Make media literacy a priority in Illinois schools

A 13-year-old sees a stunning claim on her social media feed: "Disney star Debby Ryan dies of heart attack." Wanting to share the wealth of new information, she immediately makes a few clicks on her phone, and almost immediately a dozen fellow fans bemoan the same news.

But there was no cause to mourn Ryan's death this past summer. Like much of the other misinformation passed around cyber space, it was a rumor gone wild.

While spreading "news" such as this typically doesn't endanger life or limb, there are significant threats when internet users are too quick to click. Children are not immune from the plethora of fake news, phishing attacks, malicious bots, hidden bias and disinformation that abounds online. In fact, they may be front and center.

Yet who is teaching them about it?

Youngsters have been instructed on digital safety in schools since 2009, mandated by the Illinois School Code. This helps to open their eyes to potential predators and bullies. However, media literacy has not been formally prioritized in education, and many students are not consistently being taught how to thoughtfully navigate the endless stream of information. It's time to change that.

Media literacy - the ability to analyze and evaluate content transmitted through multiple formats - is a critical thinking skill that requires instruction and practice. Young people need to discern the differences between news and commentary, fact and opinion. There are other online perils to watch for, too. Bots can infect large numbers of computers with viruses and gather personal information. Phishing scams create the same threats to privacy.

Teaching children what's credible and what's harmful includes skills such as decoding website names, recognizing malicious links, and detecting misinformation or bias that can lead to poor decision making and poor research. Practice in using these skills is especially essential as children are given digital devices at increasingly early ages, both at home and at school.

There is a growing awareness of the deficits in students' understanding about online ploys. Membership in the National Association for Media Literacy Education has grown from 300 to 5,000 since 2015. Some suburban school districts and are beginning to implement media literacy units in their curriculum.

For instance, Northwest Suburban High School District 214 requires all freshmen to complete a mini course on digital skills in the fall, and those concepts are revisited throughout the year. In Wheaton-Warrenville District 200, the board has added language to its vision statement to include emphasis on evaluating "future communication trends" and developing curriculum with an eye on digital citizenship.

These two examples are positive steps. Illinois schoolchildren need continual lessons integrated in many subject areas, not just language arts or journalism. Educators need tools and opportunities to integrate media literacy in their teaching.

Bringing changes to schools often is a challenge, but a NAMLE report offers good starting points based on a survey of educators and administrators earlier this year. It found that the top three obstacles facing educators were a lack of understanding of what media literacy is, limited curricular resources and funding.

Another sign of progress in Illinois is a joint resolution introduced in the House that would create a media literacy task force to assess the media habits of the state's youth and create possible policies. A proposal making its way through the General Assembly states that "high schools may include a unit of instruction in media literacy and the superintendent of education may make instructional materials available."

While these proposals may create awareness, they appear to have little teeth. Legislative and community action elsewhere goes further. Washington and California lawmakers have moved toward prioritizing media literacy in education. Colorado legislation is aimed at creating an advisory committee of teachers, journalists, librarians and others to recommend how to incorporate media literacy education into existing K-12 school curricula. A public broadcasting station in San Francisco has developed a certification program for educators teaching media literacy. And Google recently expanded its own digital safety and citizenship curriculum to include media literacy.

A recent Daily Herald editorial reminds us that teens are trading the habit of reading for social media and streaming entertainment at an alarming rate. With all that screen time, children must learn how to make sense of volumes of information. Teaching them to think before they click on a link, share news or adopt a viewpoint will enable them to become smarter consumers and, eventually, responsible voters.

Young people will always want to get their friends' attention, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that desire. With a solid background in media literacy, the next time they scan a stunning headline about their favorite celebrity, perhaps they will check the source first.

Colleen Thomas, a former Daily Herald editor, has taught language arts classes in suburban middle schools.