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110

Schools to teach children how to spot fake news and ‘putrid’ conspiracies online (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 3 months ago by Emperor@feddit.uk to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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Children will be taught how to spot extremist content and fake news online under planned changes to the school curriculum.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against “putrid conspiracy theories”.

Pupils might analyse newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help weed out fabricated clickbait from true reporting. In computer lessons, they could be taught how to spot fake news sites and maths lessons could include analysing statistics in context.

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[–] wren@feddit.uk 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is actually a very minimal change to the already existing curriculum - the (compulsory) English Language GCSE is 50% "Critical reading and comprehension"

Gov UK states all specifications must include:

"identifying bias and misuse of evidence, including distinguishing between statements that are supported by evidence and those that are not; reflecting critically and evaluatively on text"

Most people presumably... "forgot"? but this has been in the curriculum for decades

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For me at least, most of that was just identifying rhetorical devices used by the writer and summarising what they wrote, not looking at the legitimacy of what's being said (it'd be hard to do that in an exam context anyway).

[–] wren@feddit.uk 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah, there's definitely a difference between curricula, what's focussed on in classrooms, and exam assessment criteria, but they're supposed to be cohesive.

I remember one of my big pieces of coursework was "writing from the perspective of an advertiser," and we had loads of lessons on identifying bias. I was taught in school that "red top magazines" are "less honest and more emotive" than "broadsheet newspapers."

Presumably not everyone had the same experience though: I mentioned this offhand and my friend told me "surely that's illegal to teach in a classroom?!"

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I think a lot of what people are missing is around spoken techniques.

Recognising ad hominem attacks.
Recognising straw-man arguments.
Recognising circular reasoning.
Spotting embedded assumptions or premises in points.
Being numerically literate enough so that big numbers have context.

Yes, these things apply to texts also, but they can fly past you when somebody is speaking. You can't take 30 seconds to notice that somebody is arguing against something which wasn't said by the opposition. It has to be a reflexive "hang on a minute! That's BS".

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 3 months ago

Though I'm not British, I have an interest in your education system because I went to a school that taught, up until year 11, the British education system. Years 10 and 11 were IGCSE, which is an international variant of the GCSE.

But in years 12 and 13 I took the International Baccalaureate. Which I have a lot of praise for in general, but particularly in regards to this aspect. One of the core components of IB that everyone has to take is Theory of Knowledge. It's essentially an introduction to epistemology, including learning about logical arguments...and logical fallacies. It's one of the most broadly useful things you can learn, and I think it should be in every high school curriculum.

[–] wren@feddit.uk 1 points 3 months ago

Hugely agree, those would all be fantastic additions.