My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They may not even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is happening when you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed over look. I don't think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se, it's this internal process at work.
is precisely what happens with students, too. A few weeks ago a former student wrote to me about career choices and whether she should major in biochem or English, because she'd struggled in biochem classes. My girlfriend was a biochem major, so together we wrote a thorough response that turned into an essay called "How to think about science, becoming a scientist, and life" that should go up soon. After spending a couple hours on the response, we sent it, and I got back an e-mail from the student saying. . . she's going to go to law school and "become a judge."
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head. Experiences like this teach me why a) a lot of professors aren't eager to interact with students and often distance themselves from students and b) why writing "How to get your professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" was useful, if only for the relative handful of students who get it: http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2... .
I'm not saying your student didn't have a pre-filter as you describe. On the other hand, you may have been just one source of advice for your student. Asking for advice doesn't mean that taking it is always the best course, it's information to be weighed against all other advice and information.
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head.
I think that's a bit of an leap - isn't it also possible that she actually took your "How to think about science" essay to heart, and realized that she didn't actually want to do it? This is not uncommon, even if someone is good at something - even if they're the best - that doesn't necessarily mean that they should pursue it.
When I used to advise grad students in the context of GRE training, I considered myself very successful when I talked students out of pursuing graduate education in fields that they were not passionate enough about to commit themselves to properly (or, in a couple of sad cases, where they flat out didn't have the skills - this happened a couple of times with people hoping to go into physics or math that just weren't good enough at math to make it, and as horrible as it was to do so, I had to be honest [gently] about that fact).
This is particularly relevant to me because I was one of those people that understood (and I like to think, still understands) how science is done, was good at it, even had a passion for it, and still decided to pursue another path - I've written the very e-mail that you mention, though it was "program computers" instead of "become a judge". But I think very highly of the professors that gave me an accurate and honest view of how tough the field was (physics, in my case) and how it functioned. Though they might have been disappointed that their feedback played a part in my staying away (honestly, it was money - I realized that unless I was a shining star in the field [I wasn't], I'd probably never have enough, and I didn't have it in me), I consider it to have been extremely important in my decision, and for that I'm really grateful.
This sort of thing used to happen to me a lot. I learned to deal with it by being very careful in asking the right sorts of follow up questions (you need to understand what kind of an answer someone is looking for, or whether they are looking for an answer at all) and not spending more time answering something than what the original questioner spent explaining their priorities and conflicts. In hindsight, this is obvious... if they are to make the decision, all I can do is lend an ear and double-check their thought process - not do the thinking for them!
My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They may not even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is happening when you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed over look. I don't think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se, it's this internal process at work.
is precisely what happens with students, too. A few weeks ago a former student wrote to me about career choices and whether she should major in biochem or English, because she'd struggled in biochem classes. My girlfriend was a biochem major, so together we wrote a thorough response that turned into an essay called "How to think about science, becoming a scientist, and life" that should go up soon. After spending a couple hours on the response, we sent it, and I got back an e-mail from the student saying. . . she's going to go to law school and "become a judge."
So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely "put through an internal process in" her head. Experiences like this teach me why a) a lot of professors aren't eager to interact with students and often distance themselves from students and b) why writing "How to get your professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" was useful, if only for the relative handful of students who get it: http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2... .