1. On Legal Insurrection, Ramona Bessinger blows the whistle on a program she participated in, a Department of Homeland Security funded training program for teachers to combat “disinformation” as part of a “media literacy” effort called Courageous RI. offered through the University of Rhode Island. “The idea of Media Literacy made its way into K-12 schools as a solution to combat perceived “disinformation” and “violent extremism,” she writes. “Both terms are defined as a result of children being exposed to ‘disinformation’ while at school….But who should judge what is mere opinion vs “disinformation”? This sort of subjective judgment is exactly what public school teachers should never do.”
“[W]hat happens once a child is identified as “extremist”? Well,” she explains, “naturally, any child identified as an extremist would want to please their teachers, therefore abandoning their pattern of “disinformation” and “violent extremist” views for the accepted viewpoint. The student then becomes a member of the accepted in-group and may in fact help in identifying other children and teachers that are seen as extremist.”
“In fact, we are seeing this play out in K-12 schools across the nation,” the teacher writes. “Students are encouraged to identify peers or, worse, their teachers who they feel represent extremist views, then report that individual to other adults…In some cases, teachers are protested, harassed and bullied, while in other cases, peers may be singled out and bullied.”
She relates her experience of seeing “the Courageous RI facilitators [pointing] to Trump as the root cause of all social media and media disinformation. They blamed Trump for influencing “MAGA Republicans” to commit violence and more. During the weekly online training sessions, I asked for evidence to support their claims that violent extremism and disinformation existed in K-12 schools. I was quickly dismissed or directed to chat conversations where conservative voices were singled out and suppressed.”
“Any student or faculty member with opposing political view-points on controversial topics like climate change, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) agendas, race-based narratives, and more could be identified by a media literacy teacher or student, then referred to thought partners who would set out to correct said student’s line of thinking or to persuade the child to abandon their point-of-view.” Worse case, peers and friends would report on each other and in some cases teachers like me would be protested and singled out for conservative view-points.”
In addition to the troubling tale she tells, I was bothered by the poor grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation in her post. She is a high school teacher, after all. I had to make several edits to make her post comprehensible.
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