“[Newspapers]
too frequently provide a mode of entertainment to enliven lessons,
entice students to a subject, and stimulate their interest. They
give teachers a sense of modernizing instruction and relating the
curriculum to students' lives and interests. However, as long as
these sources of information are not subjected to critical scrutiny
for their role as producers of knowledge, the prevailing view of
media as natural and neutral conveyors of reality 'will have been
smuggled in under the guise of educational progressivism and
relevance.'” p.92
Segall,
A., & Schmidt, S. (2006). Reading the newspaper as a social
text. The
Social Studies, 97(3),
91-99.
This quote begins to
describe some of Segall and Schmidt's criticism of the way that
newspapers are used in classrooms as they will go on to describe how
to correct this. Newspapers are not always used in classrooms, but
when they are they are only used at a minimal surface level. They
are often used as an example of truth or to back up a commonly help
conception about a theme or topic. Segall and Schmidt have found in
their research that newspapers are usually used as a way to increase
student interest in a topic. It is not entirely clear how newspapers
have this affect on students, especially students of the 21st
century who tend to give the newspaper little credence as an
interesting medium to begin with, unless there is a current “hot
topic” discussed in the newspaper. The only other logical
interpretation of this motivation portion of the passage would then
be the connection between newspapers and truth, the idea that
newspapers present the facts and the facts are good. What teachers
fail to do is have students really think critically about what's in
the newspaper, how it is presented, what is left out, the balance of
so called fact and opinion, and other areas of inquiry that get
beyond the face of the source. This is a dangerous possibility as
students will subtly and gradually learn that newspapers always tell
the truth and that there is even one truth to be learned. In the
course of doing this they will learn that are being educational or
scholarly in doing so.
Where I see this as having
the greatest impact on students in practice (depending of course on
the degree to which your particular students believe in the absolute
truth of the newspaper) is using historical newspapers in conjunction
with discussion of formerly controversial issues. These could be
things like women's suffrage or the slave trade (applicable in both
US and World History), or topics like racial segregation (especially
applicable in US History). The lesson would teach content as well as
skills, but would be particularly skills-focused. Assuming that
students have little experience with newspapers or critically
examining them the teacher could ask something to the extent of “What
do the newspapers report?” or a similarly non-leading question.
Once students generate answers (news, truth, facts) the teacher would
then pass around a news article on the relevant controversial issue
from a well respected local or national paper, but an article which
has a different perspective (such as supporting segregation) than it
would have today. Depending on the age and level of the students it
would take differing amounts of structure for students to come to the
realization that perspectives change and newspapers report someone's
perspective. This could be paired with a more recent article
relating to the issue to show how that perspective has changed, but
in any case it should be accompanied by a discussion about how and
why we look at newspapers with a critical eye. A perspective which
seems so obviously “wrong” today seems like it would provide the
appropriate amount of shock value to have students on their own come
up with the idea that newspapers display one perspective. This would
hopefully lead to a habit of healthy criticism when approaching
newspapers in the future, if not sources in general.
