Toronto Star event aims to provide strategies for helping youth think critically about media that they consume
This article was written by Asma Sahebzada and was published in the Toronto Star on November 30, 2024.
Helping young people spot online misinformation is a challenge Joyce Grant knows all too well.
They’re impressionable and less equipped to critically evaluate the media they consume, says the journalist and cofounder of Teaching Kids News, a site offering free, professionally written articles for children, along with educatordeveloped curriculum materials.
“Misinformation lives where young people live,” the award winning author told educators and parents in attendance at the Toronto Star Media Literacy Event on Friday.
The event aimed to provide strategies for helping young people think critically about the media they consume.
The first step to promoting media literacy, Grant said, is to encourage students to be both curious and skeptical about the things they see in media.
“What I’m going to encourage you to do is to talk to the young people and listen to what they have to say,” Grant added.
“Because they have information that we don’t think about.”
Grant also emphasized the dangers of young people not trusting their own judgment, particularly when they encounter information that doesn’t seem right.
She said it’s important for teachers to act as a “credible source” who students can fact check things with.
Star editorinchief Nicole MacIntyre noted during an Ask Me Anything session at the event that more young people are getting their news from “news influencers” as the industry shrinks.
“I worry a lot about that because they (news influencers) rely on our journalism, but we rely on them to translate it in a way that is truthful,” MacIntyre said.
Jonathan Tilly, a Toronto teacher who cofounded Teaching Kids News with Grant, encourages his students to ask questions they wouldn’t usually ask, because it’s a vital part of being a critical thinker.
Both Grant and Tilly, who was also a speaker, encouraged teachers to create lessons around fake news based on students’ interests.
“Those connections show your investment in your students,” Tilly said before adding that it’s essential to build students’ trust in order for them to be comfortable to approach their teachers with questions.
Neil Andersen, president of the Association for Media Literacy, a notforprofit organization that helps educators and parents develop a critical understanding of media’s role and impact, emphasized that, alongside the guidance of teachers and trusted adults, children need to be “self directed learners” in an everchanging digital world.
“They (students) cannot be media literate enough. They need to be studying it all the time,” said Andersen, who is also a supply teacher. “It needs to be something that is talked about each and every school day.”
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