DIFFICULT DISCUSSIONS
Teaching Truth In An Age of Misinformation Why schools must engage with political controversy Schools are no strangers to difficult conversations. We deal with them every day - whether it’s talking about racism, safeguarding, free speech or online harms. But when it comes to politics, especially the kind that stirs up strong opinions, there’s often a nervousness. How do we address figures like Donald Trump or Elon Musk in a way that helps students think critically rather than simply absorb the loudest voices around them? How do we talk about misinformation, political spin and ideological bias without falling into the same traps ourselves? The answer is not to avoid these issues but to equip students with the tools to navigate them. This means moving beyond the reductive outrage that fuels social media and towards something
far more valuable - an ability to separate fact from fiction, to interrogate sources and to think independently. Recently, in PSHE at St Benedict’s, we looked at Trump’s inauguration and the response to a sermon given by Bishop Mariann Budde, who urged him to show compassion for immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and those afraid of his policies. The backlash was immediate some called for her deportation and Trump himself questioned whether unelected figures should be making such statements at all. At the same time, we discussed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has no political office, but whose words reach millions. He recently claimed that Britain is a dystopian police state where young working-class women
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are routinely kidnapped by immigrants - statements that have no basis in fact, but spread rapidly across his platform. What do we do with this? How do we help students make sense of it? The instinct might be to tell them what’s true and what isn’t, but that’s not enough. In a world where authority itself is questioned, where trust in traditional media has eroded and where young people are far more likely to get their news from TikTok than a newspaper, simply stating: “This is the truth.” is ineffective. They need to understand how to find reliable information themselves. The internet does not present information neutrally: algorithms feed users content that reinforces their existing beliefs. Viral posts don’t prioritise accuracy, but rather engagement - whatever sparks the strongest reaction, whether anger, fear or outrage. If schools do not actively teach students to question what they see, we risk raising a generation vulnerable to manipulation, more
