Unity and intelligent consumption of information: when and how All-Ukrainian unity lesson will be held this year

On Friday, October 6, at 12:00 PM, the All-Ukrainian lesson of unity will be held for students of grades 5-11, their parents and teachers. Viewers will learn how to counteract social stereotypes, who bots and trolls are, how to consume information wisely and avoid falling victim to manipulations.

The format of the lesson as well as the main tasks and goals of the lesson were discussed during a press conference at Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

As Taras Shevchenko, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, pointed out, the resilience of Ukrainians is based, in particular, on unity, which is why it must be constantly maintained.

“The topic of unity, the topic of media literacy both in war and in peacetime are definitely relevant. I think that unity should always be talked about, thought about and worked on,” he emphasized.

At the same time, Ihor Khvorostianyi, Head of the Directorate of Preschool, School, Extracurricular and Inclusive Education of the Education and Science Ministry of Ukraine, explained that such initiatives are important in particular in the context of the reform of the New Ukrainian School. In addition, he added, this is an important moment of unification for parents, children, and teachers around the issue of developing critical thinking and media literacy.

“For the Ministry of Education and Science, this is also important in the context of the development of the reform of the New Ukrainian School, which lays the foundations of competency-based learning. And thus, educating students to be media-literate is one of the priority tasks of this reform. Therefore, this lesson is a great opportunity for students, parents and teachers to unite in such a symbolic act. I wanted to emphasize precisely this moment of unification – in order to develop critical thinking skills, media literacy and everything related to it,” he explained.

During the discussion, it was mentioned the televised lesson will last 30 minutes and another 15 minutes will be provided for discussion. Educational institutions will be able to determine the format and specifics of the lesson themselves – all education and science departments, all educational institutions have received relevant recommendations. However, the participants of the discussion noted that it is important that the lesson should contain more than just a viewing of the video, and there should be discussions to reflect and study the relevant material in order to get the proper results from the lesson.

In turn, Valeria Kovtun, Head of Filter national media literacy project of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, noted that the structure of the lesson is designed to be as interactive as possible – there will be tests to check the acquired knowledge, there will be explanations about what is breaking the unity today, about hate speech, about discrimination, social stereotypes, etc.

“In addition, Filter in partnership with UNDP has prepared a small surprise that will be announced during the lesson,” she added.

As reported, the All-Ukrainian unity lesson for students of grades 5-11, their parents and teachers will be broadcast on the Suspilne Kultura (Culture) TV channel and on PershyjTV YouTube channel on October 6 at 12:00 PM, as well as on October 13 at 9:30 AM in a repeat.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news