The title is a bit pessimistic. Not all students are “unteachable,” but too many are:
Meetings about bad grades are uncomfortable not merely because it is unpleasant to wound feelings unaccustomed to the sting. Too often, such meetings are exercises in futility. I have spent hours explaining an essay’s grammatical, stylistic, and logical weaknesses in the wearying certainty that the student was unable, both intellectually and emotionally, to comprehend what I was saying or to act on my advice. It is rare for such students to be genuinely desirous and capable of learning how to improve. Most of them simply hope that I will come around. Their belief that nothing requires improvement except the grade is one of the biggest obstacles that teachers face in the modern university. And that is perhaps the real tragedy of our education system: not only that so many students enter university lacking the basic skills and knowledge to succeed in their courses — terrible in itself — but also that they often arrive essentially unteachable, lacking the personal qualities necessary to respond to criticism.
The entire two-page article by Janice Fiamengo is a devastating critique not just of incoming students’ unrealistic confidence in their academic prowess (and intellectual laziness) but of a “system” that, to a large extent, often aids and abets the perpetuation of this illusion. As I wrote in the Preface of Thriving at College:
Our society tends to make people feel so “affirmed” all their lives that they lose the proper, objective basis for affirmation: a gift, a talent, a skill, as demonstrated by some accomplishment. Instead, everyone gets a trophy in Little League for showing up. When people are regularly reminded how special and talented they are, they’re shocked when they’re shuffled off the stage of their latest obsession, like another failed American Idol contestant.
However, I believe the problem is correctable: The “unteachable” can become “teachable” through attitude adjustment, but the professor also has to adjust to a new reality. While not neglecting her formal pedagogical duties of communicating the course content, she must also become part motivational coach, part drill sergeant (cf. I Thess. 5:14). If she makes clear, on the first day of class, that there will be uncompromisingly high standards — but that she as an instructor will be working very hard to help students reach these standards — “I’m here to help you learn, but the class will be tough, and you’re going to have to work hard, just like I’m working hard” — the lazier students sometimes wake up, and the more motivated students (privately) express gratitude. (You also need to stick to your guns and not inflate grades. Word gets around that you’re tough, and student effort and performance increase.)
HT: Ardel Caneday