If you follow this back a bit, I wasn't really referring to beginning
students.
I categorically reject the notion that a modern education should
absolve students of the responsibility to read and learn – by any
means – outside of the classroom. On their own, without the
handholding the usual mechanisms of a well-crafted course provide. We
abdicate our responsibility to educate if we do not teach students to
learn how to learn – by themselves. In many ways that is our PRIMARY
responsibility. And there is far more to learn in this world that
MUST be learned by oneself, usually from books, than there is that can
be learned from lengthy classes with skilled teachers with carefully
crafted, pre-digested exercises that guide them to discover what we
want them to discover. As students become professionals, those
crutches are gone. Sure, we often teach ourselves by something that
resembles inquiry. But we teach ourselves with a whole lot of sit-
your-fanny-down-and-figure-it-out as well. They are BOTH deeply
important skills – I don't care what your line of work is.
How responsible are we being if we send students off the medical
school, law school, graduate school in physics or engineering or
whatever, if all they have ever seen are inquiry-based courses?
(Perhaps it is worth the reminder that medical school and graduate
school generally offer a balance of modes of learning – sending
students off to work in offices/hospitals/labs etc. while at the same
time doing serious book-work.)
Need I repeat that I am generally in SUPPORT of PER-based reform in
introductory education. This need not – and SHOULD not – be an
either/or choice. Somehow these discussions seem doomed to pit what
I regard as simultaneously necessary skills against one another.