Satan and Jesus arm-wrestle. Surrounded by a tempestuous sky blasting thunder and fire, glaring at his calm, white-robed opponent, Satan declares that if he wins the match, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will win the 2016 presidential election. “Not if I can help it!” declared Jesus, illuminated by a heavenly light.

This Facebook post from “Army of Jesus” entered the feeds of countless conservative Twitter users in the run-up to the 2016 election. “Army of Jesus” was far from a Christian fundamentalist group, and the posts did not originate in any basement in Lubbock, Texas nor bedroom in Bixoli, Mississippi. Instead, the post and thousands like it came from an intelligence center in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

A few years later, disinformation campaigns are far from over. Now, even established political parties lie on social media to sway elections. In the month before the U.K. General Election in December 2019, the Conservative Party, the U.K.’s governing party, released a liberally edited video of Labour politician Keir Starmer failing to answer basic questions about the Labour stance on Brexit. In fact, the non-partisan, nonprofit organization First Draft found that nearly 90% of the Conservative Party’s Facebook ads contained false or misleading claims.

On Friday, January 31, the United Kingdom left the European Union because of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the results of which Brexiteers used disinformation to sway. 

How do dangerous campaigns of this nature affect us as Parker students? Of course, the results of both the 2016 US presidential election and the 2019 UK general election do profoundly impact our futures, but a more direct implication emerges. Our school should not only continue but improve our students’ ability to navigate a “post-truth” democratic society.

Parker teachers and administrators frequently sermonize about the importance of being engaged global citizens in a democracy. Now that disinformation campaigns have plagued two of the largest democracies in the Western World, we must improve our curriculum to reflect the changing times. 

 Ronald Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, discussing the increasing necessity of teaching students how to serve as good, free-thinking citizens. According to Daniels, “universities must train not only engineers, scientists, humanists and business leaders but also citizens.” Although Parker is not a university, it has a unique obligation in today’s evolving political and media landscapes. 

We should be teaching every student how to be adept identifiers of “fake news.”

We should be teaching every student how to consume a balanced media diet, recognizing the difference between balance and dedicating equal time to seeking different perspectives, regardless of how evidenced-supported each side is.

We should be teaching students how to identify credible sources.

If Parker is supposed to teach students how to serve as educated, informed democratic citizens, shouldn’t Parker evolve when our democracy does? Parker should not save these skills for specific senior electives. The school should infuse the Lower, Middle, and Upper School curricula with lessons to equip students with the necessary tools to thrive in and improve our American democracy.