Young people have a right to news literacy – MinnPost
NLP’s John Silva explained in a piece for the nonprofit news site MinnPost why news literacy education must be integrated into K-12 education across all subject areas and grade levels and be mandated as a high school graduation requirement.
“Adults struggle to navigate this overload of information, yet we assume young people, incorrectly called ‘digital natives,’ somehow know how to do so from birth. The fact is, no one is born with innate technology skills; they must be taught and reinforced through practice. We are failing young people by not preparing them for the problematic information ecosystem they are growing up with and inheriting,” Silva wrote. “This is why young people have a right to news literacy.”
This piece ran in MinnPost’s Community Voices section in advance of NLP’s June 15 NewsLitCamp® with the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio. Silva is NLP’s senior director of education and training.