The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The conflict in the Middle East. The Russia-Ukraine war. The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
All these events offered students and educators a chance to discuss unfolding news from deeply informed—but potentially, starkly opposing—perspectives, and to practice the sort of respectful, evidence-based dialogue that’s typically missing from Reddit boards or 30-second TikTok videos.
But, by and large, students and educators aren’t getting the support they need to navigate a polarized digital media landscape, according to a report released this month by the Or Initiative, a program aimed at improving students’ digital literacy and civil discourse skills.
“The traditional media literacy skills that they’ve been taught around checking whether the source is credible, looking for an additional source, et cetera, are very poorly matched to algorithmically driven environments and feeds where sources, stories, ideas vanish into a scroll,” said Vikki Katz, a professor at Chapman University in California, where the Or Initiative is based.
Seeing content in this digital landscape “influences kids” even as students and teachers acknowledge social media makes it’s hard to compare various arguments side-by-side or place information in a broader context, added Katz, who is the Or Initiative’s executive director.
The report was based on qualitative interviews with middle and high school students and their teachers in New York City and southern California., and drawn from a a review of 84 different curriculum models focused on civil discourse, media literacy, peace/conflict education, and similar topics.
The interviews and curriculum examination focused on a particularly divisive issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because it’s a long-standing news story that’s likely to show up in students’ social media feeds for an extended period of time, even years, Katz explained.
Students and educators want open conversations about divisive topics
Teens are learning to process news in a world where artificial intelligence can be used to create fake images and videos, influencers are put on par with standards-based news organizations in social media feeds, and algorithms are deliberately constructed to show users content they are likely to agree with.
That complexity leaves teens open to making big mistakes in sorting fact from fiction, Katz said. For instance, some teens told researchers that they’re more apt to believe a fact if they’ve seen it in their feed more than once, not realizing that social media platforms are designed to keep showing users news stories and images similar to those they’ve already engaged with.
Students may also say that they found a particular piece of information on a social media site such as TikTok, without recognizing that TikTok is a platform to connect with sources, not a source unto itself, Katz added.
Students want the opportunity to discuss important news events with their peers, even those who might have opinions different from their own, the report said.
“I wish that [conversations] were more open,” said Lia, a high school student in California quoted in the report. She recalled how one of her teachers sought to frame a discussion in a way that may have stifled it.
“I remember one time we were learning about a certain [historical] tariff, which is very similar to the tariff that Trump was implementing. And [my teacher] prefaced, before she taught it, saying: ‘I don’t want anybody to try to make a connection [to Trump] or anything…. I don’t want you to think that I, blah, blah; I just want to preface…’ and kept saying stuff like that.”
Educators worry about bringing up politically-charged issues
For their part, educators want to be able to offer their students a safe space to practice an evidence-based, give-and-take dialogue. But they worry about being seen as biased or politically motivated. They also receive little or no guidance from district and school leaders on how to handle these complex discussions.
“The experience of living in a Twitterized discourse is that you can say anything you want,” one school leader in New York is quoted in the report as saying. “I’m not sure that teachers are necessarily comfortable or equipped to know how to navigate those conversations when someone comes in using a—Twitter voice, for lack of a better descriptor.”
Educators hoping to facilitate give-and-take conversations about politically charged news events or societal issues shouldn’t ignore the digital world that their students are immersed in, the report recommends.
But they should insist that any classroom discussion about those events or issues remain grounded in evidence.
Teachers must also encourage their students to learn skills that will help them sort the deluge of information they receive, including lateral reading (fact-checking information against reputable sources) and critical ignoring (making a deliberate choice to not engage with low-quality information).
And they need to have support and backing from district in school leaders to bring up uncomfortable topics for the sake of open dialogue, Katz added.
What’s more, educators shouldn’t wait for the next society-shaking news moment to give their students the chance to practice both sophisticated fact-checking and civil, respectful debate over a charged topic.
For instance, teachers could start the week by sharing images or stories that may have dominated teens’ social media feeds over the weekend, then allow their students to have a fact-based, nuanced discussion that respects different points of view. (On Katz’s wish list: A tech tool, designed with significant student and teacher input, that would make it easier for educators to surface social media content for these discussions).
The idea isn’t to help students learn how to “win a debate,” Katz said. Instead, it is to help students practice engaging “civilly with someone who might have come to a different outcome based on the same evidence” that they themselves reviewed, she explained.
Students have to learn how to “deeply understand issues in the world that matter and that they are going to be left to solve,” she said, “and that they have to know how to talk to each other even when they don’t agree.”
