here's a good thing to tell school-age children: the textbooks they use to learn are made by people, and those people might gloss over or omit parts of the whole truth, accidentally or intentionally
basically just teach kids to be critical of their sources of info and ask really good questions
@Sailorplutoid exactly! it's all part of learning how to learn responsibly, which most schools apparently do a terrible job of
@Sailorplutoid @theoutrider sounds like the "everyone else is with me so *you* must be the wrong one" argument?
@typhlosion @theoutrider That or "Memorize the facts, but don't focus on the why or the how to figure it out"
@typhlosion when I was a kid, I was told basically "anything in a nonfiction book (assuming subset of 'acceptable books') you can take as a factual source." that was kinda painful to deprogram growing up. :|
@green aaugh ewww :(
@typhlosion I suspect a lot of people were taught that too. I have a theory about--how information is handed down, why we have this inherent bias--but it's less important than the hope that humanity is maybe finally getting away from that dangerous mindset. XD
@typhlosion Related: reassuring the kid that sometimes, when they just can't understand the instructions no matter how hard they try, it's because the instructions are incoherent in some way (editing errors, poor sentences, or sometimes who the heck knows).
@typhlosion Also a lot of the time editors on these books (my friend's mum is one) learn the topics as they read them
@Elizafox make shit up that's so obviously false they naturally learn to question the information they receive from outside sources? brilliant
@typhlosion @Elizafox that could backfire so easily
@Elizafox @Concerned_Commy which is why i still prefer my original suggestion
@typhlosion it's also important to say when you don't know and look it up together, including checking sources. So they learn how to as a part of the learning experience