Just for fun... but not entirely.
Sometimes I discuss some of the programmes on TV with my pupils, some of them are really scared because they've watched "Åndenes makt" (The power of the spirits(?)) on TV.
"Of course it's real, the door handle was moving!"
We watched it on TV, so there can be no doubts about it. I sometimes wonder what I can do in order to teach my pupils, and my own children, how to look at things around us with a pair of critic goggles. Is it true just because we watch it on tv, or read about it in the newspaper, or on the Internet?
The power of visual media is great, and the things we read or watch needs to be filtered through our critic senses. In fact, I think we need to have focus on the flow of information, and ask ourselves if it all can be true. I regularly get e-mails from people who, in good meaning I guess, forward e-mails with content that upsets the recipiants. One of the e-mails was containing pictures of a boy who, allegedly, got his arm driven over by a car for stealing food. It upset me, most of all because the content of the e-mail was alienating Islam. And it upset me because it wasn't true. I googled some of the content, and I found the pictures in a newspaper. Acctually, I found one more picture than I got in the e-mail. The last picture of a boy who triumphing was showing that his arm was ok. He was in fact, a part of a street show. Then somebody had taken the pictures from somewhere, deliberately or not, and posted it as a warning against Islamic violence. This is also posted on Youtube as a fact.
Do you forward such e-mails? I never do. Maybe I did some time ago, I honestly can't remember. But I never do anymore. I will not be a part of alienating other people, other cultures. I will demand hard evidence if I'm going to have an opinion in these matters. It's way too easy to criticize what we don't understand, and what we know too little of.
