Every high school requires a certain level of credits to be eligible for graduation. Those required credits include Physical Education, English, Science, and Art, which every average high schooler completes. Students will benefit from adding one more class to their graduation requirement: media literacy.
High school students should learn media literacy to enable them to think critically. Media literacy will aid in their discernment of information, thus helping them become productive members of society.
How would one be capable of effectively contributing to society if one can’t determine what is or is not true? Chris Worsnop, an author advocating for media education, said students need to study media “because the media go to great lengths to study us.”
Your source of information may go to great lengths to study you, ensuring that you receive the information you already agree with. In that case, how can you be positive that everything you read is truthful?
Subjects taught in high school are essential but may not be entirely applicable to life beyond the classroom. High schools can spend up to two months on poetry units in their English classes.
Understanding and appreciating poetry teaches creativity and language, but it may not need two months of attention. At least a month of the poetry unit should focus on media literacy, if not an entire class dedicated to the subject.
Critical thinking provides young minds with a skill set that will positively affect the rest of their lives. It teaches them to evaluate, learn, and apply the information they read rather than regurgitate the first thing they see.
Some classrooms teach students to think critically about academic journals or peer-reviewed essays. Unfortunately, those sources go through a process to filter out false or manipulative information. The internet does not.
Learn Safe published an article that said, “about 60% of US adults who prefer getting news through social media said they had shared false information.” Educated adults often do not know how to distinguish misinformation, leading to a majority misinformed population.
While we often rely on the media to inform us, we see that not all information holds truth. Then, communication responsibility falls to the individual to determine the validity of the news.
Individuals must re-learn how to think for themselves, a skill forgotten with the emergence of modern technology. Media education starts by teaching the youth to be skeptical and think critically.
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