Wikipedia is a learning resource
i think wikipedia is the best learning resource any high school student can have if they know how to use it.
wikipedia is not a source, ive never had a teacher tell me that only that i should never use it because 'its not trustworthy' 'anyone can edit it'. im not going to get into that debate of moderation on wikipedia. but what i will say is yes, wikipedia is not a source, but it is a resource.
So what is a wikipedia article really? well... its an information report, with references, it uses chicago style referencing and a lot of context dependent vocab it doesnt explain. what is it good at? condensing a dozen research papers into a single article. So... it is a sumarry.. of many different trustworthy(if outdated) sources? thats kind of what I have to do for my assignment in school no?
but what makes wikipedia different is that its writing style is very obviously nothing any student would make. so plagarism is just thrown out the window. This is marvelous because it allows us to work backwards to find sources of information, instead of letting google find something, we can let nerds on the internet who did it 4 years ago do it for us.
also. wikipedia has links to other relevant articles. not only inline but at the bottom of the page, you can even find a list of all the pubs in a town or suburb on wikipedia! And the inline hyperlinks are useful becauase they link to the word or phrase that is context dependent and gives you the context on it!
all in all. for a student that knows how to use it, wikipedia, is an excellent resource, and there is a reason it is not blacklisted on public school internet