A pedagogic misjudgment can be the handmaiden to epiphany. “I realized then and there,” Will recalled, “that I cannot lament my students’ inability to decipher fake news if I haven’t given them the chance to practice doing it.”5 Will had rediscovered Pedagogy’s First Law, credited to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea: If you want to teach students to swim, get them wet. Similarly, if you want to teach students the difference between reliable information and tabloid gossip, you can’t confiscate their phones. You have to use their phones to show them what their phones can’t do.
