Digital Smarts - Why Kids Need News Literacy

Students are prepared to get behind the wheel and navigate busy roads, but not to investigate a complicated information superhighway, writes Liz Ramos, who teaches history and US government at a California high school. In a recent commentary, Ramos writes that the US election has highlighted the importance of teaching news literacy in schools so students learn to think critically and be informed, engaged citizens.  She cites Finland as an example of a country that is teaching information literacy in grade school, seamlessly integrating it across subjects. In math class, students learn how statistics can be used to distort. In art class, they see how the meaning of an image can be manipulated. In history, they examine propaganda, and in Finnish language classes, students learn how words can be used to confuse, mislead and deceive.