Jun 2, 2009

Teaching Russians to Read between the Lines


So, as you may know, pretty much everyone considers the Russian media to be not free or assasinated. Aware of this problem, Russians have decided to take a short cut in solving the problem. Instead of improving the quality of Russian news or providing any kind of safety for the ballsy journalists, the good folks at Moscow State University has decided to encourage critical reading of non-critical articles. That's right the university has developed a program for the city schools that will encourage students to “form a critical attitude to the mass media... [and] teach children how to separate useful from manipulative information.”

I would love to take a look at this curriculum.

3 comments:

Pirates(and)Diplomats said...

Is Putin the greatest leader of all time, or not not the greatest leader of all time?

Discuss...

(Ok, that won't work in Russian due to the double negative, but that's what how I see that class unfolding.)

varske said...

isn't reading between the lines what their parents did all the time? Skimming through all the turgid press and speculating on the appearance of a new phrase. I used to think that the training I had on interpreting Soviet publications was pretty much like the training history undergraduates get in reading sources, except that it still wasn't history then.

In any case, in the UK kids studying English also get taught not to be fooled by media distortion especially in advertising. Perhaps the Russians have only just caught on that this is useful.

Pirates(and)Diplomats said...

Good point varske.