Memes are a cultural shorthand shared across social media that features an image and a bold caption, conveying an idea, behavior, style or concept.
But in Kelley Stocker’s Government class at Westerville South High School, they offer a real-world lesson on evaluating information and sources and why that matters.
“Kids know memes,” she said. “They are simple but there is so much behind them. My mind starts running when I see them: ‘That’s not accurate, that’s a misinterpretation’ and I start wondering, does the person who posted this even understand the context of what they are posting?”
For years, she has led “Memes of the Week” discussions with her students, working with them each week to look beyond the surface of the meme and question its intent and the message it’s trying to convey.
“The point is to see information and be able to evaluate it as second nature,” Stocker said. “Whether it’s a meme, a headline or tweet, the goal is to be able to see information and make judgments and ask questions about it rather than just accepting it.”
It has been a challenge to host the weekly lessons with the changes from Remote to Blended Learning in the school schedule this year but Stocker was able to host a discussion recently.
As students filed into her Government class, a meme featuring the image of a frenzied Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was displayed on her whiteboard. The caption: Socialist jokes are only funny if everyone gets it.
“Anyone know why that’s funny?” she asks her students.
One student raises his hand, saying that the meme is only mildly funny before launching into a description of socialism.
“Wealth is distributed to all so everyone gets equal pay,” he said.
Stocker shifted the conversation into the definition of socialism, why it’s so negatively received in the United States and whether it’s an actual interpretation of Ocasio-Cortez’s political views.
“We’re never going to be able to get kids to stop consuming information via social media and I’m not going to be able to encourage them to read essays on every meme topic that they see,” Stocker said. “But if they can at least learn how to question and examine what they don’t know so they are not just consuming content as is.”