Letters

So I’ve had a bit of a health scare and decided that it was important enough to write about my experience.

For the last few weeks I have experienced some discomfort in my right breast and, to be frank, just hoped and wished it would go away.

Having gone through so much stress for the past few years, my health has been way down on the priority list. Stupidly, I kept wishing that I would wake up and this discomfort would have disappeared and everything would be fine. 

Well, to cut a long story short, three weeks later it was still there and so despite all my best efforts to ignore the problem, I woke up a few days ago and told myself not to be a total idiot and get myself to the doctor.

I went to Awali Hospital and a mammogram and ultrasound was scheduled.   Honestly, I can say I was really scared, part of me thinking about the discomfort, part of me thinking what a total idiot I was for waiting so long to see a doctor, and part of me thinking I can’t cope with bad news, it would just be too much.

I had the mammogram done at Awali Hospital. The doctor was fantastic and there is a new machine that is less painful and able to place the breast into 15 segments explaining in great detail what they were looking for. She then said she couldn’t see anything on the mammogram to alarm her but she wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure.

The ultrasound took nearly 30 minutes. As she clicked away and hovered over a specific spot my heart kept beating faster and faster.

When she told me I was OK I cried my eyes out and felt so relieved that despite my own stupidity I was not going to have to relay to my children that I was sick. 

We agreed that going forward I would schedule a mammogram every year and just to be sure I would go back in six months for a check-up.

I walked out of the hospital and sat in my car for 20 minutes calming down, thinking about what could have been and so grateful that I was fine.

If you haven’t had a check-up and keep putting it off, please book an appointment today. 

Please take care of yourselves. Thankfully, I’m OK, but I put myself at risk and this was irresponsible and stupid.

I will never again put off going. If this letter makes one GulfWeekly reader go for a check-up it was worth it.

Rebecca Jones.

Research has revealed that students – from middle school pupils to undergraduates – are easily duped by false information they find online. The study goes on to describe this as ‘dismaying’, ‘bleak’ and a ‘threat to democracy’.

These same students are the primary consumers of social media. How are we to prepare young people to become informed citizens in an era where anyone can publish, and there are political and financial incentives for misinformation?

As a journalism professor who began my own media career as a high school student, I have a firsthand understanding of how teaching journalism can prepare young people to become effective communicators – and can help them sift fact from fiction.

In an alleged ‘post-truth’ reality, language can be used in ways that resemble a war game of wits. Words can cast doubt on previously accepted standards and shared norms once considered commonsense can suddenly be cast as suspect.

Take, for instance, the term ‘fake news’. Within weeks of it surfacing as a way to describe a rapid rise in internet misinformation, the term was misappropriated by several politicians and pundits to describe a supposedly biased mainstream media.

The 2016 US election uncovered the surreptitious power of misinformation and its potential to influence the public. Buzzfeed found that fake news stories significantly outperformed real news stories on Facebook leading up to the event. One fake news writer was even accused of singlehandedly swaying the election. A subsequent Pew Research study indicated that 23 per cent of Americans claim to have shared a made-up news story – either knowingly or not.

Whether it’s labeled ‘fake news’ or newfangled propaganda, misinformation undermines institutions and spreads baseless beliefs. It’s also likely to have a long-term effect on the next generation of voters.

Curricular standards now emphasise ‘critical thinking’ as a cornerstone of contemporary education. Critical thinking speaks to a need for young people to become discerning interpreters of information and to make judgments based on thoughtful analysis.

Yet, the term’s meaning remains elusive for many educators, and clear methodologies for cultivating it are scarce. I prefer the term ‘informed thinking’ to describe a deeper level of student engagement, one that my research indicates can better prepare young people to effectively navigate the complex and nuanced landscape of modern news and social media.

An informed thinker is someone who has researched a topic and has been thoughtful in making sure that what he is presenting is credible, valid and well-researched. Informed thinking articulates a clearer method and result than critical thinking. Students learn to detect biases and agendas in media and are empowered to distinguish fact from fiction.

I would argue that this approach makes students more than savvy consumers: informed thinkers become effective problem-solvers, emerge as content creators and learn to advocate for public good.

Ed Madison.