Teacher “Appreciation:” Why Information Literacy Matters More Than Ever

During the first and second week of May, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and National Charter Schools Week 2026, the U.S. Department of Education’s official Facebook page did something remarkable. And it was not remarkable in a good way.  At least, not in my opinion. This is not a post about politics.  It’s a post about propaganda, information literacy, and school librarians.  I truly don’t care where you fall on the political spectrum, there is no denying that what came from the agency responsible for supporting public education in America posted a series of graphics that, at first glance, celebrated teachers, but was actually thinly disguised propaganda.

Personally, I never thought I would be living in a timeline where our government was putting out propaganda demeaning educators. 

Understanding what happened, and why it matters, is the work school librarians do every day with students in kindergarten all the way through their last year of high school.

I can’t stop thinking about these posts and decided to write this blog post as sort of a catharsis of sorts, and to visibly share ways that we can use our expertise to make this a teachable moment.  To teach about propaganda, why it happens, why it matters when the government is using it against educators, and how our students can learn to distinguish forms of media. 

So, what was posted?

The Facebook posts appeared under cheerful Teacher Appreciation Week verbiage, with positive headlines like “Teachers Are Mentors,” “Teachers Are Passionate,” and “Teachers Are Dedicated.” 

The images chosen to illustrate these messages were anything but celebratory.

One graphic labeled “Teachers Are Mentors” featured a character from The Simpsons. And, while I’m a huge fan of the Simpsons, I could not believe the DOE posted a graphic with Mrs. Krabappel, who is famously disengaged on the show. She was clutching a book labeled “MEGA.” 

Another post, “Teachers Are Dedicated,” showed Mrs. Puff from SpongeBob SquarePants, a character known for exhaustion and barely-contained dread, reading a book labeled “MAGA.” 

The “Teachers Are Passionate” post used an aggressively scowling cartoon villain. 

These are not images of inspiring educators. 

They are caricatures of failure, cynicism, and political messaging thinly dressed up in the language of appreciation.

Alongside these posts, the Department posted slicker, AI-generated imagery promoting National Charter Schools Week, with taglines like “When Parents Decide, Kids Thrive” and “Teach, Lead, Inspire.” It was hard to miss that these messages shared that  public schools, and by extension public school teachers, are places where parents don’t have any input and inspiration is absent.

As a school librarian and prior to that a special educator, I built many relationships with parents. Parents were active parts of their child’s education, and I would like to think that there was inspiration in my classroom, in many classrooms, and in libraries in public schools across the country!  In fact, I don’t think so: I know so! 

What is propaganda and how do we recognize it?

Propaganda is defined by Britannica as, “Propaganda is the systematic, widespread dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies—designed to influence public opinion and advance a specific agenda or cause. It often presents only one side of an argument, utilizing biased or misleading information to provoke an emotional rather than rational response (Smith, 2026).”

Propaganda is not always a blunt instrument. It’s been used since the news was born.  Our founding fathers used propaganda. It has been a part of messaging for a really long time.  The Library of Congress has excellent examples from many time periods that can be used for teaching purposes.  

The most effective propaganda is subtle, using the credibility of legitimate institutions and plays on the emotions of shared values. 

When we evaluate sources we often teach our students to look at  their authority, bias, currency, design, and evidence.

In this instance, the authority is the U.S. Department of Education. This is a source that in the past, most people would have trusted on matters of public school.  

The bias is visible in the imagery; cartoon public school teachers and idyllic images for the charter schools.

Honestly, no one could look at those images and think that they were not intentional.  They were used to hurt the millions of public school teachers and librarians who serve students each and every day.  

Some other classic propaganda techniques on display:

• Transfer: using recognizable cultural symbols (beloved cartoon characters) to transfer negative associations onto a target (public school teachers).
• Plain Folks in Reverse: while charter school posts use warm, aspirational imagery of “everyday” families, public school teachers are represented by fictional buffoons.
• Glittering Generalities: vague, feel-good language (“Teachers Are Mentors!”) that, paired with the imagery, becomes deeply ironic and undermining.
• False Dichotomy: the implicit message that charter schools represent the path to thriving children, while the alternative goes unstated but is visually represented by cartoon teachers.

