[Foundation-l] university blocking wikipedia

[Marc Riddell]

on 10/2/07 7:15 PM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9 at yahoo.com wrote:

> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> Ask them to cite their sources :-)
>>> (for example, ask the person to provide names of universities
>>> supposingly doing that)
>>> Then, if the person reveals unable to provide any names, adopt a very
>>> serious and dignified face, nod gravely, and says "urban legends are
>>> terrible. I wish so much people would start using figures and citing
>>> sources when they make a claim. We should ban sentences starting by
>>> "many says that", or "some people consider that" or "Most people know
>>> that"".
>> 
>> You want to pass [[WP:WEASEL]] into law? Sounds like a plan. Everyone
>> pick a country, and we'll start work.
>> 
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> 
> Let me pick up France :-)
> 
> 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.

And this is the most frequent cause of emotional conflict within a person:
when their "gut" (their "self") tells them one thing, and their brain (their
learning) tells them something else. Your self is who you are - and your
brain is full of other peoples' opinions of who you should be. The beauty is
you have the choice of which to follow.

Marc

-- 
Just be.