We are all aware of how the rise of fake news has taken over the world of global politics in the past decade and how generative AI can be used to create deep fake images of people, including movie-quality films, so how can we support our students in differentiating what’s real from what’s not?
‘Seeing is believing’ no longer stands up to scrutiny; our students will need to view everything with a critical eye while also relying on other skills and approaches to ensure they can be confident that what they are reading, watching, or listening to is, in fact, real. How can we, as educators, help them navigate this?
Ensure a broad knowledge and understanding
Fake news and false claims don’t exist in a vacuum. It is difficult to support a claim without a rationale supporting any evidence. News can be considered like one part of a puzzle. Without the other pieces, there is no pattern; we need related ideas to make sense of it. In 2016, it was reported that President Obama was planning to run for a third term in office. A deeper understanding would have shown that this is against the Constitution and, therefore, impossible due to the 22nd Amendment. What was stated was that he believed he could win a third term, running against Trump, had the law allowed it.
Develop a grasp of logical concepts
Understanding the relationships of facts is important, along with logical concepts like probability, possibility, certainty, typicality, sufficiency, all, if, either, implication, contrary and warrant is something we could perhaps put more thought into.
Often, pupils may claim something ‘must be’ true or is ‘probably’ true. Here, a quantifier like all, some, comparatively few, and no is critically important.
Is it enough to claim that an individual is a follower of a particular religion based on one tweet? This was the recent case in Southport, England, following an attack. Evaluating warrants again requires knowledge, including social and moral norms. These are often taught in schools but probably not consistently or recognised as critical in recognising disinformation.
Character and context
What we are saying is more important than the words we use to say it. We are all aware of how the same words can mean very different things depending on the context in which they are used, who uses them, when they are used or for what reasons.
Students need to carefully consider an author’s motivations, background, integrity, and funding. Often, this task is complicated due to anonymity, especially online, and the first question that should be asked in these cases is, ‘Why the need for anonymity?’
Critical thinking must be taught and not as a collection of methods
Critical thinking is not a checklist of actions; rather, it is a manner of acting. It is a virtue, along with intelligence, wisdom and understanding.
Students need to be provided with opportunities to practice and develop this virtue; they must work for it. Aristotle famously said, “We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” There is no easy way to spot and filter the truth from an increasingly large number of untruths. It requires practice, hard work and perseverance, and our job as educators is to provide students with the opportunities to develop this virtue through challenge, debate and discussion.
