So I was thinking about students who resist their schooling and, by chance, while wandering around in the essays of Samuel Johnson and a book about him, I came across this:
We teachers may very well overpower our resistant students for a time -- some of our colleagues may do little else, I suppose. But each student still chooses an attitude toward our coercions, and in the long run, based on our own experience as students, shouldn't we suspect that the coerced will wise up and make their own decisions? When students assent to a teacher's coercion, isn't it little more than a way of saying, "Yes, you have the power today"?
But, to return to a phrase from another post, if the work we're doing together seems to make a difference, then a student might assent not to a teacher's power but to the value of the work. The student would be saying, in effect, "I accept this this project as my own." When you can rise in the morning and say that about the heart of your day, life is probably pretty good, yes? [Source]