[housingpost]

Maybe what should be taught is “don’t trust anything you read”. That goes for everything from textbooks to newspapers. Instead children are often taught to memorize and obey, which leads to issues when you have to tell your child that the teacher was wrong, and that a teaching certificate doesn’t make you magically all-knowing.

[amysox]

Which is kind of what I was thinking. As soon as you start teaching kids not to be swayed by "agenda-driven sources," what happens when they start realizing that their textbooks and their teachers are also "agenda-driven sources"?

Which is why this proposal will never fly.

[jessaustin]

Lots of kids realize the limitations of their teachers' intellects at some point. Once you realize how dumb your teacher is, it's a short step to realizing how dishonest she is. As long as smart kids can still be civil in class, it isn't usually a problem. They just make their peace with the fact that while their fellows learn in school, they have to find somewhere else to do that. After all, a judicious combination of wikipedia and reddit is bound to be more enlightening than a public school class.

[WalterBright]

I realized that in 6th grade, and made up my own mind about such things ever since. Sometimes resulting in bad grades :-)

Even my shop teacher would make serious errors in explaining things, enough that I didn't take anything he said as a given.