![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/00ed1f_8afd614e7c9745e096ef9fc381707e2e~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_1363,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/00ed1f_8afd614e7c9745e096ef9fc381707e2e~mv2.jpg)
My son and I agreed Chick-fil-a has the best lemonade; it is soooo good. I have been enjoying it on occasion especially in this extended Texas summer heat. My son was going to a different restaurant to get some chicken because that’s what he wanted, and Chick-fil-a is closed on Sunday. (Can you tell I didn’t cook? smile) Anyway, I asked him to get me a lemonade from this different restaurant. He said, “Are you sure? Cause they don’t have good lemonade all the time. I’ve had problems with their lemonade.” I said, “Really? They’ve always had good lemonade for me, I think or was it their tea? “ Anyway, get me one of them.” I generously received two: one lemonade and one tea. The lemonade was absolutely disgusting; I put it down
after one sip.
What are you consuming? What books? What images? What language? What podcasts? What television? What social media? Everything we partake of becomes a part of us. Our belief systems are formed by our family’s ideologies or lack thereof, our daily actions prove our faith or lack thereof, and our formal and informal education dictates our creative thoughts or lack thereof. In the education field, many professionals pride themselves on being a life-long learner as we model for our students the realities of always learning. We must recognize and value how each of these learning platforms may inform our mindsets and thus our reactions to life’s experiences.
If the information we are watching, listening, reading is not making us better individually, better personally or better professionally then why view it, hear it, or comprehend it. As a member of the National Association of Media Literacy Education, it was a pleasure to attend the Fall meeting; I was reminded of the importance of what information we allow to enter our schemas and how we have an obligation to ourselves and others to carefully evaluate all the information we receive regardless of the source of the information. During one segment of the meeting, some teachers highlighted strategies they used to teach students about the important skill of thinking about all the information they intake as learners. Each teacher shared lessons in which they used successful strategies to help students learn to critically think about information and not just become a passive consumer. One language arts teacher shared her story of building positive relationships with her students enabling her to make the curriculum content relevant to the students. She reminds students that fighting is not allowed and against campus policies, but she also tells them if she sees the fight on one of the social media platforms in addition to notifying administrators she will let the students know if they won or lost the fight.
If you have ever taught children, especially teenagers, this strategy may be quite useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, students are really into social media; by the way adults love social media, too. Social media may be a good tool for learning and networking as long as we use it for good by analyzing the information and assessing the creators of the content. Secondly, students love to laugh and be entertained. Although fighting is never sanctioned among professionals, being told you lost may have an entertaining effect. Lastly, and I concluded the main point of the teacher, students should never be seen on a video doing something they should never be involved in. Her humorous statement may have made us laugh, but the greater purpose was to set a precedent. In her class a student may think, “Do I really want to be judged by my teacher and/or others as the loser of a fight with video evidence available?” A student may reasonably conclude, “Nah, that’s not for me; it’s not worth it.” Therefore accomplishing the teacher’s overall goal to stop the fight before it even starts.
Like the non-fighting student, let us better consider our decisions. We have all heard the old adage, “We are what we eat.” The same is true of us and our students; we are what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. As we continue our personal and professional learning journeys, carefully consider which messages we allow to enter. Make sure the messages uplift us, inform us and align with our district policies and procedures and in the case of personal learning, messages should align with our values. If it does not align, do not consume it. After one sip of lemonade, it was easy for me to put it down because it did not align with my taste buds. I had tasted the ‘good stuff’ and was not willing to put something in my body that did not meet my standards. If I am going to consume the calories (especially the ones I don’t need), I want it to be worth it.
The bible shares in Luke 14 a nugget of wisdom of a person building a tower; an individual should “count up the cost”. What relationships are you building? What mindsets are you building? What actions are you building? Is your foundation filled with factual or biased information? Does your foundation include multiple sources? Did you check your sources against other sources? The master teacher admonishes us to count the costs for building the solid foundation needed to move our lives forward. Let us take heed and properly evaluate all information, so we can build well and wisely.
In the children’s story book, The Three Little Pigs, each character built his house with different materials-one with straw, one with sticks, and one with bricks and the big bad wolf came. You recall the ending. I don’t know your wolf or your students’ wolf, but he is coming. Be prepared with the strongest foundation possible. Only you can determine the materials you will use to fortify; make sure they are high quality resources from vetted sources. I was grateful for the other option; the sweet tea was very good and worth every calorie.
Information exists all around us in multiple and varied formats; if you choose a piece of straw, don’t get discouraged and give up on researching, just go back to your library and expand your search and choose a stick or a brick based on the structure you are creating. It may be more time consuming on the front end to double check your sources, but it is better than having to rebuild the entire structure, if it is destroyed. It is worth it, and so are you.
Lighting the way,
Fiya Librarian
Comments