Mindfulness: A Path to a Kinder You and a Better World

Often, when students enter college or university, they lack good information literacy skills.

What do we mean by this? Essentially, information literacy is the ability of a child to:

• Decide what information is needed.
• Be able to make choices about the different types of information available both in print and electronically.
• Be able to locate and select relevant resources to satisfy an information need.
• Be discerning and evaluative about the information that is found, and the process used to find it, and apply it to informed decision-making.

However, it is often the case that students, both at school and in higher education, rely too heavily on sources that are not suitable, such as Google or Wikipedia.

As such, it is crucial that we lay the background in school to improve students’ awareness of the concept of information literacy and why it is essential for their long-term education.

One of the most significant benefits of teaching information literacy to students is that it equips them with the skills they need to find and evaluate information critically. With ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence systems, students have access to a wealth of information, but not all of it is accurate or reliable. Therefore, it is essential for students to learn how to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate information and how to evaluate the credibility of sources.

Another critical benefit of teaching information literacy in AI era is that it helps students become better communicators. With the rise of digital communication, it has become more important than ever to be able to communicate effectively and to understand how to use digital tools appropriately. By teaching information literacy, educators can help students learn how to communicate their ideas effectively and how to use digital tools such as ChatGPT responsibly.

In addition, teaching information literacy can help students develop self-directed learning skills. Self-directed learning involves taking responsibility for one's learning, setting goals, and pursuing knowledge independently. With the vast amount of information available online, it has become more important than ever for students to develop the skills they need to learn independently.

One way to achieve this is by developing a whole-school information literacy curriculum that is embedded within the academic discipline, flexible, holistic, and student-centered.

However, it is not just about what is included in the curriculum; it is also about how it is delivered. The best approach is to collaborate between librarians and teachers to understand what students need and to design lessons that meet their needs.

After all, think of reading-comprehension skills that begin in the Foundation Stage and continue throughout school; the skills are built upon with appropriate instruction at each stage of learning.

This is the ideal approach to information literacy: introducing the skills in the early years, building on them as the student advances through primary school, and introducing new concepts of knowledge-seeking and analysis as they progress.

The key is that by incorporating these ideas into the students learning experience before university or college, they are familiar with these processes on arrival and in a far better position to take their learning forward, rather than grappling with new learning conventions.

Are you a #maincharacter? Do you have #maincharacterenergy? It’s a BIG hashtag right now. It means being the main character of your own life, actively taking control and focusing first and foremost on yourself, your wants and desires.

#Maincharacter says that the most important thing is us, and what we want. And actually that’s nothing new. Our world is built on the belief that human beings are the most important things. Our lives and how fun we can make them takes priority over any other living species. We measure and value everything according to its impact on us humans.

There’s a word for this. It’s ‘anthropocentric’, which means ‘human-centred’. Which, by the way, is a great word to drop into conversation now and again. It sounds super-smart and always impresses people. Particularly old people like me. You’re welcome ;-)

I think anthropocentrism is responsible for a lot of the problems the world faces. So I take a different view. As an ecocentrist I believe in the value of all living things - both human and non-human species - and natural ecosystems. Ecocentrism is about seeing intrinsic value. That means a living thing has value and is worth something in its own right, not just because of the use it might have to humans.

Ecocentrism helps you realise that we often value things wrongly. Our human-centred view of the planet and its ecosystems is so narrow that we describe all sorts of things as free – like social media, or McDonalds Happy Meal toys for example – which have real costs in terms of energy, the environment and impacts on non-human species.

If you think about it #maincharacterenergy that makes your personal desires the most important thing in the world is really like anthropocentrism that’s drunk a whole crate of Red Bull. It turns our already narrow window on the world into a mirror. But here’s a really powerful plot twist: how about making non-human species the main character? What about a world where the health and happiness of non-human species was equally as important as ours? That’s changing your window big-time stylee. In fact that’s beyond a window. It’s not even a big glass wall. That, my friends, is knocking down the human-centred house altogether!

The stories we tell ourselves are really important. Every villain is the hero of their own story so changing our stories, about the world and our place in it can be very powerful. It can change the kind of future world we imagine, and it can even help us to create it. Because you can’t truly #liveyourbestlife until you find purpose, meaning and value in lives other than your own.