To think if you're a teacher, you challenge any conspiracy theory nonsense in class?

[Datgal]

I was wondering this recently. In aibu for traffic (debated chat).

However, I know a child who just copies what parent says about stuff. COVID doesn't exist, suncream is dangerous, and the latest one, Biden is a robot 🤣. Parents are flat earthers etc.

Anyway, in all seriousness I suppose this is how lunatics start off and you can't really blame them if they're being brought up with these views... I'd love to know that if you as a rational thinking teacher heard these, do you say anything? Or do you leave well alone...

surely racism is actually escalated and taken very seriously?

I challenge it, yes. Usually with a comment about evidence and sources (they know this from their History lessons).
The only thing I wouldn't/couldn't touch was IDF/Hamas - we were told not to go near it with a 40ft pole.
I was asked whether a transwoman could have a baby the other day and that they'd read a transwoman had. I told them it was a biological impossibility as you'd need a uterus. That someone who identified as a transman and had kept their vagina and womb could but a transwoman could not.
I was on thin ice with that but no fallout.
I did get into trouble for being pro flu jabs. A parent complained that I was promoting vaccinations.

Well yes if it is directed at a real life person but I was talking more about students making ignorant comments about places and people in our learning because they are repeating what they've heard at home, for example when teaching migration.

What were you doing in someone else's classroom?
And why were you there long enough to know what they taught for most of it?

There are some areas that it is worth diverting the the lesson for and I would argue that a good teacher can swing any topic back in to their subject area.

If Biden is a robot, I think it’ll be a while before they take over.

We know he is dead and that the official authorities say his injuries are consistent with a fall. The rest is gossip and speculation

Some of the conspiracies aren't conspiracies and the people saying that they are are simply ill informed.

@Datgal part of the issue is in the past some theories were actually true, so yes some seem omg, but then because others have been correct, its a mix

Google suncream cancer, this is what they are talking about. Contamination of lots of suncream products with carcinogenic ingredients. It's not a conspiracy theory just because you think it sounds outlandish.

If a student told you that dead babies were used as vitamin pills what would you say? What would you say after you googled it?

Tell them you can't or won't discuss it and move on, it's not for you to say what's true or not if you haven't got time to fact check it yourself. It breeds mistrust in the students.
These are young people that are being lied to in the news everyday and they know they are because they can watch the truth being live streamed. Don't add to it

I sometimes look on the conspiracy subs on Reddit. Quite interesting

A lot of them think there was no third plane that hit the pentagon and that it was actually a missile for example

I wouldn't expect a teacher to get involved in them, most of them you can't disprove anyway

JFK got shot in the front of his throat but LHO was shooting from behind him. Work that one out

That wasn’t the OP’s question though was it?

To think if you're a teacher, you challenge any conspiracy theory nonsense in class?

This was the thread heading. TikTok and social media is full of speculation and young people watch and feed off this speculation. How would you deal with it as a teacher?

Likewise covid, was the virus spread deliberately? Did it exist? I’ll go back to the initial question that the OP asked…

How do you know how he died? Are the press reports accurate? Are the investigating officers corrupt? Did he steal a Rolex? Was he a drug mule?

So, as a teacher how would you answer a class of 30 young people?

Which ones do you think aren't conspiracies? Can you point a few out.....Will be interesting to see which ones you mean?

Covid not real?

Lizard people?

Chips in vaccines?

That all vaccinated people will be killed 2 years after taking the vaccine (that didn't age well).

That 'they' planned thd Microsoft recent outage so that "they" could test the system.

That 'they' are causing the rain this summer by 'cloud seeding '

Any you think are true....

There are conspiracy theories, and then there are conspiracy theories. It’s one thing to have stupid ideas about sunblock. If you really want to give yourself skin cancer, who am I to stop you? But it’s another to start spouting off that the country is controlled by a secret cabal of Jewish bankers.

I think as teachers we’re obligated to speak up against someone in our classroom spewing hatred for others, which is what a number of conspiracy theories come down to.

I don't think I'd bother, plus I think it's good for other children to hear other opinions even if they may be absurd!

You don't answer every question.

However, you tell them that everything posted on Tic toc isn't true and anyone can post anything they make up.

I agree. Basic spreading of hated needs calling out. Some of the conspiracy theories such as lizard people running the world... 🤣

I'm support staff, so oddly enough sometimes in a teachers classroom with them. And it certainly had nothing to do with the lesson they where supposed to be teaching. If it had only happened once I may not have said anything, but it happened on a number of occasions. Totally unprofessional, oddly enough they didn't do it again after I'd reported it.

Surely it's the responsibility of everyone to counter this bollocks when you hear it. It's dangerous. Would you not do the same for racism, sexism etc it all leads to radicalisation which is dangerous all round

In no date order or order of importance, things people have said are silly silly conspiracy theories

Weapons of Mass Destruction not existing.
Mass surveillance of the population by western governments.
All of the plots to other throw governments by the cia.
Consent free human experimentation in various countries including sticking radiation rods into women's vaginas (USA)
Pedophile elites/child trafficking. And the cover ups and lack of arrests
UK government keeping files on teaching assistants, librarians, climate activists and no, seriously, x files fans. You name it, they'll spy on it.
Western news outlets conspiring to cover up war crimes of allies beginning with I. And their own!
Cloud seeding/ weather manipulation.
Criminal behaviours of pharmaceutical companies.
Facial recognition in electronic billboards!
Light bulb cartels!
Dead baby vitamin pills!

How outlandish is too outlandish to be true?

Schools can't do everything they are there to do their job not be replacement parents because it seems a lot of parents can't rub two brain cells together these days

What makes you think that you are right and that they are wrong? The child is entitled to their opinion. Don't try and enforce your views on them.

That only makes sense in a world where absolutely everything is an opinion, regardless of empirical evidence. In that case, I guess we should just let the students write anything they want on maths exams. After all, what makes the teacher think they are right and the student is wrong?

I've not heard of lots of them. I think a grain of truth is easily exaggerated into more if someone wants to, has an agenda and has a YouTube or tic toc following. It doesn't follow that what is claimed is entirely true though.

Who decides what’s crazy though? I think religion is as mad as Flat Earth, but I can’t challenge that.

I just ignore and redirect. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. We have to tolerate alsorts from learners, a bit of Chemtrail/Illuminati/Covid was faked is the least of our worries.

So what if you have a student who expresses the belief that the holocaust didn't happen?

@OhMaria2

When you say 'dead baby vitamin pills', do you mean this? If so, it was an absolutely disgusting and dodgy criminal enterprise, hardly a conspiracy.

abcnews.go.com/Health/chinese-made-infant-flesh-capsules-seized-korea/story?id=16296176