Epistemology

Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, "logos") or theory of knowledge is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1] The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).[2]

Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?" -Wikipedia


I was reading the interview of an aquaintance, Joyce Malyn-Smith, in which she states this:

Q: What is the changed role of teachers?

A: First, they need to help young people check the accuracy of their information because today’s youth are bombarded with so much information that they have difficulty understanding what’s true and what’s not true.

Secondly, young people have developed these spikes of learning around their topics of interest. It’s very deep learning, but they don’t know how this knowledge fits into a historical framework or cultural perspective, or aligns with known scientific principles.

Teachers have a critical role. It’s one of helping young people make sense of the information they’re gathering, and helping them place this information into a context that pushes our collective intelligence to a higher level. (Hot Chalk)

It triggers an old question, and I think it's about time I faced up and admitted I don't have one answer, I have several, and none. The question is "How do you validate information?" I was drawn in by this question the first time I heard it, before I knew anything about cognitive sciences or psychology, and before I officially knew anything about computer sciences. I tried to answer it too. I tried to write about it, talk about it, I asked other people, I tried to draw it, I tried even just to think about it.
If the world was going to blow up tomorrow, you could accurately say "I'm going to blow up tomorrow." or "You're going to blow up tomorrow." or "North America won't exist tomorrow." Any of an infinite number of answers, all of them accurate, utterly incomplete, and all tied together in a big knot. That's how many possible answers there are to the question "How do you validate information?"
However, just because we can't explain how we do it doesn't mean that we don't do it. Whatever It is. I'd like to challenge the idea that we have a hard time distinguishing what's true and what isn't.
I think we have a different relationship with information in general. Truth, for us "Digital Natives", is communal. We expect almost all the information we come across to be true to the author's best knowledge. The exceptions being information with an agenda; email messages from people in Uganda wanting to transfer several million dollars to US bank accounts and campaign information are always suspect. It's still based on the person supplying information, not on the information itself. The person who distributed it, it's assumed if they're not looking for anything, believes it. You can still disagree with it, think that the person who published it didn't do enough background research, think they're delusional, whatever. There may be counter-truths, but unless it has an agenda, information is generally accepted as true.

I agree with the rest of Malyn-Smith's answer to this question, but not in the (lack of) direction it takes. Word for word, I agree that a teacher's job is to help their students "make sense of the information they’re gathering", help them fit it into a "historical framework or cultural perspective, [and align it] with known scientific principles".
The only issue I have is that I don't think it goes far enough. We've gone from observation, the finding of information, into analysis of it. What naturally comes next is a practical use for the information. A teacher's job is arguably to provide tools to their students to help them accomplish their goals. Part of that is helping them define goals that are meaningful to the student and helping them apply their knowledge towards those goals.
What I'm saying is that you can't teach a kid how to average something and not tell them where they might want to use it. Or, my particular pet-peeve, you can't explain to a student about genocides of the past and not talk about how they relate to genocides of today, or how to stop future genocides. If someone has nothing real and current in their lives to apply abstract concepts to, what was the point of teaching them the abstract concept?