DIGITAL CRITICAL THINKING:
A Needed Curriculum
Democracy does not function without an educated populace. Jefferson knew it, Lenin knew it, and now, well, we all know it. Primary and secondary school educators in the US do their best, under shifting and often burdensome constraints, to instill in our children the language literacy and STEM / STEAM subjects necessary to thrive in the 21st Century. But there is one crucial piece largely missing from todays curricula, arguable the most relevant and powerful influence in these students’ lives, now and for the foreseeable.
Children and adolescents today, like the rest of us, are flooded with distraction, information and entertainment streaming at them through the digital devices in their lives. But they have been provided little guidance and few tools for navigating the truly treacherous parts of this defining feature of our time.
Additionally, American history and current events can no longer be accurately taught without some treatment of conspiracy theories. There is little dissent among serious, credible observers that the broad spectrum of conspiracy narratives played a decisive role in the 2016 election, and in the response to, and effects of, the COVID-19 pandemic. Conspiracy theories have become a significant force in American civic life. But teachers are in a double bind here. As agents of the state, they should not be perceived as indoctrinating students into any mainstream narrative or skeptical perspective. Some teachers themselves subscribe to some portion of the “conspiracy-paranoia spectrum.” And indeed, some conspiracies are real.
But we can’t allow these circumstances to prevent or postpone the development of curricula in Digital Critical Thinking. Both the state and parents have critical vested interests in addressing this concern. Public educators share the responsibility of cultivating informed, engaged citizens, and parents need to know their children are receiving the tools to develop rich inner lives and to critically evaluate the world around them. We need to develop a curriculum to do this.
Any treatment of the topic has to be built around questions, not outcomes.
Because the relevant technologies are changing so rapidly, and answers derived today will likely be outdated tomorrow, and also to attenuate the dilemma facing educators in addressing conspiracy narratives, we suggest that the format of this curriculum be built around a series open-ended questions:
Where do we get our information; why do we believe it is trustworthy?
How do we avoid echo chambers and information bubbles?
How do we recognize when we’re being sold something or otherwise manipulated?
How do we know when we are, in fact, the product being packaged, marketed and sold to marketers and market aggregators?
What is privacy in the 21st Century? What is its value, and how do we protect it?
How does digital technology bring us together, as families, as citizens, as humans? How does it drive us apart?
How do we regulate our usage of these highly addictive technologies?
How do we balance digital consumption with digital production? How do we use these powerful tools as tools, more than as entertainment-delivery systems?
How and why does discourse degrade so quickly and easily in online or digital text-based forums? How can we maintain respect and civility in our digital exchanges?
How does digital media change us?
This is a broad sketch, and each of these questions has sub-routines and supporting questions to help guide the inquiry. In addition, we suggest that any approach to this subject make active steps to engage and coordinate with parents, since they are also scrambling to come up with sensible solutions to brand new problems and conditions introduced by these new technologies. Schools and teachers should take care to:
Keep parents informed regarding what digital technology the students are being provided with.
Suggest guidelines to parents on such topics as what age to introduce cellphones, and under what conditions; How much access per day is appropriate; Should screens be allowed in bedrooms, etc..
Right now may not seem like the best time to think this kind of “big”. With so much uncertainty and discord, there are so many other issues that appear more pressing. But this, right here, is where it all starts. The divisiveness, the misinformation, the incivility. The actual and imagined conspiracies. Hacking, trolling, tweeting, vaccine misinformation and resistance; it all orbits around this new medium. And we shouldn’t let another grade graduate without putting some serious thought into how to school them in this, how to prepare them for this new world.
-Erling Hope
erlinghope@gmail.com
631.725.4294 x2