The biggest challenge in teaching spirituality and values to children in schools is twofold: most teachers have no deep motivation to teach the values because they are pressed by society to “drill kids to pass”. Secondly, parents and teachers are chasing after children to catch up on the latest technology, how to use and guiding children on appropriate content to consume. Our premise was that teachers needed to be provided with the audio-visuals and they will start using them. Instead, what the findings show is that a systematic approach that builds the capacity of parents and teachers to meaningfully use audio-visuals will be more productive. This program therefore offers:
- Skills and knowledge training on digital trends
- Formal training on critical consumption of media content
LCMC is a Digital Media Literacy (DML) Centre that provides both online and offline knowledge on spirituality sources, credibility, relevance and usability on the part of consumers including children. Learning institutions will find the resource readily available for teaching. The Digital Media Literacy (DML) program specifically supports learning institutions to identify appropriate content online, deconstruct the texts and subtexts of such content in line with spiritual formation and subsequently help children to differentiate between sophisticated unspiritual yet entertaining content from appropriate content both online and offline content that nurtures faith.
LCMC will provide technical knowledge on Digital Media Literacy (DML) at three levels:
Mostly features in media literacy programs. Helps parents and instructors recognize deeper meanings in media productions particulary those meant for children consumption. There are many sites and many programs for children online some of which could be harmful to children. LCMC will filter them out and provide information on usable spiritual content for children.
Basic law and argumentation on children rights, obligations and responsibilities is paramount. The value systems of children and youth content producers are not necessary similar to the Christian values. The production values in programs is often a rigous process, premeditated and packaged with specific outcomes in mind. LCMC will engage experienced experts in specific thematic areas of select popular online films and videos to give input. This way, the Centre will offer high quality service to parents and instructors on complexities in postermodern arguments that tend to overshadow faith. Meanings in film and video productions are never meant to be obvious as they are presented in edutainment formats. In this era when citizens who may not know the professional ethos of production are producers, children can be exposed to misinformation and disinformation.
The teaching about faith are not as straight forward as they sound in catechism. The younger generation is inquisitive and yet available online secular content could confuse children and youth as they consume online content. If a child asks ‘google’ the question, does God exist? Unless there is proper guidance to parents, instructors and children the online responses vary from “God does not exist” to very confusing responses. LCMC will engage theologians for thematic areas on select popular films and videos that could mislead online faith audiences particularly children. This will complement the philosophy level (argumentation) so that the faith of the child is grounded on proper reasoning.