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It’s Wednesday morning at Earl Grey School and I’ve just finished standing at attention for the national anthem.
In short order, I’m ushered into Ms. Godinez Goodman’s classroom, which is so lovingly cluttered with learning materials that it’s impossible to ignore the importance of early-years education.
When it’s my turn at this news event to help mark Media Literacy Week, I step up to the microphone and stare at the students wearing their adorable Earl Grey Press credentials.
The media world they are coming of age in is a world removed from that which confronted me when I was in Grade 5.
Paul Samyn speaks to students at Earl Grey School. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)
In the digital space that inevitably shapes them, there is so much more — but also less. They have more sources of information at their fingertips than I could have ever imagined when I was growing up. But there is also less trust, balance, fairness, accountability. The power of algorithms and the rise of artificial intelligence also means they will likely have less agency, control, power.
Unlike the wonder years of my youth, none of them have ever delivered a Free Press to a doorstep early in the morning. I’m reluctant to think about how few of their generation have even seen a printed newspaper on their kitchen table.
And yet, these bright-eyed kids want to hear what I have to say. They are hanging on every word from education reporter Maggie Macintosh, who they now refer to with reverence as their coach.
They’ve thought long and hard about the questions to ask Education Minister Tracy Schmidt when it’s their turn to step up to the microphone. In voices clear and confident, they press Schmidt about school safety, support for special needs students and how AI is going to change education.
Then, they’re off to work to deadline on their student newspaper.
Earl Grey Press reporters, from left: Willow, James, Sebastian and Isabel with their press cards. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press)
What played out this morning at Earl Grey is the promise and the power of the media literacy project the Free Press has now launched on our website; it’s available free of charge to schools across the province.
There’s an urgent need to equip kids with the tools they need to navigate today’s media landscape — and a hunger among them for the training and tools to make their voices heard.
The students in Godinez Goodman’s class had clearly caught the reporter bug – the same affliction that led me to a long and rewarding career at the Free Press.
I ended my talk to the students by sharing my dream about the media literacy project. I asked them to think ahead 10 to 15 years from now. I asked them to imagine how the critical thinking and media savvy they’ll learn now might one day lead to them working as reporters at the Free Press.
I told them how proud I would be in retirement to see that they had become the next generation of journalists to serve our province with information that can be trusted.
Students look through an edition of the Earl Grey Press. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)
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