During our last two lectures for my physics class this semester, my professor sent us to the board, had us collaboratively solve problems, and asked us summarizing meta-questions like “What is the Dirac delta function, how did we ‘discover’ it, and where do we find it in electricity and magnetism?” (This last question is so cool because it touches on theory building and scientific creativity which is banished from most classrooms.) Afterwards, I told him these were my two favorite classes of the semester and asked why we didn’t do this more often. Furthermore, why didn’t we spend class time discussing theory building and scientific creativity?

He told me that many students would love and benefit from this, but that there is also a great many students who are simply here to get a degree and a job and would hate it.

Partially, I agree with him. There certainly are students with these goals. But might they still enjoy a chance to discuss and express some creativity?

Or should the small contingent of students more deeply interested in science simply move the conversation online and bring together other small contingencies of future scientists to discuss such things?