Your teachers weren’t gaslighting you, stop using that word when you mean lying.
Wikipedia may have sited sources but those sources can, and have been, incorrect many times. Misleading information is still prevalent on the site. So even if you steal the sources Wikipedia uses in their articles you better dig deeper because that shit is nefarious. Wikipedia is not immune to western propaganda. They pick and choose what info to put out there from the sources knowing most, like OP, won’t read deeper into anything they site. You’ll just take their word for it.
Your teachers were trying to get you to actually do the work and not just trust what some randos said on wikipedia.
During my education I didn’t come across a teacher who “taught” an alternative to Wikipedia. I would have loved to learn how to find good information much earlier. The intention is good but I don’t know if students get the appropriate tools.
I had a teacher that accepted a blog as a source and never told me it wasn’t reliable because, just like many people reading Wikipedia articles, they weren’t checking the sources, just the names. The irony is that they were just checking them to make sure they weren’t wikipedia articles.
Yeah with teachers it’s hit or miss. Research is hard especially doing it for the first time, just googling stuff doesn’t bring up much. Some teachers are great in steering students in the right direction but others just say “no wiki” and leave you on your own.
I learned research skills in first year English classes at uni. There are classes in uni specifically to teach students how to do proper research. It’s a subject on its own.
It sucks that the good stuff is hidden from most people. Some sites are blocked unless you’re in academia.
Also, your teachers often can’t explicitly demonstrate the disinformation on wikipedia they’re trying to warn you about without getting censored/fired themselves.