Encountering a student that is resistant to learning is difficult and frustrating, yet they are there in almost every class. Understanding their reasons for resistance and how to better respond to their resistance helps us to become a more skillful teacher, and can alleviate the frustration you feel as a teacher.

In The Skillful Teacher, Stephen D. Brookfield describes how he saw resistant learners as something that needed to be overcome. If he worked hard enough he could turn them into the opposite, a student that was responsive and excited. The problem he came to find is that this often made it so that all focus was put on the resistant learners in a group and took that focus away from those students who were ready and willing to learn. Despite all his hard work these resisters never came to be ready and willing, so why was he expending so much energy on them?

He shares a very honest reflection with us, and one that I have experienced in my own teaching practice. I have this overwhelming desire to change the resistant learners I encounter, and I can attest to doing the same thing as he describes by putting all my focus and energy into changing students who do not wish to change.

Why Are They Resistant?

Understanding why some students are resistant to learning is the first step. In Chapter 16 of the Skillful Teacher, Brookfield identifies that resistance to learning is a “multilayered and complex phenomenon in which several factors intersect” (Brookfield, 2015, pg 219) contradictory to the stance that a lot of educators take, excusing resistance as a generational phenomenon where technology has created a group of entitled students with a low attention span. (Brookfield, 2015, pg. 218) In my own experience I can say that I have encountered resistant learners from many different age groups, just as I have encountered excited learners from different age groups.

Several key factors are identified by Brookfield as to why a student may be resistant to learning from you.

1. Poor self-image as a learner
2. Fear of the unknown
3. A normal rhythm of learning
4. A disjunction of learning and teaching styles
5. Apparent irrelevance of the learning activity
6. Level of required learning is inappropriate
7. Fear of looking foolish in public
8. Cultural suicide
9. Lack of clarity in teachers’ instructions
10. Students’ dislike of teachers
11. Going too far, too fast

(Brookfield, 2015, pp 219-225)

Having a learner that is openly resistant to you and/or the course material you are teaching can become unhealthy for the group as a whole if not responded to. Resistance can spread and sabotage all of your best efforts. Of course, you also need to reflect on your own desires to win them over. You are the only one in control of you, so if the student will not change, your response to them can.

Responding to the Resistance

In Chapter 17 of the Skillful Teacher, Brookfield discusses how to respond to resistance. He makes it clear that, at one point in time, he thought of this as overcoming resistance, but now realizes that it is not something to be overcome. The resistant learner may remain resistant throughout the course with you. Resistance is not something you can overcome, but something you can respond to in the hopes of stopping the spread of resistance and maintaining a positive experience for the students who are there ready to learn. Since resistance is so complex and can be expressed differently by each student, there is no magic formula you can apply. Instead, Brookfield ascribes some key advice for educators, based on his own experience.

1. Try to sort out the causes of resistance
2. Ask yourself if the resistance is justified
3. Research your students’ backgrounds
4. Involve former resisters
5. Model the behaviors you are requesting
6. When appropriate involve students in educational planning
7. Use a variety of teaching methods and approaches
8. Asses learning incrementally
9. Check that your intentions are clearly understood
10. Build a case for learning
11. Create situations in which students succeed
12. Don’t push too fast
13. Admit the normality of resistance
14. Try to limit the negative effects of resistance

(Brookfield, 2015, pp 228-238)

Reflecting on the times that you may have been a resistant learner is helpful as well. Our own experiences as a student can give us vital insight into why student behavior is what it is. When we recognize that we have been a resistant learner ourselves we also come to recognize that the resistant learners we encounter are not bad students. They are having their own experience as a student. At the end of the day, we may not change them, but how we respond to them is what makes us a more skillful teacher.

This post was created for PIDP 3260: Professional Practice as part of the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at Vancouver Community College. You can access their website here. To access the School of Instructor Education Facebook page click here.

Reference list:

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The Skillfull Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.