“Make America think again:” Fostering intentional education

Implementing media literacy curricula and understanding society’s civic duty are the main components that need to be emphasized within the education system to better equip students to navigate through the media terrain. Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff’s “United States of Distraction” notes the “Five Cs” to ensure a “self-governing and free society”— civics education, critical thinking, critical awareness of media, cultural competency, and community engagement. 

The Illinois Press Association’s Sam Fisher is one to understand that civic engagement and education, especially, are of the utmost importance when part of the journalistic process.

“Knowledge of civics and participation in government is huge,” Fisher said. “It’s paramount. You know, it’s the heart and soul of democracy. We had an [recent and local] election; in my particular area, the voter turnout was not very good, and that’s disappointing. I think part of media literacy is getting people to care about the real issues and to understand what the real issues are.”

One student in particular took it upon himself to initiate change in the Illinois Legislature. The Central Times’ Columnist Writer, Braden Hajer, was working on a capstone project for his class. His ideas further helped propel a once dead media literacy bill back into the House Committee of the Illinois State Legislature.

“What I ultimately decided was, [media illiteracy] probably [exists] because no one knows anything about how to combat misinformation because, by design, you don’t know when you’re being misled,” Hajer said. “And that’s where the legislation idea comes in.”

The legislation, House Bill 0234, amends the School Code to implement a media literacy curriculum in public schools. Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez, the lead sponsor of the bill, presented the bill at the recent Elementary & Secondary Education: School Curriculum & Policies Committee on March 24. 

“I think that all people, young and old, need to start being trained in understanding media literacy,” Chief Co-Sponsor Rep. Stephanie A. Kifowit said. “I think we’re losing the ability to see things from a different point of view because if people just isolate themselves and what’s been called the bottle, and they only isolate themselves with people of the same mindset, there’s no healthy exchange of ideas which I think is very important.”

Concerns were made regarding the unfunded mandate the bill causes from Rep. Daniel Swanson. The success of implementing an additional requirement for the academic school year and confusion upon allowing mandates sponsored by the Illinois State Board of Education were also brought up by Rep. Avery Bourne and Tony McCombie respectively. The bill was then scheduled for third reading after the committee session. It was passed in Illinois House 66-44 on April 20. 

Rep. Swanson, Bourne, and McCombie, who all voted against the bill in committee, did not respond to requests for comment. 

In addition to Rep. Bourne’s concern, most of the work to implement media literacy is already embedded in general education classes. In NAMLE’s Kyle Plantz view, there just needs to be more of an emphasis on media literacy in particular. 

“We’d like to see the focus of media literacy where it’s not something additional that teachers have to do,” Plantz said. “It’s just something that they’re currently already doing- but they can be more either explicit about it, or have more understanding about good media literacy practices that they can incorporate into the classroom.”

Specifically, STEM classes, impact scientific reasoning and mathematics regarding what consumers are interpreting with charts, graphs, and scientific or mathematical explanations online. Math Department Chair Jacqueline Palmquist explains that skills from earlier courses in high school offer the foundational skills to apply in informational math and statistics. 

“To me, a lot of that rings true in math in terms of statistics,” Palmquist said. “When it’s out in the media and if someone says you have a 97% chance of you to do this, there’s a lot that goes before that, and if you don’t kind of digest it with a critical lens of how is that true. Why is that true? Who did they study, what did they study? You are believing truths and non-truths and making judgment calls on what was pushed out to you, without you actually digesting it yourself and thinking about it yourself.”

Despite the passage of the bill to mandate media literacy, Naperville Central’s Carlson believes that it is important to be intentional about the implementation. He notes that educational mandates such as the bus safety protocol and district Chromebook user agreements are important. It is quick to go through and not give in much thought. However, Carlson thinks that a mandate such as administering media literacy practices should be handled otherwise.

“That’s kind of how we treat digital citizenship right now and that’s how we treat media literacy,” Carlson said. “It’s like ‘hey you’re aware of this right? Yes, now let me have my stuff,’ and that’s kind of how we’re handling it. So, I think the problem right now is not an awareness of [media literacy]. It’s implementing it in a way that’s really meaningful and there are some things that we could do that I don’t think would be super painful….We’re not doing well enough when it comes to connecting the message with implementing the message.” 

Understanding the journalistic process outside of the classroom is also vital to becoming media literate. It does not mean that every student has to be on their high school yearbook, broadcast, or newspaper staff. However, when the opportunity arises, it can lead to better processing what it is like to be entrusted with a writing platform. 

2016 Stampede’s Smith realized that the published articles about the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election were an indicator that the staff was doing their job regardless of the criticism from both aisles they received. Through this, Smith acknowledged that any “healthy news source” will have critics from all sides, but it does not automatically mean that they are untrustworthy.

“I think it was really helpful for me to gain that experience, and understand that when I’m trying to evaluate a news source,” Smith said. “Remember what it’s like to try and put out the news. And give journalists the benefit of the doubt when you can, because you know that somebody is always going to be unhappy with the news source.”