Sandy,
What is needed is balance. On the one hand the student must take a certain amount of responsibility for the learning process, and on the other hand the teacher must also do his or her job.
I am currently at a school where the instructors and lab assistants *love* to use the line, "Learning is the responsibility of the student" because it abdicates the instructor from responsibility. A lot of crappy instruction goes on, and instead of taking criticism as feedback that can lead to improvement, more often than not instructors blurt out this line instead of doing a little bit of work and considering ... is there something of value in what this struggling student has to say?
The student you described is certainly an instructor's nightmare. How do you reach someone like that? Are they merely waiting for you to fail the impossible standards they have set for you so they can go home and think, "I won?"
That is certainly a waste of time, and I think I mentioned earlier that if I were an instructor, I'd probably say to this individual, "Look, if you want to just feel right, I can solve this problem right now. You're right, I'm wrong. I will refund your money and you can go home right now so that neither of us will have to waste any more time or effort pursuing our mutually exclusive goals."
My point is, saying that "you must believe" is really unnecessary, and it is definitely a red flag for some people. Certainly it is for me. "You don't have to believe. This stuff works. Lets see how we can get it to work for you." are ideal statements, as far as I am concerned, when approaching a student who is frustrated, having difficulty, and maybe even having problems related to beliefs. I am assuming in these situations that the student really has an interest in learning and is willing to do his or her part.
You have brought up a situation in which I would definitely sympathize with the instructor.
I witnessed an instructor handle something like that with elegance at the NLP Comprehensive Partitioner training. There was this guy from Texas in the audience, and no offense to any Texans out there, but this was a stereotypical fellow. He was loud, brash, and somewhat rude. The kind of person who, with a loud voice and heavy accent would start the conversation with, "Now, let's just get one thing clear here before we start. There are two ways, my way or the highway" while he had his thumbs stuck in his belt and his stomach jutting out. You get the picture.
The instructor was talking about the NLP presuppositions and how the training was really geared to get the presuppositions into our behavior. At this point the Texan blurted out, "Now just wait a minute. I have a hard time believin' this sort of stuff, I mean, some people go around murderin' other people. Do you mean to tell me ..."
The instructor interrupted him (basically mirroring the behavior), "You know, you're skeptical, and I really appreciate that. Some people come here and they're true believers, but not you. You're a skeptic, and you know what? People like you end up learning the most in this environment. It's ok for people to come here convinced, but they aren't going to be aware like you are. They aren't going to be testing things to see if they are true or not. They're just going to be going with the flow. So I encourage you not to believe what we're saying here. Do the exercises and really keep an eye out for what does and doesn't work, and you'll have learned the most. Even if you don't believe any of this stuff (he gestures to the presuppositions listed on the walls), you'll have learned more than people who come here already going, 'uh-huh, uh-huh.' So, I appreciate what your skepticism does for you. It serves a good purpose."
The Texan just stood there with his jaw gaping. He didn't expect that at all. The most beautifully elegant point of it was that the instructor (Gerry Schmidt, I love that guy) behaviorally demonstrated the presupposition about every behavior (the Texan's skepticism) being acceptable and utilizable as it has a positive intention. This was done with incredible finesse. There was no way the Texan could get out of the double-bind Gerry had presented him with.
In terms of my personal experience with teaching, I have *never* told someone that something wasn't working because they needed to believe in it first. If I used that argument while I was a writing tutor, I think people would look at me like I was nuts. There are ways of handling people who are recalcitrant. I am typically nowhere near as elegant as Mr. Schmidt, so sometimes I will sigh, look the person in the eyes, and have a dialogue like,
"It looks to me like you're having difficulty with this paper and process, is that why you are here?"
(If they say no, that they are here because their instructor told them to have their paper looked at by a writing tutor and that they aren't interested at all in working with me, I'll glance at the paper and say, "There, a tutor looked at it. Mission achieved. If you're ever interested in improving your writing I'll be waiting here.")
"Yes."
"Ok. So you're having difficulty and you've tried a lot of ways to deal with it but you're still stuck, right?"
"Yes."
"Then the ways you've been doing it haven't worked, right? So why not try a new way? Why fight me? My job is to help you. I am your slave or your genie, essentially. But I cannot write your paper for you, that's the rules. Why not give an honest effort to doing what I am suggesting? What is making you hold back?"
We can then have a conversation about the student's difficulties and hopefully we can move forward after discussing the objections.
If I said, "You just don't believe I can help you. That is your problem. It's not working because you don't believe in me or the process or both" it wouldn't work so well.
Does that even resemble a point that has some validity and relevance?
[This message has been edited by babayada (edited April 08, 2004).]
