Speaking as a professor emerita having taught decades, I'd say part of the problem rests not on the shoulders of reluctant or intransigent students but on the administrations and boards of trustees. It is these educational "leaders" who have tried to do exactly what Henry David Thoreau warned against: They have tried to turn the quest for knowledge from following a "meandering stream" to constructing a "straight-cut ditch." They have done so by all of their illiberal agendas: monetizing departmental enrollments; creating fake assessments of learning; pandering to students' and their families' demands to be considered consumers of education rather than learners. One cannot expect a student who has been prepared to consider a course grade as a kind of quid pro quo based on tuition charges to be humble or open when they've expected a "transaction" and not a learning experience in a classroom.

Speaking as a professor emerita having taught decades, I'd say part of the problem rests not on the shoulders of reluctant or intransigent students but on the administrations and boards of trustees. It is these educational "leaders" who have tried to do exactly what Henry David Thoreau warned against: They have tried to turn the quest for knowledge from following a "meandering stream" to constructing a "straight-cut ditch." They have done so by all of their illiberal agendas: monetizing departmental enrollments; creating fake assessments of learning; pandering to students' and their families' demands to be considered consumers of education rather than learners. One cannot expect a student who has been prepared to consider a course grade as a kind of quid pro quo based on tuition charges to be humble or open when they've expected a "transaction" and not a learning experience in a classroom.

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