May 2020

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. ―  Pearl S. Buck

Hello! My mind is jumbled. I’m having a hard time processing all that I am seeing. More than 100,000 people dead in the U.S. from COVID-19. Footage of parties in the Lake of the Ozarks as more of my loved ones test positive for the virus.  Videos of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery playing over and over again in my head. Racism in my beloved Central Park hitting me in the gut. The beginning of a social media battle that starts with the words “get the facts about mail in ballots.”

My alarm goes off in the morning and I’m torn between two thoughts. ”Sleep until September” and “Get up, there’s lots of important work to do.” So far, the latter has proven effective in waking me out of my information trance. I can't lie. Some days are harder than others. Today was one of those days. As I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I stopped and watched the footage of protests in Minneapolis, the fires, the protestors, the CNN crew being arrested. Then, I found the text of President Trump's Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship and wondered about the impact this all might have on our community until my head hurt. Then, I remembered why I usually don't read the news first thing in the morning. My brain feels like the spinning rainbow wheel on my Mac. Sometimes I ask my computer to do too much. Apparently, my brain gets a bit overwhelmed also.

A place I have consistently found comfort these last few months is in the past. I find myself searching for historical context to help make some sense of today. It gives me some hope to know that this is not the first time we have suffered, argued, worried, wondered, disagreed, and struggled. Through it all, we somehow find a way to carry on.

I know I have mentioned NPR's Throughline podcast in my newsletter before. It has been my favorite podcast lately with it's mission "to go back in time to understand the present." The three episodes that have really stood out to me recently were The 1918 Flu , The Mask , and Conspiracy. Highly recommend these for great historical perspective. I also had the pleasure of being a part of a panel discussion for ICA's 70th Annual Conference last weekend entitled Exploring the Intersection between Media Literacy and History. Patrice Buzzanell from the University of South Florida moderated and the other panelists were Tim Vos , Michigan State University, Will Mari , Louisiana State University, and Jason Steinhauer , LePage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University. The discussion solidified for me my desire to read, listen, and watch more history content. Any recommendations? Please send them my way!

COVID-19 MISINFORMATION RESOURCE: By now, I am hoping you have seen the resource we created with Thomson Reuters entitled Slowing the Infodemic: How to Spot COVID-19 Misinformation . The resource includes a podcast, video, infographic and teacher guide. We'd love to hear from you if you have used these materials in the classroom. Your feedback would be helpful for us for future projects. Just email us at namle@namle.net . JUNE ANNOUNCEMENTS: In the coming weeks, we will be updating the community on the progress we have made on our research project and our initiative to bring national education organizations together. We can't wait to share the news with you. Stay tuned! Coming to an inbox near you soon!

GETTING ORGANIZED: We have been taking advantage of the extra time we have in our schedules with lack of traveling and in person meetings by getting organized. Donnell and Kyle have been working hard to button up our processes and systems. We are now using Slack for internal communication and Asana for project management. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that my life has completely changed! We are also in the process of implementing Salesforce which will streamline everything from our membership database to our conference registration. While it may not be the most exciting news for our members, I feel incredible pride that NAMLE has matured and grown to an organization that needs this system upgrade. I am also confident that these shifts will help us better serve you and the whole community. MEDIA LITERACY WEEK: Don't forget to save the date for Media Literacy Week 2020 . It is scheduled for October 26th - 30th. We hope you will join the efforts.

Before I go, I wanted to share an article I found while I was seeking inspiration at this time. It has some wonderful quotes I thought you'd appreciate. And I'll leave you with this thought that I see on my morning walks in downtown NYC.

Have a wonderful weekend. See you in June! Michelle Ciulla Lipkin Executive Director mciullalipkin@namle.net @medialiteracyed @ciullalipkin



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