Wikipedia vs. Critical Thinking

NPR Weekend Edition's Laura Sydell had an interesting story about Wikipedia. Tim Lauer of eSchoolNews provides a summary and analysis.

The story opens with Jacquie Henry, a high school librarian at Ruben A Cirillo High School. She represents the opinion of some teachers who are under the impression that their students are not sophisticated enough to evaluate what they are reading, especially online, so they are banning it as a reference source.

Any information should have its validity considered. This should include the source of the information. There are two types of information sources: primary sources - where information originates, and 3rd party sources - that reports on a primary source.

No 3rd party source of information should be considered to be an absolute authority. This includes any encyclopedia, most books, newspaper, magazine, etc. Any source of information that reports information from another source is biased - either with opinion or understanding. The bias includes what was reported, how it was reported and what was not reported.

A primary source of information is the person who did something. Not necessarily an expert on something, but the originator. For example someone's autobiography - a person talking about themselves. No one else can disagree with them on this subject, they are the absolute expert. They can still be wrong though. If you read Christopher Columbus' autobiography he thought he found a trade route to India and sailed clear around the world. The fact is he discovered a new continent and only sailed half way around the world.

To me, Wikipedia seems like an ideal source to teach critical thinking to students or anyone. They can actually observe the editorial process and see how facts can be expanded on, edited and distorted. Teachers should have students actively creating, editing and monitoring articles through a watch list.

Students should read a source and then compare that to the body of knowledge they already know to see if it makes sense, especially taking what they know about the source into account. They should get multiple sources and compare what they have to say on a subject. Just because Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica disagree, that doesn't make Wikipedia wrong. For starters, it is edited more frequently and the facts may have changed.

Banning Wikipedia as a reference source only teaches students to not think critically, and to limit their sources based on the biased opinions of others.