This is why our job is so important!

This display is why every school needs a certified school librarian who is trained to teach information literacy. As school librarians, we are trained to understand when we are being informed and when we are being manipulated and we strive to teach our students to do the same. It starts in kindergarten. 

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) frames information literacy through the lens of our Six Shared Foundations. We want to empower our students to understand the media and understand when fact, fiction, and propaganda are at play.

We teach our students to ask the questions:

• Who made this?
• Why? 
• What is left out? 
• What emotional response is it designed to trigger? 

School librarians are committed to information literacy.  The posts put out by the DOE are just another example of why our National School Library Standards, teaching, and programs are essential to education in 2026 and the years to come. 

What we do and how it ties in

School librarians don’t wait for a crisis to teach information literacy. Every time a student evaluates a source using the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims), they are building young people equipped to do critical evaluation. Developed by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, SIFT is a perfect method for evaluating visuals and social media content; exactly the kind of content the Department of Education posted. 

The “Stop” move alone is a key: before reacting to a meme, a graphic, or a headline, pause and ask what emotional response it is designed to trigger. The DOE posts were engineered to generate that reaction. SIFT gives students and educators the pause button.

Every time a librarian leads a lesson on lateral reading, on identifying emotional manipulation in visual media, on understanding the difference between satire and misinformation, they are doing preventive work against exactly this kind of messaging.

The posts from the U.S. Department of Education is, in an uncomfortable way, a ready-made teaching opportunity. (Do I wish they had not happened at all? Yep.) 

The posts show us how propaganda operates in plain sight. They show us how trusted institutions can be weaponized for political messaging. And most of all they show us why the ability to read critically is not optional. 

The posts came from an official, verified government account. 

They are labeled as celebratory. And they are none of those things. 

That gap between the stated message and the actual message is exactly what school librarians teach students to see.

And we can’t stop. 

What are you waiting for? 

There are a lot of great sites for teaching this information literacy skill — here are just a few.

Mind Over Media (propaganda.mediaeducationlab.com) 

This was developed by Renee Hobbs at the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab.  It is a fabulous propaganda-specific curriculum available for grades 7 through adult. The site has a crowdsourced gallery of over 3,500 real-world propaganda examples. You can browse, rate, and analyze them. The curriculum includes lesson plans covering everything from defining propaganda to recognizing specific techniques to “talking back” to propaganda through student media creation. Lesson plans are free to download as a PDF or editable Google Docs.

Project Look Sharp (projectlooksharp.org) 

This was developed at Ithaca College. It is a media literacy project with over 900 free media decoding lessons, many co-created with school librarians. It has lesson plans and professional development for school librarians. I’ve used this site in the past and will continue to use it.  It’s fabulous. 

The News Literacy Project / Checkology (checkology.org)

This one has been around for a while and has a classroom platform with interactive lessons on evaluating news and information, recognizing misinformation, and understanding how propaganda spreads through social media. Checkology is great for middle and high school students and is regularly updated with current examples.

The Living Room Candidate (livingroomcandidate.org)

This is from the Museum of the Moving Image. It is an archive of political advertisements from 1952 through 2024. You can use their lesson plans that guide students through critical analysis of visual persuasion. 

National Association for Media Literacy(https://namle.org/) 

The National Association of Media Literacy (NAMLE) has a searchable resource bank including lesson plans, infographics, webinars, and media evaluation tools, all tagged for school library use. There are a lot of amazing resources including resources on AI that fit well for teaching skills to our students.

The Moment is Now

We live in a moment that demands information-literate citizens. School librarians have always known this. The work we do, every day, in every school is more urgent than ever.

 

Reference

Smith, B.L. (2026, May 11). propaganda. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/propaganda