As teachers, you will soon be made aware of “Defence Dynamics”, a Ministry of Defence online programme starting in September. So far, though, the website casts doubt about the ability of the MoD to organise itself, let alone others.
The ministry wants English teachers to deliver this teachers whose job it is to teach pupils to be cynical about the media and identify the techniques it uses to manipulate.
The text provided to give the anti-war point of view is an opinion piece from a newspaper, but it’s not even a real one (we don’t want to give the impression that the media actually wrote anything anti-war). The pro-war “fact sheet” helps to identify techniques used to persuade in writing in other words, pulling apart the anti-war piece. It doesn’t take a genius to spot the bias of those writing these plans.
It’s so clumsy. Propaganda has to be a lot better than this to get past English teachers.
Victoria Elliott
English teacher, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
