Education is our National Defense of Democracy
Protecting democracy means starting early with Critical Media Literacy. There is far too much on the line.
The Problem
If you are like me, perhaps your heart sinks every time you open social media because it is so rife with misleading information. An acquaintance or family member hears a soundbite on TV — a common one is “teachers are indoctrinating children with a leftist agenda” — and they propagate this sentiment without any firsthand experience or proof of this happening. This is a problem for people of all ages, and has been a problem for decades.
This problem is not only getting worse, it is becoming more insidious. People aren’t critically evaluating their sources; either because they are actively choosing their source no matter the political bias, or because they aren’t sure how to detect bias at all. In the United States in particular, we must confront the fact that most news sources have a political leaning (you can find these ratings in places such as All Sides (2026) pictured below).
Someone may choose a source that they believe to be unbiased, even when it isn’t, because the information within that source fits with their particular ideology. This is confirmation bias at work. There is also a blatant rise of propaganda on social media. In fact, BBC estimates that in 2025, over half of Americans receive their news from social media. It is no wonder that many adults aren’t sure what is true, what has evidence, and what they should believe when false or hyperbolic information is interspersed with fact.
Perhaps the scariest of all is the rise of the “Manosphere” on social media. Thanks in large part to male influencers, this is now a legitimate and terrifying movement from the extreme right, shaping the paradigms of young men and women through misinformation and extreme language.
Artificial Intelligence has complicated this even more and requires an extremely judicious eye. Case in point: “AI Slop” is now a definable, popular term because there is so much of this content around us at all times. Some may simply be of low quality, but it also might be blatantly false.
In February of 2026, Wharton Business School published a paper discussing the “rise of cognitive surrender” — where the majority of AI users were found to adopt the AI’s judgment as their own. In other words, the study demonstrated that people aren’t scrutinizing what AI tells them. This is the same problem as social media propaganda and biased news sources, but one more outlet in which to consume them.
When we look at how much of this content — masquerading as truth — our young people are going to be inundated with, the cause becomes urgent. Our trust in what counts as truth is quickly, and sometimes quietly, eroding. The ability and tendency of young people to critically evaluate what they hear, read, and see is going to be our first line of defense in counteracting misinformation (unintentionally false information) and malinformation (deliberate altering or sharing of information) (College of Staten Island Library, 2026).
A Solution: Critical Media Literacy
Civics education is often what we picture when we think of talking to students about democracy. While valuable, our youngest learners aren’t quite ready to study civics and the functions of government (this will happen mid-elementary school). However, we should not dismiss what our youngest learners can do, and the foundations for critical thinking that are built in those early years.
In fact, our youngest learners are constantly consuming information, reading (even before they are conventionally reading), and making sense of the world around them — a world that might be very confusing. The antidote to our problem of media bias, AI slop, and propaganda is to teach critical media literacy — start young, and start consistently. The National Council of Teachers of English (2021) define critical media literacy as: “Critically analyzing media texts and institutions with emphasis on the relationship between power and knowledge, specifically in relation to inequalities in access, representation, and economics.” It is a blend between critical literacy (taking a critical eye to texts) and media literacy (accessing and evaluating a variety of forms of media), one that asks students not to passively consume media, but to actively engage and critique.
A lot of times, this work happens in middle or high school. Students by then are consuming a lot of content — perhaps news — online already, and this work must continue and deepen as the information students encounter deepens. However, if we wait until students are in secondary school to teach them these critical media literacy skills, we are missing opportunities to coach them in what to watch for as they interact with media. Luckily, some states are paying attention to this. Washington in particular has added to the English Language Arts standards to incorporate concepts on Research and Media Literacy, starting in Kindergarten. While having these additional standards in writing is a strong start, it does not yet mean that in practice these concepts are consistently integrated into learning.
Common Sense Education is a leading organization for this work, and they have created a scope and sequence for digital citizenship education, with a strand dedicated to information and media literacy. The main lessons in this strand are listed below:
- Kindergarten — balancing online and offline activities
- First grade — being safe & respectful online
- Second grade — giving credit to other people’s work
- Third grade — analyzing altered photos/videos
- Fourth grade — understanding copyright
- Fifth grade — reading online news critically
You’ll notice that in third grade, students receive instruction in determining whether a photo is real or fake. Then, as students progress through elementary school, they will learn about reading news online, including things to watch for, such as extreme language, sponsored content, and advertisements. These aspects may “ring the alarm” bell as they are reading. Through engaging in these lessons, students should know the general premise that not everything they read online is true, that people profit from media, and that media might contain hidden persuasive tactics.
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Ultimately, we must equip our students with the skills to look at the media critically — there is far too much on the line.
A Collaborative Approach
While standards integration and Common Sense Education lessons are a starting point, having several lessons per year on this topic is far from enough. Historically, our school librarians, or library media specialists, have owned this work and provided this introduction for students. The American Association of School Libraries (AASL) Framework covers a lot of skills, with a really heavy emphasis on evaluating sources, as well as taking a discerning stance to points of view and considering other perspectives. A few very relevant components of the framework are listed below.
Sample Components of AASL Framework:
- Performing ongoing analysis of and reflection on the quality, usefulness, and accuracy of curated resources.
- Evaluating information for accuracy, validity, social and cultural context, and appropriateness for need.
- Adopting a discerning stance toward points of view and opinions expressed in information resources and learning products.
Unfortunately, the rich conversations often stop there. Other outside organizations, such as the News Literacy Project and The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) are creating resources to support this learning, which is incredibly valuable. However, it cannot be optional, it cannot be piecemeal, and it cannot be contained to a few introductory lessons that students will receive in their school library or a checkmark to satisfy revised ELA standards.
Our school librarians and passionate nonprofits are champions of this — but they need help. It’s important that these conversations are spiraled and integrated into classroom instruction as well. In fact, anytime students are doing research, conversations should be had about sources, evidence, and detecting bias. For young students, don’t solely encourage them to research in books — provide digital resources and talk about elements such as accuracy, copyright, and giving credit to a source of information. This is their time to apply and practice. This is the through-line that will support students in becoming critical consumers of media.
A first step might be integrating discussion into classroom instruction whenever students are asked to engage in research or with other media through questioning techniques like the examples below. If teachers provide sources, they can model their own thinking and selection process — making visible how someone might select sources that they trust.
Sample Questions (adapted from Common Sense Education):
- What’s going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that?
- Is this an opinion article? What evidence is there that this is an opinion? Is it intending to sway you in any way?
- Should we trust this source?
- Who might benefit from publishing this?
- Is there content intended to shock or scare you?
Whether you are a voter, a parent, an educator, a policymaker — and any combination of these — we must encourage our schools to consider the extent to which our students are engaging in critical media literacy. We must all have a stake in this work. The future of our democracy depends on it.
