“Digital Literacy Volition Belike Last The Alone Variety Of Literacy In That Place Is”

Interview with Matthew D’Ancona, political columnist for the Guardian in addition to the New York Times
by Marilyn Achiron, Editor, Directorate for Education in addition to Skills

“Learning how to navigate the spider web amongst discernment is the most pressing cultural mission of our age.” So asserts Matthew D’Ancona, political columnist for the Guardian in addition to the New York Times, inward his timely in addition to passionately argued novel book, Post-Truth: The War on Truth in addition to How to Fight Back. D’Ancona writes that he sees his majority equally an exploration of “the declining value of truth equally society’s reserve currency” in addition to asks: “So what happens when lies non only proliferate but also appear to affair less – or fifty-fifty non at all?” We met amongst D’Ancona inward June, when he spoke at the OECD Forum in Paris.

Marilyn Achiron: How tin schools manage educate immature people to hold out able to tell fact from fiction when they’re using the Internet?

Matthew D’Ancona: It’s a fighting similar hold out given a machine without beingness taught to drive, isn’t it? Kids direct keep access to digital devices from a real early on age. You tin hold out certain that, inward a classroom of 7- or 8-year-olds, a proficient few of them volition already direct keep access to the Internet; perhaps more, in addition to perhaps younger. I recollect digital literacy should hold out taught equally a carve upward subject, in addition to I would instruct it from the historic catamenia of 5. At the moment, it’s basically left to parents to create upward one's hear how they police push clit their children on line. But we’re living inward a transitional era, where a lot of parents don’t know what is on line. Many of them may direct keep popular off comfortable amongst email in addition to perhaps fifty-fifty direct keep a Facebook page, but perhaps they don’t empathise how deep in addition to broad the Internet is. So at that spot is a definite component subdivision for formal instruction inward this. And to me, it’s a no-brainer. One of the basic tasks of instruction inward whatsoever organization is to instruct children how to read a text. First, how to read it, in addition to then, equally they grow older, how to empathise it.

At the moment, schools process the Internet equally if it was merely some other tool, equally a agency of writing essays on their laptops or going to Google. But there’s real footling endeavor to encourage kids to say: “When I popular off to this website or access social media, how tin I hold out certain that it’s reliable?” I recollect it should hold out instilled inward kids from a real early on historic catamenia that the Internet is an unbelievably powerful tool in addition to it tin hold out powerful inward the best possible ways; but it tin also hold out a sort of engine of falsehood. I don’t recollect y'all tin hold off children to know that instinctively whatsoever to a greater extent than than y'all tin hold off them to empathise Shakespeare or Proust instinctively. It’s something that is taught; it’s a skill. The difficulty is, at the moment, at that spot isn’t a real large cohort of teachers who direct keep those skills. So ane of things governments volition direct keep to create is legislate in addition to devote resources to grooming teachers how to create this…We are preparing our children for a futurity where digital literacy volition in all probability hold out the only sort of literacy at that spot is.

MA: We appear to hold out living inward a civilisation of lying. People prevarication on social media, they prevarication on their CVs…

MD’A: It’s popular off easier to lie. Anonymity in addition to physical distance direct keep enabled people to lie. It’s extremely slowly on social media to create an alone illusory self. And people honour a sort of therapeutic value inward that. Of course of written report it’s enormously dangerous. At its extreme version, it tin hold out used for the most appalling manipulations of children, for instance.

MA: Is it because parents in addition to teachers are non teaching the value of the truth anymore?

MD’A: I don’t recollect teachers direct keep failed; I merely recollect the chore has popular off infinitely to a greater extent than difficult. It goes dorsum to the whole enquiry of digital literacy. It is terrifying to me that Holocaust denial has popular off thus prevalent again. When y'all facial expression dorsum at the past times xxx years, at that spot was the famous case of David Irving that was meant to hold out the bang-up drawing-of-a-line nether that: Holocaust denial had been taken to courtroom in addition to destroyed. But it’s nevertheless unopen to – and, arguably, reaching to a greater extent than peole than e'er because [David Irving] is straight off an online icon for these people. That’s some other reality: amongst the Internet, zero is settled; y'all direct keep to hold out permanently vigilent.

I recollect that what volition happen, equally inward years past, is that we’ll consider almost a consumerist approach to information, which I recollect is real sensible. We’ll opt to a greater extent than in addition to to a greater extent than for Kitemarks* in addition to validations: “this website is realiable; y'all tin trust this”. In the UK, y'all direct keep Which?, the consumer association; for restaurants, y'all direct keep the Michelin guide. It’s non hard to found trusted forms of vetting. I recollect that bigger in addition to to a greater extent than adventurous examples of that, crowdfunded or fifty-fifty perhaps fifty-fifty publicly funded, volition hold out essential, thus that at that spot is a Kitemark on the top of websites proverb “this website has been judged”…. But this requires people to accept the time; in addition to the work is where 10 or twenty years agone you’d hold out talking nigh hundreds of media brands, you’re straight off talking nigh millions of webpages. That’s the difficulty. But y'all direct keep to starting fourth dimension somewhere, in addition to I recollect the proficient tin drive out the bad.

Links
OECD Forum 2017
Schools should instruct pupils how to spot 'fake news', past times Sean Coughlan, BBC, xviii March 2017.

* The British Standards Institution’s Kitemark is a “quality grade [that] confirms that a production or service has been thoroughly tested in addition to checked, fourth dimension in addition to again, in addition to proven to come across a recognised manufacture criterion or need. It’s a voluntary grade manufacturers in addition to service industries purpose to demonstrate safety, reliability in addition to quality”.

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