I vaguely recall this game surfacing in the early 2000s, 2001
according to copyright. The box was red
and yellow: “FACT OR CRAP?” its title
challenged the buyer. I never purchased
it but it gave me a chuckle in the game aisle. However, we are a long road from
2001. I don’t feel much like playing any games. I also don’t appreciate all the
articles maligning Millennials or “young people today” as lazy, useless, and
responsible for the deaths of mediocre pop culture holdovers from the 1990s. I
see teacherly friends responsible for all grade levels from elementary to
post-secondary exchanging ideas and resources for helping students learn how to
discern the quality and veracity of sources. Correction, I see the best of the
teachers doing this. We have a slick
surface of reality problem in the U.S. right now and teachers, among all the
other work they already had to do, are amping up the efforts in this area to
provide young people with the skills needed to avoid getting hoodwinked on any
number of topics. We have students genuinely interested in research skills and
using their tech talents for good.
We also have a “Well, we need to hear all sides” chorus
simultaneously. Which brings me to the crap portion of this post: Why are charlatan speakers[1]
being paid large speaking fees and given a legitimate stage at institutions of
higher learning in this country right now? We have faculty in classrooms doing
difficult work regarding untrustworthy sources and at the same time,
administrators approving the purveyors of junk history, junk science, and just
plain junk to appear on campus. What the
actual hell? It is today’s version of the traveling snake oil salesman[2]
and universities are footing huge bills for security of fools when the money is
greatly needed somewhere else.
Most of these speakers are not people without a platform to freely
espouse their crap. They have the
internet, books they wrote (or ghost wrote), and certain TV and radio spaces
that are more than happy to have them spout their trash. Why are we giving them a prime space at an
institution of higher learning where what they are doing is antithetical to the
mission of education in the first place? It’s crap and most of them know
it. They’re making a fortune on it.
And that’s a fact.
[1] Yes, I am aware of the First Amendment, and
here’s a nice higher education-focused summary of that: http://college.usatoday.com/2017/04/20/do-controversial-figures-have-a-right-to-speak-at-public-universities/ However, I think that speakers should have
to actually know something and be presenting information in good faith, backed
by sound research or intelligence, if they are going to come to a campus.
[2]
Some historical background on snake oil,mainly because it's pretty cool and interesting:
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/26/215761377/a-history-of-snake-oil-salesmen
[
