Who wants to befriend their teachers on Facebook?!?

As another school year ended on June 30, Slovak pupils were able to show their parents an evaluation on their report cards of their achievements in media literacy, a course introduced four years ago in the education system for children aged 11 to 15.

The precise amount of students taking the course is still unclear, as the Ministry of Education does not provide figures for the number of schools which have integrated it in their curriculum, either as an optional subject or as part of other courses.

Based on my own investigation, only roughly two percent of schools in the capital of Bratislava have offered a media literacy course during the past academic year while a few other schools across Slovakia have merely given it a try.

“The score may be low, but schools are only a part of this lifelong learning project. The media is all around us and influences our lives, so we should understand how it works,” says Norbert Vrabec who co-designed the course at the newly established Centre for Media Education at the University of St. Cyril and Method in Trnava.

What is media literacy?

Vrabec defines media literacy as the ability to use, process, analyse and evaluate a wide variety of media forms. The outcome of a study he carried out in 2008 showed that one third of school-age Slovaks spent up to four hours per day watching television and indicated a strong preference for advertisement breaks as opposed to news and educational programmes.

The study also busted the general myth that newspapers and magazines do not appeal to young people – 36 percent of pupils attending secondary school and 42 percent of high school students said that they read print media on a daily basis. The study did not offer however any qualitative in-depth analysis on the way they processed the information received.

“The majority of Slovaks are passive media consumers,” says Igor Haraj, a journalist at the Slovak public radio. “They don’t seem to realise that a news report is only a glimpse of a more complex story.”

In a country where well-advertised Ponzi schemes and bogus employment agencies have left thousands of people destitute, everybody seems to agree that the public should become more media savvy and better aware of potential dangers and hidden risks associated with media consumption; but how and where? For both parents and media experts, schools appeared as the obvious environment to stimulate the development of media literacy skills.

Between 2005 and 2007 the State Pedagogical Institute conducted a pilot project in media literacy among 288 pupils. Its graduates demonstrated a more critical approach toward media consumption.

Based on the conclusions of the project, the institute prepared a set of guidelines and teaching materials for the media literacy course.

Challenges

The main goal of the course is to gradually introduce schoolchildren to the complex world of media, starting with a historical overview and a description of the basic types of media content for the lower classes and moving further into the world of advertising and reality shows with the older generations.

With a total of 12 hours, the topic of advertising has received a larger timeslot in the lesson plan than newsgathering. Pupils spend seven hours learning about media piracy, a concept that might have been put forward by the Microsoft representative in the course commission.

During the other seven hours allocated to the topic of computer games, students are warned that these games can create addiction and promote violence. On a more positive note, they are also taught that computer games can encourage creativity and offer immediate rewards.

At the end of the course, pupils are invited to create and publish their own media content.

Released in 2007, the teaching materials for the media literacy course encouraged to discuss the phenomenon of blogging and its overall impact on communication but did not include any references to social media networks although many Slovaks were already using MySpace at the time.

As school budgets in Slovakia depend on enrolment, many school directors eager to increase their institution’s appeal were quick to praise the initiative and promised to offer the course. After the initial euphoria and the enrolment period, reality sunk in. “Yes, [media literacy] sounds like a cool topic but it requires innovative teachers, people who are happy to spend some extra time trying to do things differently,” says Aneta Chlebničanová, who manages a media education project for teachers and parents. “The guidelines provided don’t meet the needs of today’s kids.” Launched in 2010, the project has now already trained 65 participants.

Teachers admit that it takes courage to face an audience who might be more familiar than them with new media forms. “Frankly speaking I see the media course as a challenge because it’s not going easy to discuss the impact of the media on society with children who are tech savvy and definitely have high expectations from this class,” says Martina Horňáková, a teacher in Slovak language and literature who as of September 2011 will give a media literacy course at the secondary school in the Eastern Slovakian village of Pavlovce nad Uhom.

Vrabec’s Centre for Media Education offers a training programme for teachers in media literacy. “The programme started this spring and we received more applications than we could handle – a sign that interest is high,” Vrabec says. “The first thing we tell teachers is that they should learn to analyse media by themselves.”

Another challenge in the implementation of the course is related to the lack of adequate equipment: insufficient number of computers for example, poor internet connection etc.

The low number of schools which have adopted the course may simply be due to caution: “I suspect that many school directors are waiting to see the results in other schools before embarking on the project,” says Vrabec.

Social media and online games

A brief vox populi survey among schoolchildren also reveals some reservations with regards to teaching methods.

“Our school system is based on learning things by heart so if I have to memorise yet another set of new words and definitions [for this course],  thank you very much, I don’t want it!” says Michal, aged 14.

“I’d like to know how TV shows are produced but how will they teach us about social media? I hope I won’t have to add my teachers as friends on Facebook!” exclaims the 15 year-old Zuzka.

Still, it looks like the media literacy course will become more widespread in the future.

“If parents put pressure on teachers to introduce the course, they will do it. Some parents are so scared about their kids playing computer games and spending time online,” says Martin, a high school student.

Internet safety expert Miroslav Drobny echoes Martin’s words: “Many parents simply don’t have the knowledge to understand what their children do online and think that schools are in the best position to teach them how to stay safe.”

Although internet safety seems to be at the centre of discussion, the ultimate goal of the course is to train better informed media consumers.

In such an eventuality, will the increasing number of more knowledgeable and demanding readers, listeners and viewers have a beneficial impact on media content and improve the quality of journalism in Slovakia?

Norbert Vrabec hopes it will but believes that “it will be a medium-to-long term process.”

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This article was initially published on the European Journalism Centre
Photo credits: FlickR CC courosa (1; 2; 3)