Pushing back against the surge of misinformation online, California will now require all K-12 students to learn media literacy skills — such as recognizing fake news and thinking critically about what they encounter on the internet.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed Assembly Bill 873, which requires the state to add media literacy to curriculum frameworks for English language arts, science, math and history-social studies, rolling out gradually beginning next year. Instead of a stand-alone class, the topic will be woven into existing classes and lessons throughout the school year.
Well, considering most of the U.S. reads below a 6th grade level and California has the highest population amongst the states… it makes sense these kids chose the source that tells them what to think.
Scientific journals have fun jargon words that make parsing certain sentences impossible without either knowledge of that field, or taking the time to look them up. That step right there is too much for many people, I think.
But wouldn’t the reasonable conclusion at least be “wow these are big words and it says scientists wrote it; must be more trustworthy”
Correct.
Counter-question: how does one develop the ability to reason through information they don’t understand if they don’t read? Where would that skill develop?