Do you know what’s really best, or do you only think you know what’s best? How can you really know? In this activity, we’ll look at different types of information we get and how to decide what’s real.
Based on the activity Fact, Opinion, or Myth? by Debbie Stone.
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What kind of information do you have?
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Do you know what’s really best, or do you only think you know what’s best? How can you really know? In this activity, we’ll look at different types of information we get and how to decide what’s real.
In an increasingly pluralistic society, and one in which we are bombarded with information in the news, from friends, from teachers, and over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat, Tumblr, Vine... and too many more, distinguishing fact from opinion based on evidence is an important skill. This challenging activity encourages you to consider the nature of knowledge – often there may be no clear-cut answer.
What to Do
Take a look at the following statements that people have made, and pause to think whether they are fact, opinion, or complete myth. How do you know? What does your group think?
Topic 1
- “The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace...” - Eric Hoffer - “It’s About Humanity. Pray for Gaza...Please pray for those families and babies today... Please always remember what's important in life. It's not any of this. We are here to help, inspire and love. Be that change. #wearethenextgeneration.” - Selena Gomez
- “The Temple was never in the Holy City [Jerusalem], and was absolutely never on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” - Mahmoud Al-Habbash
Topic 2
- “There are fewer drunk driving accidents and fatalities in many countries with minimum legal drinking age of 18.” - Dee and Evans, "Behavioral Policies and Teen Traffic Safety," American Economic Review, May 2001
- “The drinking age should be lowered because we’re just going to get alcohol anyway and it unfairly gets teens in trouble when alcohol isn’t even that dangerous!” - Your drunk friend at that party on Thursday
- “Almost half of all drivers who were killed in crashes and tested positive for drugs also had alcohol in their system.” - Johnston, L. D., O'Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2011). Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2011. (Source: Mothers Against Drunk Driving)
Topic 3
- “In older grades, single-gender education removes the distraction of the opposite gender, allowing students to focus on their schoolwork and not focus on ‘the dating game.’” - Multiple Studies
- “There should not be any obstacle to providing single-sex choice within the public school system... We have to look at the achievements of [single-sex] schools that are springing up around the country. We know this has energized students and parents. We could use more schools such as this.” - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Congressional Record, June 7, 2001
- Just as racial segregation enhances racist attitudes among children, gender segregation reinforces sexist attitudes and the view that males and females have categorically different types of intellects. In dozens of studies, we have found that when teachers use group characteristics—whether familiar (“boys and girls”) or arbitrary (T-shirt color)—to label students, children develop stereotypes and biases against the “other” group. By separating the genders into different classrooms, educators lead children to view males and females as deeply different, and reinforce sexism in the culture at large. - Bigler and Eliot, “The Feminist Case Against Single-Sex Schools,” The Slate