Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
For wikipedia to be an valid educational source, it
needs to have some kind of approval system. From what
I understand, this has been discussed since Day 1 of
Wikipedia, but I think it is time to impliment it. If
wikipedia is ever to be printed or used in schools, it
must be scrutinized and validated (or invalidated) on
an article-by-article basis.
I believe it already is a "valid educational source".
Waiting for approval from educational bureaucrats, and being restricted
by their political whims would destroy Wikipedia as we know it. The
scrutiny would be not just on an article by article basis, but on a
school district by school district basis. The range of these from
permissive open-minded to Christian or Islamic fundamentalist is so wide
that we would never have the resources to do all the needed editing.
Wikipedia's primary value is not as a static source in the way that a
printed book or CD wuld be. It is as a growing, dynamic and editable
source. In the perpetual battle between the irresistable force and the
immovable object we are on the side of the irresistable force. Here in
British Columbia the provincial department of education (at least in
theory) bases education on three principles of learning. The one that
is relevant in this context is that education requires the active
participation of the learner. The learner is not there to just
passively vacuum up knowledge; he needs to contribute to that knowledge
interactively. The old model based on respecting the elders who
painstakingly amassed a precious body of knowledge is not working as
well as it used to.
In the economic terms of supply and demand the supply of knowledge has
been made higher than ever by electronic means. The last time knowledge
got such a boost came with Gutenberg in the 15th century. Taking an
example from a modern 18th century democracy like the United States, we
have the Electoral College. It reflects a time when Gutenberg's
revolution had taken hold, but before the revolutions in transportation
of the 19th century. Communicating the results of elections from
Georgia and New Hampshire was not a simple task. It would have
stretched the imagination of the drafters of the constitution to
conceive that some day a far larger and more populous country would be
able to have all the results in one place before the end of voting day.
(The Florida anomaly would have been no less baffling to them as to the
modern person.)
Returning to education, the opportunity that we offer is in dynamically
learning the skills of democratic participation. Focusing on the
negative act of controling sexually explicit material or the positive
act of promoting religious or patriotic values would both have us
missing the opportunity. Part of the skill too is learning to cope with
the disruptive elements in the society.
I could maintain this rant a lot longer! :-)
Eclecticology