Weekly Reading Posts

After reading David Buckingham's article "Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture, I have a better understanding of the need for media literacy to be taught in K-12 curriculums. I've worked with non-profit mentoring programs in the classrooms of Los Angeles high schools and I've seen how a lack of resources can hinder growth in students. However, I wasn't aware of the lack in media instruction and how that affects how children see the world they're living in. It's easy to notice a lack of tangible resources like books and dilapidated classrooms. It's much more difficult to recognize how social class systems affect how students interpret media and interact with it. Buckingham explains the downside of this reality when comparing how middle class students tend to articulate their understanding of what is real or fake in television while working class students focus more on their likes and dislikes. This seems to point to a stark difference between the critical thinking skills that middle class students acquire in school versus working class students. Clearly, there's an implication for long term inequity among students K-12 based on Buckingham's research. However, there is also hope in the fact that curriculums that incorporate media literacy lead to a stronger sense of discernment in students between what is real vs what is fake. The need for students to learn to discern reality from falsehoods will only grow more important given our society of social media and AI issues.