Children will be taught how to spot extremist content and misinformation online under planned changes to the school curriculum, the education secretary said.

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”.

One example may include pupils analysing newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help differentiate fabricated stories from true reporting.

In computer lessons, they could be taught how to spot fake news websites by their design, and maths lessons may include analysing statistics in context.

  • tiramichu@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    This is great, honestly.

    If you go back to antiquity, education was about philosophy. It was about learning how to observe, and think critically, and see the world for what it is.

    And then in modern times, education became about memorisation - learning facts and figures and how to do this and that. And that way of teaching and learning just doesn’t fit any longer with what our digital age has become.

    In my opinion, we are heavily overdue for a revamp of what education should be, and what skills are most important to society in this post-truth world. Critical thinking is an important foundation to real knowledge that we don’t teach enough.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      If you go back to antiquity, education was about philosophy.

      Well, formal education was. I’m pretty sure ancient Greeks Athenians still had to be taught to do things like follow instructions, and to read and write (If they were in a social class where literacy was even expected).

      Of course we should be doing a better job teaching students critical thinking skills, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking ancient Greek children all spent their days having deep conversations with Aristotle in a park. Plato is even on record against reading because he thought it interfered with students’ ability to memorize things!

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 months ago

      “Critical thinking” was a buzzword when I was at school in the 80s.

      Memorisation is a component of learning, but the vast majority of any learning I’ve done has been understanding.

      Certainly children need to learn to be skeptical, but I hope we can do better than showing them biased articles from newspapers.

      • qaz@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        We were shown different news articles from about the same event and were given the task to point out their biases based on the differences. Do schools over there do that too?

        • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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          3 months ago

          I honestly don’t remember. That’s not a yes or a no but “I’m not sure”. The critical thinking they were talking about wasn’t necessarily relating to media though, but more general - like a habit of challenging assumed knowledge.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          3 months ago

          I did in history class, the point being that when trying to assess historical evidence you have to take into account the source of the information to understand the biases contained in it.

          It wasn’t in general classes though.

      • Mothra@mander.xyz
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        3 months ago

        Is it a buzzword though? I always took it as the ability to understand AND question in order to prove/disprove/ build upon said understanding.

        • FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I think they mean that it was a buzzword because although it was mentioned, it wasn’t a substantial part of state education at the time. They’re saying that it “was” a buzzword, rather than that it is one.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        The difference between intelligence and wisdom. We have been prioritizing the former at the detriment of the latter.

        This is how you end up with people like Elon Musk who I will give the benefit of the doubt and say he isn’t dumb, but Christ he’s a moron.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          3 months ago

          I’m not sure you mean intelligence and wisdom.

          Intelligence is the capability to apply your brain to problems. Wisdom is the lessons you learn through experience.

          Maybe “knowledge Vs wisdom” is a better way of putting it.

  • absquatulate@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This is rich, coming from the government that labels pro-palestine protestors as extremists and antisemites ( yes I’m aware that the government changed, but looks like the new ones are more than happy to continue the policies ).

    • thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      There are many people in a government, and different people pull in different directions.

      Regardless of other policies, this is a step in the right direction.

      • absquatulate@lemmy.world
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        There’s admittedly some potential in there, like teaching them to analyse statistics and ‘teaching critical thinking’ whatever that implies.

        Conspiracy theory belief however is emotional rather than rational. You cannot ‘teach’ people to not do it. I worry that they will condition kids to dismiss any news that deviates from official propaganda by just labelling them as conspiracies. And frankly with the UK being the police state that it is, that might just be the end goal.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        This is the UK: whatever New Labour or Tory politicians say should be presumed to be complete total crowd-pleasing bollocks until proven otherwise (by it actually being done, in the way it was promised and properly funded and supported, which is a pretty rare outcome over there).

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    3 months ago
    The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

    Information for The Guardian:

    MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
    Wikipedia about this source

    Search topics on Ground.News

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/10/uk-children-to-be-taught-how-to-spot-extremist-content-and-misinformation-online

    Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

    • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      If that were the case, the world wouldn’t be as fucked up and run by morons as it is today. Unfortunately, a lack of critical thinking makes someone very easy to control and mislead, so not teaching critical thinking is very much in the interest of the ruling class to keep the populace subservient.

