08/29/2023

New Research Suggests It Might Be Possible to Reduce Bias in Kids

They are good at discerning fact from fiction

Once upon a time, not so long ago – but before the final seasons – millions of adults parsed the fine details of the televised struggle for power and influence between the Starks and Targaryens, the Lannisters, Baratheons and Martells, and, of course, their shared nemesis, the White Walkers, as if each Game of Thrones episode contained the only known key to the most noble and orderly form of social organization.

Something about the entirely fictional world created by novelist George R.R. Martin and his collaborators at HBO seemed to sharpen viewers' ability to perceive earned and unearned privilege, inherited disadvantage, what law and tradition can do to sustain them. In recaps and fan forums and watercooler conversations, people often went on at length about all of that and what stops those at the top from caring about or even noting what's happening to those at the bottom.

In many ways, the ever more fractious debate happening across the country about the content of school curriculum, particularly what should be included in the teaching and learning of American history, is a debate about what happens if children are told the entire truth, a more flattering, even fictional version of history, or the spare facts with as little explanation as possible.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.