I remember spending hours on end in the school library. Today, I can pickup my tablet or smartphone and access materials that would not have been available. The Information Age gave modern educators and students a tremendous advantage over their predecessors.

There are limits. A poor teacher can hinder a student. But a good student can overcome this. However, even the greatest teacher cannot overcome the limitations of a poor student.

It is a wonderful time in history for both teachers and students.

I suspect that academia operates along the lines of 'operant conditioning' (carrot and stick) as BF Skinner renamed it. Revealed knowledge passed down and regurgitated in examinations with very little room for raising questions. However, once you have got the chair at a university you may begin to express your own thoughts in a somewhat restricted manner.

It certainly does not help when distinguished figures say that philospohy is dead.

I seem to remember Henry D. Thoreau quoting a version of that. So it must go back to at least the middle of the nineteenth century.

The further problem is, who is it that's been teaching them?