I do see a trend, not just among young people, but much more broadly, and it really concerns me - people want to be in control and they want to be correct, and in order to do that, we don’t want change, we don’t want to tell the truth. The truth might be that we don’t know or that we are out of control. We only want to ask questions where we know the answers so we look good. To ask a question and say “I really don’t know- can you tell me?” becomes revoltant, and we don’t really want to take risks.
How do you teach somebody with that constellation of attitudes? In teaching, you’re saying “try something new, lean in a different direction, you may not be in control at first, but eventually you’ll incorporate it.”
I don’t know what the best practice is, but I believe, although I can’t say why I believe, that it needs to take account of this, and it needs to, in a head-on way, say, “you’re going to learn by telling the truth, you’re going to learn by letting go of control, you’re going to learn by asking real questions.
And if you expect that your professors or teachers or guides have certainty that you’re trying to acquire, you’re totally misguided. They have sensibility and experience, but not certainty.