Conclusion: What Would Success Look Like?

Imagine a world in which a young student is looking at a computer screen and sees false information on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or some not yet invented social media platform. Perhaps it is a conspiracy theory pushed by a foreign government or an extremist group, seeking to recruit her or cause harm to our democracy. Or it might be a veiled advertisement, seeking to induce her to buy some shoddy product or steal her personal information. Or maybe it is just a rumor among school peers that has run wild. Whatever it is, that information was designed to trigger emotions and lead to sharing, as well as real-world action to her detriment.

But, that student does not click and share. She has learned that information can be created to mislead. She has learned how the online world works, including how algorithms shape content and target us. She has learned how media is created and how to verify sources.

She has resisted taking the electronic bait because she has had access to tools that teach this in fun and engaging, and research validated manners. Her teachers and the leaders of her school, library, and extracurricular programs have been given the training and time to effectively teach these with these tools. And they are constantly refreshing their own methods based on local needs and the latest in both research and lessons shared by their colleagues.

We can turn this scenario into reality through a multidisciplinary approach that creates a community of educators, researchers, game and tech developers, educational publishers, and policymakers all working together. They can learn each other’s terminology and gain shared vocabulary, develop vehicles for exchanging ideas about what works in different settings with different types of students from different backgrounds, create metrics for measuring efficacy, develop new research agendas and scope out new lines of research and development. They can both support each other and be supported by an effective infrastructure of everything from easy-to-use databases available in each state to enabling budgets and training programs. We can grow and strengthen each of these to the point at which skills of resilience are common across school districts, libraries, and learning communities in the U.S. and democracies around the world.

We can achieve this goal if we remember who it is all about enabling, preparing and protecting: that student and our democracy.