Context and Perspectives in the Classroom

While textbooks and news outlets claim to be unbiased, the fact is that there is bias built into everything we are exposed to. Certain news channels lean Democratically or towards the Republican party. A news article from the Middle East from the beginning of the Iraq war will have a much different outlook and tone than one from the United States. If our students cannot understand this fact, and, more importantly, recognize how context and perspectives combine to create bias in media and text, they will be at a disadvantage. This blog will use different media examples to show how context and bias shape the way information from any source can be construed. Some examples are funny, others controversial, but they should give you an idea of how important it is to teach students to recognize bias.