In response to Charles' thoughts on Learner Autonomy

This post originally started out as a comment reply to a comment from Charles in reply to this post. (Sorry, couldn't think of a better way to write that.) It eventually became long enough to become a post of its own, and thus worth more points for my Distance Ed class. (YEAH!)

"In my view learner autonomy can be a good thing and a bad thing."

You know, you are absolutely right. At first I disagreed with your statement, thinking that we had just been using a different definition of "learner autonomy." I was using the phrase to designate only the quality and extent of the autonomy characteristic exhibited by the learner, and I thought you were using it to describe the degree of autonomy encouraged or allowed by the instructor.

However, despite the possibility of our using different definitions of the phrase, I am nonetheless forced to agree with you after more careful consideration of the matter. Imagine a classroom full of learners who are fully autonomous, needing no help at all from the teacher, and can come to all of the correct answers on their own, solely through interaction with the textbook. (Please ignore for a moment, if you will, the fact that the situation just described is, arguably, a contradiction.) Now, imagine a classroom full of students who, in order to truly learn the content, desperately need the instructor to hold their hands and spoon-feed them all course content. The first scenario I described sounds much less easier to me as an instructor, and thus much more appealing. So learner autonomy is obviously a good thing, right?