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When hundreds of seniors from the high school where I teach attended a post-graduation event in a public space last June, they left some in the community fuming. ‘Teens kill grandparents’ was the title of a Reddit post. National media covered the brazen mid-pandemic event, organized by parents. One of my respected colleagues at school posted on instagram, “I feel like I failed as your teacher because clearly you learned nothing from me at all. I’m ashamed today.”
Teach all the formulas, grammar, and facts you want, but once students are out in the wild, all bets are off. If our goal as educators is to help our students learn how to learn, and know how to make good decisions with that information, we need to empower them with the tools and mindset they need to survive a world full of conspiracy theories and psychological pressures to ignore fact and science.
I think that begins with learning how to see: How do you know what’s true? Who can you believe (even yourself)? What prevents us from seeing the world as it really is? And what happens if you’re wrong?
To help develop these skills I created this lesson plan, which is more of a sequence of experiences and mentor texts, with corresponding discussion questions. It helps us see the limits of knowledge, and how our eyes, mind and culture can fool us. Then take it to the next level by having students produce a podcast based on their experience.
I hope you can use this lesson with your students, and that it can change how they see the world, not just look at it. I can’t wait to hear about the results.
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