Dear Avenues Families,

At Curriculum Night earlier this semester, I introduced myself as “a teacher who helps students make sense of information.” For me, the rows of books, the variety of reading materials, and the vast digital resources all point to one thing—information. For our students, every book they open, every webpage they browse, and every paragraph they highlight leads them to more questions:

Is this real or fake? How do I know? How does fiction shape my sense of truth?Why do I sometimes feel moved by stories that aren’t real, yet misled by facts that are?

This is information literacy. It is not simply about searching for and locating information, but about critical thinking—evaluating credibility, understanding context, and forming independent judgments. In a world flooded with information, every click and share shapes the way we perceive reality. Helping students think critically is therefore more important than ever.

Yet, critical thinking is not about always finding the “right” answer. In primary library classes, I used to ask students to decide which images had been digitally altered. At first, they feel proud or disappointed depending on whether they guessed correctly. Later, they start to wonder if I might be leading them toward a certain answer—and that realization is where true thinking begins.

In the secondary division, s students sometimes find themselves puzzled by the “information filtering games” we play—activities deliberately designed to challenge their judgment. They are also occasionally confused when I keep asking why they chose to use a certain source or piece of evidence. Yet it is precisely through this process, learning to question, to weigh, and to discern amid uncertainty, that they develop one of the most valuable abilities of all.

Thinking is not about being right; it is about experiencing the process of thinking itself. Even as adults who work carefully with information, we cannot always guarantee absolute truth or reliability. Our students, too, must learn through this same journey.

In an uncertain world, perhaps it is less important to deliver every “correct” fact than to create space for reflection—where teachers and students think together, question together, and grow together. Whether they are reading fiction or nonfiction, researching for a project, or debating ideas with peers, ourstudents are constantly learning to distinguish fact from opinion, to recognize misinformation, to turn curiosity into purposeful inquiry, and to listen with empathy to perspectives different from their own. These are not discrete skills but part of a continuous process of becoming thoughtful, critical, and compassionate learners.

Through these experiences, students gradually grow into responsible users and creative shapers of information. They learn not only to access information, but to transform it into understanding.

Families can nurture this process at home by asking simple yet powerful questions when children share what they’ve read or seen:

“Do you think this information is reliable?” “Who said this?” “Would others see it differently?”

Each question becomes the seed of lifelong inquiry. No one can think on behalf of our children—for knowledge to be truly theirs, they must discover it through their own reasoning. Through reflection, analysis, and exploration, our students are learning not just how to read information, but how to read the world.

At Avenues Shenzhen, the essence of information literacy lies in the courage to question, the wisdom to discern, and the curiosity to connect ideas.

Warmly,

Iris Xiang
Library Media Specialist
Avenues Shenzhen