken a moment and thought, “Surely fucking not.” and watched 25-seconds of video.)
Something rubs the the wrong way about how the teacher presented that problem. Was the lesson supposed to be “don’t believe anything unless you can verify it yourself”? In his example, he was the unreliable source. I’m assuming he was infering the paper can also be an unreliable source? I’m hoping he went into the importance of checking multiple, credible sources to get a larger picture, rather than just leaving it at “you always might be lied to”. A blanket “don’t trust so-called authorities for facts” is how we end up with people questioning vaccines and flat earthers turning from satire to something troubling.