Recognizing fake news now a required subject in California schools

This is worrying at the very least. It is long well known that teachers have their own political agenda (with a small p) when in the classroom with children and this is a way to give them carte blanche to spout their own preferences particularly on sources of news in a very quickly changing world.

Main Stream Media have their own biases which are well publicized and many so called journalists only report what they think the public ought to know rather than the facts.

The recent Israel/Hamas war has been a perfect example of how difficult it is to find out true facts even for discerning adults.

When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash, several "witnesses" were interviewed and their words were splashed across reliable news outlets worldwide. It was later discovered that these people saw nothing and were just looking for their 5 minutes of fame. Many scientists with peer reviewed data were not given media coverage during Covid and it has later been proven that their work and their information was legitimate. Before the last election, many news organizations now admit to burying the news about Hunter Biden's laptop in case in swayed the election. In fact, many news organizations are still not reporting the facts about the Biden's family legal fights whereas they report on everything said and done about Trump and his family.

I agree that teaching the difference between opinion pieces and reliable accounts of events is a good idea, but otherwise it would be necessary to show comparisons from different sources as to how "spin" can influence public opinion. However the dangers of just allowing teachers to "spin" their own views is tantamount to indoctrination of their own ideals.

When things like this get added on, it usually falls on the "social sciences" teachers, or a once a week "Advisory/Homeroom" course. Math and Science are too important to be disrupted, and not the logical place for such curriculum anyhow. In addition, there is no way schools will hire staff dedicated to this realm. Too costly.

The questions most politicians and school administrators ignore are "What do we take away in order to make room for this new curriculum?" Or, "What standards get sacrificed in lieu of these new standards?"

Answers tend to go along these lines:

"Weave it in".

"It's just good teaching".

"You'll figure it out".

In other words, it will most likely be a half hearted effort since the message is the same old message:

"Just do it all".

Plus, no one will really evaluate the efficacy of the effort because that would require time, money, and resources. If and when all of that is marshaled, politicians and schools will be on to the next issue du jour.

Maybe some high impact assemblies would do the trick and not add more pressure to overburdened teachers. But why pay for that when the teachers will do it for free?

You'll get what you pay for.

Well IMHO it is about time! When I was in high school we had civics as part of the curriculum. And one of the courses/units was POD - Problems of Democracy. I whsh I had the course outline. But among the many useful and thought provoking topics was ads and testimonials and product claims and how to decide what was meaningful, important, and likely true - and what was irrelevant, immaterial, and possibly untrue. "90% of doctors who smoke, choose Kool!" Anyway, I think this is long overdue. And really, it can (and I believe will be) be taught objectively.

This is absurd. Elementary school is the perfect time? Whatever happened to the three R's? Fake news is used to influence political views, and it's very subjective. Keep politics out of the classroom, and at the ballot where it belongs. These kids aren't old enough to vote, and they have the rest of their lives to make their own decisions.