I’ll never forget sitting in a sunny school field on sports day a couple of years ago and seeing one of my students claim that aeroplanes are spreading ‘chemtrails’.
It shocked me that a bright, articulate and high-achieving person could so nonchalantly regurgitate an online conspiracy that chemicals were being sprayed on the population for sinister purposes.
As a secondary school teacher, I can’t help but feel that the spread of online misinformation is one of the most pressing issues of our time – and that’s why I’m cautiously optimistic that the government has unveiled plans to try and tackle it.
I’ve taught teen boys who regurgitate misogynistic terms catapulted into fame by influencers like Andrew Tate – from making derogatory references to girls as ‘females’ or even ‘whores’ to boys idolising Tate’s ideas of a ‘high value man’
I’ve even had kids ask me if the Queen really died or if the Covid vaccine is actually a chip implanted to spy on us.
A BBC Bitesize survey in September found that half of 13-18 year olds had been exposed to conspiracy theory online.
In many schools, staff are dealing with deepfake videos of both teachers and children being circulated – sometimes to catastrophic effect – I’ve anecdotally heard of fellow teachers being provisionally suspended after being accused of impropriety in a deepfake video.
Not only this, but social media algorithms feed my pupils content which is often extreme and inaccurate – such as hard-right conspiracies about foreigners taking over Britain.
In a recent lesson where the topic of race riots arose, I was astonished by the amount of pupils in my class, who themselves are descended from migrants, believed that the government houses anyone who comes into the UK in swanky, 5 star hotels.
When children receive misinformation from the one source they trust most – their smartphones – it can feel nearly impossible to challenge.
Of course, they also take information from the adults around them who can also be vulnerable to misinformation, but in educational settings, we can try and challenge this at source.
I distinctly remember that when schools reopened after lockdown, I was accused of being a ‘government plant’ by a pupil because I asserted that Covid was indeed real and dangerous.
There was nothing I could say that seemed to change his mind.
No matter how strong the relationships we build with students are, many still see the adults in their lives as part of a broader effort to make them accept the status quo- while viewing their phones as a source of objective truth.
For this reason, I was encouraged to learn that the government plans to integrate education on misinformation, fake news, and artificial intelligence into the national curriculum in England.
It is vital that we train the next generation to actively recognise fake news and equip them with the skills to seek out impartial and trustworthy information.
Because, whether we like it or not, we are becoming more and more reliant on technology as a society and AI is an increasingly frequent part of our lives and is being taken as the ultimate arbiter of truth, by a generation who have grown up on screens.
Therefore, it is critical that we teach children how to use it safely and effectively – and crucially, to be able to recognise its flaws.
This is something I’m already seeing the need for. It is commonplace now for pupils to trust ChatGPT implicitly – even on things which it cannot know, such as what might come up in an exam. The consequences of that are obvious.
Rather than trying to peel them away from the devices they live their lives on, I think it is imperative that we teach children how to make technology complement other irreplaceable aspects in life, such as human interaction or the experience and wisdom of parents and teachers.
As much as I welcome the introduction of misinformation lessons in the curriculum, I can’t help but wonder how an already overstretched and underfunded education system is going to cope with these new demands.
My colleagues and I barely have time to get through the contents of exam specifications by year 11, let alone find opportunities to train children on spotting fake news.
These changes are necessary but they must be fully-funded and be part of wider education reforms – like better incentives to retain teachers – if they are going to be effective.
Otherwise, they will become yet another tickbox exercise that we have to cover in the classroom, relegated to five minutes a week as we rush through everything else.
There is simply no other time in the day.
If the government is really serious about this change – rather than grabbing headlines with a shiny new policy – then these sweeping reforms must come with the resources and tools to enable schools to do them justice.
We owe it to the next generation.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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