George Herbert wrote:
On 10/2/07, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Recently,
I read a report from a French teacher. He enjoys a certain
reputation in the teaching environment, so whilst not all agree with
him, he is certainly listened to by many.
He made a comment which I thought was interesting.
He said "Wikipedia can not be used in the French formal educational
system (schools) because our nation is laic, whilst Wikipedia follows
the neutral point of view. Being laic means that our schools precisely
chose a certain value framework and deliberately educate the kids to
hold certain beliefs and share certain values. On the contrary,
wikipedia holds that all points of view must be given room. For this
reason, Wikipedia is not compatible with our schooling system and should
not be used as a resource".
I found that approach interesting indeed. For once, the issue he was
raising was not so much a question of quality or of stability of the
information, or even of manipulation, but simply a statement "we want
our kids to learn that certain things are true, and others are not true.
Or certain things are good, and others are not good. Wikipedia is a
great resource, but can't be used as teaching support".
Topics that come to my mind are of course topics such as revisionism,
cults, creationism, or pedophilia.
Interesting viewpoint. Wikipedia is incompatible with the French
education system, due to a different definition of "truth". I would
say it's a failing in the French (and many other nation's) education
system, more than anything else, but then if I didn't firmly believe
in NPOV, I wouldn't be emailing foundation-l, would I?
One can hold different intellectual contexts, in which some differing
values apply.
I am not sure how I'd feel if I had young kids and they got to the
Wikipedia pages on pedophillia, for example.
That issue is going to be a problem anywhere, so we shouldn't let it
distract us from the deeper issues involved. Articles relating to
pedophilia are a very tiny part of what happens on Wikipedia.
That said... The comment that the French schools are
laic (is the
proper english for that the "secular" sense, just to clarify...)
doesn't seem to directly address why Wikipedia would be inappropriate.
"Secular" is fine; "lay" would be more direct, but it's
a confusing word
in English because it needs to be used with more precision. "Temporal"
is another word that can be used. Even "laïc" or "laïcal" is
perfectly
acceptable as an English word.
We don't argue for religion being good, or
genocide being good, etc.
We (try to) provide neutral and referenced information about religion,
genocide, etc.
The given description by the French school teacher sounds disturbing.
The whole
issue is the French counterpart to the separation of church
and state that comes up in a United States context. As a bonus it is
tinged with the anti-royal, anti-ecclesiastical traditions of the French
Revolution. A state school system does not object to telling lies to
children, as long as they are not the wrong lies. In the United States
the regular recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance supports this, even
if there is occasional debate about the presence of the words "under
God" in its text.
State school systems exist to serve the purpose of the state in the same
way that religious school system exist to serve the purpose of the
religion. They instill the principles of good _citizenship_. That's
not new to the French school system; I vaguely remember reading
something to that effect by a French government minister from early in
the Third Republic. They forget that Godlessness can be as much a
religion as a theology.
NPOV, when properly applied, requires us to question things, and to
raise the possibility that there are alternatives. If the kids go to
far along that road they might end up questioning government.
Ec