This Teacher Turned Her Journalism Experience Into a Bilingual Media Literacy Class

Alba Mendiola: My college students, they at all times ask me, “Why did you leave?”

It’s like, “Why not?” [Laughs.]

I at all times mentioned that the one factor I remorse shouldn’t be leaving sooner. I actually get pleasure from being a trainer. I at all times used this analogy: It’s like going up a mountain. I made a decision to stop after I was on the high of my profession and begin a new undertaking and new mountain.

And I’m completely happy doing what I’m doing, instructing college students, serving to them develop their vital pondering abilities. By doing this job, it is similar to, I’m in heaven.

In this job, you possibly can mix your love of journalism with instructing. Where did you get your love of instructing? Is that one thing that got here from your loved ones?

I used to be a tv reporter in Mexico, then I stop to observe my [American] boyfriend — now my husband — to the U.S.

When I got here to the U.S., I did a volunteer program via the Archdiocese [of Chicago] the place I used to be instructing adults in a job readiness program. Most of the folks in my class had been girls who had been victims of home violence, or low-income.

Just being in a classroom and realizing that you just’re altering any individual’s life, it is very transferring. But then I had this journalism bug in me. I went again [to journalism] and labored at Telemundo for 16 years. So instructing, it isn’t new to me.

You pitched this broadcast journalism class to your faculty. When you had been creating the category, what was your imaginative and prescient?

I wrote an op-ed in La Raza known as “La alfabetización mediática es un derecho civil” — media literacy is a human proper. And that is the place I categorical my thought for the category, saying that the scholars on this era, they’re born within the digital period and it is nearly embedded. They know tips on how to open these apps, and a lot of their data comes from their information feeds. But the truth is that they actually do not know the way it works and what it takes to do it.

These youngsters, they simply barely keep in mind what a landline is. They do not watch tv the way in which that we watch tv. Everything is altering, and it isn’t their fault. It’s how the world is evolving, and they should perceive the ethics of making data.

Because one of many questions I ask them in my first-class is, “Do you wanna be informed or do you wanna be influenced?” Because they’re on a regular basis on their TikTook or their Instagram taking a look at these feeds. You are watching commercials. They’re attempting to make you purchase one thing or make you do one thing and never essentially informing you. So you must be a little bit skeptical. Sometimes [students] do not know what the distinction is from a industrial to a information story.

So we go over these classes, and my objective for this class is to attempt to develop their vital pondering abilities. They have to grasp how the media works. Once they perceive how that works and get engaged and take part within the democratic course of and are making their very own choices, perhaps sooner or later they are often leaders, as effectively. Especially realizing the variations between info and deceptive information. Recently it has been a big drawback within the United States.

Why do you suppose it’s necessary for this sort of class to be bilingual?

We may very well be from totally different international locations — Venezuelans and Mexicans and Colombians and Cubans — however on the finish of the day, what retains us collectively is the language. Many [immigrants] come right here they usually study English, however they nonetheless wanna know what is occurring of their nation.

I can inform you proper now — and media literacy usually, this isn’t only for college students, it’s for adults, too — they often don’t know tips on how to acknowledge info from fiction.

Now with AI, it is so troublesome to acknowledge. To provide you with an instance, my mother lives right here in Mexico. She’s 82, however let me inform you, this girl has her iPhone, she retailers on-line, she’s very tech savvy.

But she will get this the place you see Biden, you possibly can hear his voice in a press convention, and he says one thing like, “Yeah, the UFOs have landed. Yeah, we know this is happening.”

And my mother was like, “What is this?” And then I’m like, “No, mom, that is fake. That’s not real.”

If you go onto the News Literacy Project, within the classes, there’s a bunch of knowledge there about immigration, additionally — how immigration has been written about in numerous newspapers and thru photos which have been posted on-line. For instance, a child who’s in a cage. The approach they write that story, it may very well be deceptive. So we study all about how they will manipulate photos, how they will manipulate data to get your consideration.

Do the scholars get hands-on expertise reporting a story?

We create podcasts, we create visuals, we create movies. They get excited after I say, “OK, let’s work on a video project.”

And when you make them do it, then they notice how arduous it’s. I’d say, “Back in the day, journalists who were trained in ethics worked on a story and gave it to you. It’s already curated for you. And now anybody with a cellphone can call themselves a journalist. If you have a phone, you can live stream from anywhere in the world and nobody’s gonna be checking if you are correct or if your facts are correct or not.”

Once they begin doing what it takes to report the video and write a story and or write a podcast, that is once they notice, “Oh boy. This takes time and effort to really get it done right.”

I feel the half that strikes them probably the most, and it will get the “aha” second after we go over bias. We all have it, and it is OK. Now we simply should be acutely aware about it. I like to see that as a result of this is without doubt one of the very first models that we do. And then on the finish, they need to create one thing they usually notice, “I cannot give my opinion on this.” No, it’s important to attempt to write a story in a approach that you just simply current all of the info, and your readers or your listeners or your viewers need to make a determination of if it is proper or incorrect, if it is good or dangerous.

What else would you like folks to learn about your class?

I’m so honored that the News Literacy Project nominated me for this award. This is huge for our Latino communities as a result of this group is not only recognizing me. They are recognizing the necessity for bilingual schooling in media literacy.

And another factor: I keep in mind one other reporter requested me, so why is media literacy necessary? Normally, faculty districts connect the information literacy unit or this subject to the English class. But I’ve a totally different opinion about that, and I wrote that in my op-ed, that you do not have to be a mathematician to check math. That does not imply that you just’re gonna develop into a mathematician. You research science, that does not imply you are gonna be a scientist.

What I attempt to say is that for instance, in math class, you possibly can have the scholars studying how scores work, and that’s a part of what information literacy is about. In science class, how the expertise measures tornadoes for the climate section. Or in historical past class, you possibly can analyze outdated newspapers and see how sure occasions in historical past had been written about. And then my favourite is what I do in language lessons. You can analyze information in Spanish, in Portuguese, in German, in Polish, every other language.

Everybody must understand how information works. So that’s my little contribution, and I invite academics to contemplate this, particularly as a result of the News Literacy Project already has classes for you, so it will likely be simpler so that you can plan your day.