Illinois enacted the nation’s first public school media literacy law just shy of two years ago. Since then the press has mostly ignored it, teachers have struggled to figure out what it requires, educators have received little training and no one is checking to see if students are learning to be more media literate. I’m
Teachers came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, then they heard about the Illinois’ media literacy requirement. Raquel Bliffen, an English teacher at Mt. Vernon Township High School, said her reaction to the new requirement may have been tainted by her whole mindset since COVID-19, which is “kind of like one more thing.” “I kind of
A windy 27 degrees covered Bedford Park, IL as airplanes from nearby Chicago Midway Airport flew above John Hancock College Prep High School. The bell rang to start the day. In the year following a new Illinois law that requires instruction of media literacy at the public high school level, the state’s educators have been
This spring, historian Amy Lutz invited this curious media literacy educator to visit the unfinished work space being meticulously prepared for a highly-anticipated re-opening of St. Louis’s Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum in November. Wearing a hard hat, glasses and closed-toed shoes for safety did nothing to diminish first impressions of the permanent exhibit space. Those
In the year since Illinois’ pioneering media literacy requirement went into effect, experts, teachers and the state have scrambled to define what media literacy means and how to implement the new law without additional funding, professional development or clear standards. Illinois became the first state in the nation to require instruction of media literacy at
