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The SATs and similar tests generally include "reading comprehension" questions, where you read a passage and then answer questions to see how well you understood what you read. Given how much of our information diet is being presented to us through non-literary media, I would think that we ought to start
testing for "media comprehension" - how well one understands what one hears through the spoken word or what one sees in video, graphics, charts, etc.
Ideally, such tests would focus not just on comprehension but also on "media literacy" - the ability to distinguish truth from fiction, and know when one is being bamboozled...
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// the ability to distinguish truth from fiction,
and know when one is being bamboozled... // |
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Are you talking about Joe Six-pack here? Has
it occured to you that the whole point of
systematic education and the existing mass
media is to allow those in charge to reliably
fool most of the people, most of the time? |
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Have you any idea of how dangerous it would
be if proles actually started thinking, and
drawing meaningful conclusions based on
rational analysis of objective facts ? |
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Have you been sitting by that Black Monolith
again? Don't say you weren't warned … |
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(Would you like to join the Illuminati, by the
way? ) |
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Years ago during a break from border patrol we
stopped at a base for resupply and a soldier was
reading the paper. I asked to glance at the headlines,
she handed me the newspaper. |
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I understood most of the story except one term in
Hebrew which I was not familiar with. |
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The story was about a "licensed prisoner" on his way
home, who at the Jerusalem central bus station,
flashed his prisoner ID card with his picture and the
police insignia on it, at Arab citizens, told them to
lean on the wall with the palms of their hands, did a
"search" on them, took money from their wallets,
beat some of them and then released them. |
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Somebody on the street realized what was happening
and called the real police who arrested the prisoner. |
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I asked the soldier if she knew what a "licensed
prisoner" was (turns out its a prisoner on licensed
leave - meaning someone who was released early, as
long as he behaves ok). |
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From the way she answered I got the feeling that she
didn't understand the story altogether. I asked her
what she made of the story. |
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She said: At the Jerusalem central bus station, some
Arabs beat up a Jewish prisoner who just got his
license, but the police came quickly and saved him. |
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