The Manchester bombing was the work of Theresa May’s government, the Bush administration orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the Islamic State was invented by the CIA in order to slander Muslims.

I won’t be the only teacher who has heard pupils assert these and other falsehoods, nor to have wondered how best to respond.

When, as education secretary, Michael Gove added the promotion of British values to the Teachers Standards, there was scepticism among teachers’ unions. I remember open contempt from those responsible for my teacher training at the time. What, after all, were “British values”? Would this policy alienate racial and religious minorities, exacerbating problems it was intended to solve?

Since then, the British values that we are to promote have been formalised. They are: “democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.

Much of this can be done through subjects such as RE and PSHE. But what of the teacher who is confronted with misconceptions that amount to a worldview that is hostile to these values? Perhaps we need an addition to the values we are to promote: respect for truth over myth.

Take the Manchester bombing. Conspiracy and paranoia abounded. I taught a pupil who drew me into a conversation about what “really” happened that night. She argued that there had been no bombing, this was just propaganda against Muslims. 

Because our conversation occurred during a coaching session, I had time to interrogate her views. So what did happen to the 22 people who were murdered? OK, the pupil conceded, perhaps there had been a bombing, but it wasn’t done by Salman Abedi. What really happened was that the government carried out the attack so it could blame Muslims. 

Hoping I was dealing with an isolated case of an individual who’d stumbled across some nonsense online, I asked, “Where did you get these ideas?” The girl shrugged and said, “All my mum’s friends are saying it.”

This is just one example. Imagine what happens to a child who grows up believing that its government is prepared to murder dozens of its own citizens to slander their religion. How can you engage in a society you think is out to murder you? 

Challenging misconceptions

A minority of such children will become the jihadis of tomorrow, but it should also concern us that most of them will grow up with a paranoid and hostile view of their own country. 

Subject teachers challenge misconceptions all the time. But it becomes harder when the child is armed with “evidence”. One reason we are living in an age of fake news is that news is becoming easier to fake. 

Teaching the Simon Armitage poem Out of the Blue (about the events of 11 September 2001), I learned to brace myself for the handful of students in each class dying to explain that the Twin Towers fell because of a controlled demolition. They’d found “evidence” online to “prove” it.

“How do you explain, sir, that all the Jews working in Manhattan called in sick that day?” 

“They didn’t.” 

“Yeah, they did. Look, it says so on this website…”

David Aaronovitch’s book Voodoo Histories puts this down to an urban myth that began with a misleading headline in a Jewish publication about hundreds of Jews “missing” following the 9/11 attacks.

When I was an A-level sociology student in the 1990s, I was taught to be sceptical of tabloid headlines. Today, newspapers, written by trained professionals mindful of libel laws, are likely to be more reliable than much of what is sloshing around online. 

It should come as no surprise that a study by Stanford University last year found that students struggled to tell fake and genuine news apart. 

When the American president dismisses irrefutable facts as “fake news” and the Kremlin pumps out false information, is it any wonder that children are confused? 

Left unchallenged, young people will believe what they want to believe. Then these beliefs become consolidated in the echo chambers of social media. 

Teachers, like all professionals, now live in fear of saying the wrong thing and being outed as someone with views that are deemed unacceptable. 

I’ve noticed that young teachers, in particular, are wary of engaging their pupils in any discussion that might cast them adrift on the turbulent waters of race, religion or gender. But if we are not responsible for shaping the values of future generations, then who is? 

We do students no favours when we shirk this duty. We should challenge dangerous misconceptions. We are failing if we do not. 

Adam J Wolstenholme is a secondary school teacher, author and former journalist