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""You may think you are prepared for a post-truth world, in which political appeals to emotion count for more than statements of verifiable fact," writes Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for The Washington Post. "But now it's time to cross another bridge-into a world without facts. Or, more precisely, where facts do not matter a whit." ADVERTISEMENT Because I teach American history, government, and journalism in high school, Sullivan's words hit close to home. I spoke with my students about Mary Beth Hertz's Edutopia post "Battling Fake News in the Classroom," and I sensed that many of my students, while skilled at what Hertz fittingly calls "crap detection," were still deeply troubled by what they characterized as a growing public aversion to the truth. When politicians and thought leaders can't or won't agree on a basic set of facts, how can we motivate students for the noble pursuit of truth and help them see why it still matters?  "

In the post-truth era, does the capacity to utilise knowledge prepare one adequately to do battle against falsehood? When those selling untruths know the falsehood of their stories, does the bright light of truth shine through? Perhaps not.

"It used to be so easy to distinguish between truth and fiction. In previous years, I would focus on just teaching my students the difference between fact and opinion. Now the Internet has become a murky river of information, and buzzwords like "fake news" and "alternative facts" have become real concerns of an educated society. How do we teach our students to discern all these differences in this post-truth era?"

We are living in interesting, frightening and rapidly changing times. Where rapid changes and transformations through technology, politics, globalisation and the climate, conspire against normality. These times demand a fresh approach to education, one that provides learners with the thinking dispositions they need to turn challenges into opportunities.  "All that was 'normal' has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense." But what thinking might guide us through this time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity?

In these times of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA), in this Post Truth era, what do our children most need from their education? How do we best prepare them for their future?

If we are to cultivate the dispositions required in these times of postnormality and post-truth we need to establish cultures in our classrooms which will allow them to thrive. 

"nly if you are truly open to the possibility of being wrong can you ever learn, says researcher Alex Edmans. In an insightful talk, he explores how confirmation bias -- the tendency to only accept information that supports your personal beliefs -- can lead you astray on social media, in politics and beyond, and offers three practical tools for finding evidence you can actually trust. (Hint: appoint someone to be the devil's advocate in your life.) This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxLondonBusinessSchool, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you. "

"If the most recent U.S. Election has taught us anything it's that we live in an era of fake news and sites. With accusations flying of manipulation of stories, the media and voters, it's truly hard to know if what we read on blogs, social media and other sites is actually the truth or a tale spun to generate clicks. To further compound the problem a recent study from Stanford shows that the vast majority of students can't determine it what they read on websites is true or baloney. The study showed More than two out of three middle-schoolers couldn't see any valid reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that young adults need more financial-planning help. And nearly four in 10 high-school students believed, based on the headline, that a photo of deformed daisies on a photo-sharing site provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, even though no source or location was given for the photo. With many schools and districts rolling out 1:1 initiatives and a push to digitize learning, helping students understand where their information comes from, and if it is reliable and accurate are critical skills, not just for learning for but life as well."

"Fake news, unreliable websites, viral posts-you would think students who have grown up with the internet would easily navigate it all, but according to a study done by Stanford researchers, that couldn't be further from the truth. Researchers describe the results of the study done on middle school, high school and college students across the country as "bleak." Students were asked to judge advertisements, social media, video and photographic evidence, news reports and websites. Though researchers thought they were giving students simple tasks, they say that "in every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation." As if that weren't bad enough, researchers go on to say, "At present, we worry that democracy is threatened by the ease at which disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and flourish." So what can educators do about the spread of fake news and our students' inability to recognize when they have been fooled? Lesson plans that explicitly address the new media literacy and task students to be responsible consumers and disseminators of news are a good place to start. Here are eight things that students need to know about fake news and the new media literacy:"

"In a "post-truth" era where people are increasingly influenced by their emotions and beliefs over factual information, fact and fiction can be difficult to distinguish, and fake news can spread rapidly through mainstream media sources and social networks. Moreover, fake news is often meant to do harm, by tricking us into believing a lie or unfairly discrediting a person or political movement. Given this malicious intent, students must learn to approach news and information with a critical eye in order to identify intentionally misleading sources (although recent studies confirm that this is an uphill battle for both adults and young people). Teachers therefore play a crucial role in ensuring that their students develop the skills to decipher the many streams of information available to them."

"The creation of fake news continues to generate a lot of discussion and it's no surprise that post-truth was Oxford English Dictionary's 2016 Word of the Year. Although many news sources have some inherent bias or political leaning, there are news outlets that are more credible than others."

"False content online has only multiplied over the years. But the fake news designation has also been used to serve all kinds of purposes-including, increasingly, to disparage real news reporters-so most experts now avoid the term. Instead, researchers usually talk about disinformation, which is purposefully false, and misinformation, which is unwittingly false (either because the publisher made a mistake or because the person sharing the content did). As false content spreads through social media networks, it can oscillate between the two, and it can manifest in various forms, including memes, tweets, or "imposter" content made to imitate real news stories. "

"The field of education bubbles over with controversies. It's not unusual for intelligent people of good will to disagree passionately about what should happen in schools. But there are certain precepts that aren't debatable, that just about anyone would have to acknowledge are true. While many such statements are banal, some are worth noticing because in our school practices and policies we tend to ignore the implications that follow from them. It's both intellectually interesting and practically important to explore such contradictions: If we all agree that a given principle is true, then why in the world do our schools still function as if it weren't? Here are 10 examples."

"The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change. That makes it a most precious "app" today, in a world where everything is changing and so much is unknown. And yet, we don't seem to value questioning as much as we should. For the most part, in our workplaces as well as our classrooms, it is the answers we reward -- while the questions are barely tolerated. To change that is easier said than done. Working within an answers-based education system, and in a culture where questioning may be seen as a sign of weakness, teachers must go out of their way to create conditions conducive to inquiry. Here are some suggestions (based on input from question-friendly teachers, schools, programs, and organizations) on how to encourage more questioning in the classroom and hopefully, beyond it."

We live in a time of chaos, complexity and contradiction. (Sardar, 2010 [1]) Where rapid changes and transformations through technology, politics, globalisation and the climate, conspire against normality (Friedman, 2016 [2]) These times demand a fresh approach to education, one that provides learners with the thinking dispositions they need to turn challenges into opportunities, to connect their learning to their passions and emerge from their years of formal education as self-navigating life-long learners.