Wikipedia vs. Textbooks

Many educators are still reluctant to allow Wikipedia as source.

Over the past week we have seen and read several examples of how textbooks and many types of traditional learning are extremely one sided and/or censored to the point of becoming almost useless.  In the article “A Textbook Example of What’s Wrong with Education, “ author Tamim Ansary states, “most of these books fall far short of their important role in the educational scheme of things. They are processed into existence using the pulp of what already exists, rising like swamp things from the compost of the past. The mulch is turned and tended by many layers of editors who scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of all ages.”  Ansary goes on to talk about how all textbook publishers have merged into one entity so school systems have little choice in what they can get as far as textbooks go.

One of the main examples of how the history we teach is one sided was that of the history we have with the Lakota or Sioux tribes of the Midwest.  It should come really as no surprise that there is little written about the other side of the fight.  As they say, history is written by the winners.  To bring the issue into sharper focus here is a page from a history textbook on the Wounded Knee Massacre.  In contrast here is a Wikipedia article on the same event. Hardly an equity of information, and the fact that the textbook is on the lacking end shows the sad state of our educational resources.

This censorship and political correctness in an effort to avoid giving offence in an age where a weak populace is offended by everything under the sun, and in some cases the sun itself, has sent many educators running to seek out new sources of information.  Unorthodox sources of information to help students see more than one side of an issue.  To help students learn to do proper research requires multiple sources of information on a subject.  Students need to learn to ask questions and find the answers rather than taught to simply regurgitate facts that they get from an abridged version of a topic written in a painstaking effort to avoid making people feel uncomfortable.

One of the more popular alternative sources for information available is Wikipedia.  And while the site has gained a more positive reputation, many educators still are reluctant to allow students to use it as a source.  Truthfully I feel similarly to this group of educators.  While “much of Wikipedia is not edited by just ‘anyone.’” According to the article “Wikipedia Emerges as a Trusted Source for Ebola Information” by Noam Cohen, I would still rather have students use it as a site to find other useful sources for research rather than as a source itself.