Internet users stampeded to visit the Encyclopaedia Britannica's sleek new Web site last week, the venerable intellectual icon was nearly road kill on the information highway. The creation of scholarly encyclopedias is costly and unlikely to continue, according to this article, as the commoditization of information moves forward relentlessly. Families too often find the cheaper, substandard, bundled encyclopedia articles quite sufficient for most school reports and family questions. Mind bytes and mind candy abound as the lives of presidents, poets and revolutionaries are reduced to simple paragraphs and formulaic summaries. In all too many cases, the questioning process has been reduced and oversimplified to a search for pre-packaged answers.
Artificial intelligence abounds.
Questions are intended to provoke thought and inspire reflection, but all too often the process is short circuited by the simple answer, the quick truth or the appealing placebo. We know that the most important questions in life defy such formulaic responses and that recipe books require frequent revision in times of rapid change. Without such skills, we and our students are prisoners of conventional wisdom and the trend or bandwagon of the day. Analysis is the underpinning of new thinking and wise choices. If we hope to see inventive thought infused with critical judgment, questions and questioning must become a priority of schooling and must gain recognition as a supremely important technology.