I am passionate about showing kids how to use social media for good. And I am passionate about helping kindness go viral. When I see negative behaviour sifting to the surface, my instinct is to not engage, not perpetuate it further, and to combat negativity with positivity. But although that is my first instinct, I know there is definitely a need to help our students (and adults) become critical observers of how human behaviour unfolds both in person and on social media.
Sometimes we see in-person hate magnified and perpetuated by further negativity in the form of finger-pointing, making assumptions. This only serves to amplify further distrust and hate.
One such example happened last weekend and truthfully, I have been mulling over the event and this post ever since. I am talking about the incident which occurred on Saturday, January 19th whereby a Native American elder was mocked by a mob of teens at a rally in Washington, D.C., and the counter-narratives that present an alternative scenario. There is no doubt that the smirk on the face of the young boy was one of disrespect, but there is much more to the story than we originally thought in the first moments the video hit social media. The incident provides a good opportunity for a critical/media/information literacy lesson as well as conversation starter for students to reflect on issues of inequality and social justice and the role social media plays in amplifying hate, distrust and misinformation.
Chances are, your students would have seen the posts and/or the video, so it is also one they may pay attention to because it’s “real” and hits many curriculum expectations (reading, writing, oral communication, media)
Analyze the text (article, tweet, blogpost, video) using this criteria:
Tone (what is the tone of the text? what makes you say that?)
Diction (what words are used to relay the message? what are some other words which could have been used? what is the impact of word choice?)
Purpose (what action or emotion is this tweet trying to elicit?)
Audience (for whom is this text intended? what can we infer about the audience for whom this tweet is intended?)
Perspective (how might different community members interpret this tweet ex. the boy’s mother, the Native American elder’s sister, a bystander who is a supporter of the March, a classmate of the student in question. How might this incident be interpreted by that perspective?
You could then invite students to share their analyses. and make a list together of all of the problem(s) and assumptions that they are noticing. I would say it is important to stay neutral and allow the texts to speak.
Alternatively, consider these critical literacy questions:
How might we?
From the analysis of the texts and a better understanding of the narrative, the following problems might be raised:
- historical mistreatment of Indigenous people
- parallels to historical mistreatment of other minority groups
- skewing of perspective to change a narrative
- mob mentality
- generalization about “kids these days” based on the behaviour of a few individuals
- political opinions creating discord
- assumptions
This resource , shared by Royan Lee, can help support some tough conversations that may come up about social justice.
Hopeful action
We could then invite students to finish the statement, How might we address……? in relation to the problems they are seeing.
One of the things I have learned is that when students are given the chance to think about actions to address “wicked problems”, some of them have some really great ideas.
Bottom line
As educators, we need to help students use their critical thinking skills to understand what is transpiring in the world around them. We also need to remember that kids are always watching; Albert Bandura’s Theory of Observation learning tells us that we learn from the behaviour of others and so we need to be mindful of what we post, like, tweet, retweet, and how we respond to others. We should strive to ensure our own responses don’t make assumptions and don’t perpetuate further negativity.
Here are a few links to tweets and articles about this incident which I have curated (randomly), but you can choose your own and apply this methodology to any text.
Statement of Nick Sandmann (boy in the video)
Nathan Philips statement (Native elder)
Here is a lesson plan created by PBS and shared by Kathleen Currie Smith.