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Can someone teach the boomer generation too? They are vastly more susceptible to believing anything they read online

    • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Online literacy is really impacting boomers and elder gen x. Like QAnon or Covid Vaccines - some of them flip and just go psycho to the point it impacts their lives.

  • SanguineBrah@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    This is nothing new. I was taught about analysing bias etc in news sources during “citizenship” classes 20+ years ago. Before that, it was called PSHE if I remember correctly.

  • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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    3 months ago

    and maths lessons may include analysing statistics in context.

    It always depresses me when people around can’t even do a crude estimation that would debunk unteuthful information. And this isn’t just about news - when you do any sort of math or experiment you should be able to make a crude estimation to eliminate mistakes.

    I can easily tell when I’m two orders of magnitude away from the correct result. It seems to be a rare skill apparently

  • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    This is supposed to be happening everywhere. In the US, librarians mostly lead this initiative.

  • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    I have mixed feelings. The UK has an incredibly broad definition of extremism. Socialism and antifascism are considered extremist ideologies.

    The justification is to stop people like the ones doing pogroms rn, but giving the state power will always be a double-edged sword, one where the edge that swings left is sharper.

    • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Idk critical thinking skills might be good as long as it’s not politically backed to single out a specific ideology or propaganda source.

      • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        I don’t know about you, but I have a sinking feeling that a country organized on liberal principles will integrate liberalism into its education.

        • yamanii@lemmy.world
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          This already happens, most people that become socialists only do it by university age, I still think teaching kids to identify fake news is a good thing, maybe they radicalize even earlier thanks to that.

          • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            I know it already happens. I’m worried it will intensify.

            I myself became a socialist late into middle school, but I recognize that I’m an edge case.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      giving the state power will always be a double-edged sword, one where the edge that swings left is sharper…

      Uhh, beg pardon? How so?

      • jorp@lemmy.world
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        Capitalist economies accumulate wealth and power into the hands of capitalists. Capitalists are not threatened by fascism, they’re threatened by socialism. Therefore, capitalists will always attack the left more strongly than the right, and they wield more power than the working class in a liberal society.

  • Konis@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    “Extremist content” == “not wanting Palestinians to be dehumanized, dispossessed and murdered by Israel”

      • li10@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        Hopefully it tries to be as neutral as possible, and just gives kids the general tools to spot when something’s fake/exaggerated.

        Introducing this sort of thing without trying to be strictly impartial sounds like a slippery slope.

            • cactusupyourbutt@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              sure, but now they have a reason to talk about this. If a teacher randomly talks about media bias kids are gonna think its weird as fuck and maybe tell parents, but now in this class

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          Hopefully it tries to be as neutral as possible

          No. Forcing a neutral perspective between absurdity and objectively true claims is how we got here.

          When one party says that scientific evidence is real and the other says it’s a Marxist conspiracy, forced neutralized lends undue credence to the latter.

          Similarly, forcibly neutral newsrooms and the neoliberal Starmer government consider it extremist to acknowledge that the fascist apartheid regime of Israel is committing genocide and to call for your country to not supply them with arms, funds, and political cover.

          It should try to be as FACTUAL and OBJECTIVE as possible, not chase neutrality when neutrality flies in the face of evidence and the most basic accountability and human rights.

          Introducing this sort of thing without trying to be strictly impartial sounds like a slippery slope.

          Yeah, they’re GOING to consider extremism as anything too far from the interests of the neoliberal and capitalist elite in either direction rather than pursue an evidence-based curriculum of critical thinking like they’re pretending.

        • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 months ago

          Obviously. But I’m referring to why this was planned, ie. some events led to this being deemed necessary. I’m guessing it’s alt-right radicalisation and post-truth politics, and not the recent Israeli Invasion of Gaza.

  • mdwhite999@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    Correction. English children will be taught this. Education is a devolved matter in the UK so this will not apply to the other parts of the UK