Who controls tomorrow?
It is strange how times change. A quarter century back when I graduated from Chabot College with an Associate of Arts degree with Honors, I was under the impression that my courseload would fill the requirements for transfer into a state college.
In the next 25 years life happened and I wound up taking a circuitous route to my senior year at Chico State. In preparation for this education, the bureaucrats that determine eligibility qualifications changed tho rules. I wound up studying classes in critical thinking, reasoning, and procedures for verification of facts with the onset of the Internet Age.
That training, combined with a little experience in college journalism, taught me not to trust everything I read but to verify it whenever possible. Which brings me to today's debate in a class at Chico State. As one of the moderators for the issue, I asked both sides to verify their key claims.
The debaters were of the dominate age at Chico State presently. It was assumed they had no debate experience, but when they cited for verification websites, and sites that could not be verified, their arguments became suspect.
The problem with this is these students are not alone. A lot of people assume that everything published in today's library, the Internet, is factual, and they do not question the statements published within. What these students, and many people don't realize is just how easy it is to publish a website, without any way of finding out what group is responsible for and benefits by what argument.
Why is it that critical thinking and analysis seems to be lacking with this Internet and Cell phone generation? They are going to inherit the future?