The role of modeling for “seeking truth” in an educational policy classroom

In an age where diverse media compete to bring news, facts, and ideas to the attention of the public, it is not uncommon to find that some of what is promulgated by these various sources of information is false knowledge. In the midst of the greatest diversity of ways to deliver information in the history of mankind, education has a more important role to play than ever before in teaching youth how to discriminate between what is likely to be true and what is not. This is especially necessary in a democracy because many of these untruths are deliberate, intended to sway political opinions. In this paper modeling is used as the preferred method to help college students in an educational policy course learn to verify or refute statements made by influential political figures. It is argued that fact checking skills in our information age are needed more than ever before, and is neither difficult nor time consuming.