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A comment on School officials unite in banning Wikipedia.

Re:School officials unite in banning Wikipedia by codeslinger on Saturday November 24, 2007 @06:53PM (#83256)
What a cop-out. Those teachers are banning one of the greatest sources of information on the Web today just so they don't have to teach their students the concept of 'caveat emptor' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor). All sources have some error and bias, not just Wikipedia. You want to deal with that, teach? Require more sources.

How much you want to bet those same teachers go home and watch Fox News at night?

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Re:School officials unite in banning Wikipedia by qaexl on Saturday November 24, 2007 @11:25PM (#83281)
Being used to a life of consumer goods, 'caveat venditor', and hordes of ambulance chasers, maybe each passing generation forgets how to practice 'caveat emptor'. It's probably called 'critical thinking' in the educational circles.

A lot of students no longer use the index, or table of contents. Or at least http://scholar.google.com/ if they don't have access to the LexisNexis, or something similar. Or maybe they are just going through the motion, practicing being a mindless drone.

But that just points out the failing of the teachers, not the students. Warren Buffett has an interesting perspective on this: http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pages/clubs/investment/WarrenB...

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Q: What is your view on education?

A: Bill Gates thinks we're [America] falling behind. [Mr. Buffett speaks with Bill Gates frequently]. I had a great advantage when I went to public school compared with kids today. When I was in school there were very few career opportunities for women, so an enormous number of very talented women became teachers, and I benefited from their instruction. Today there are many more career opportunities, and as a result the pool of potential teachers has shrunk.

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