After a long day I thought, "students are harder than Allah, you have to take two steps towards them to get them to take one step towards you."
On a related note, sitting in a contentious meeting with my academic higher-ups I finally really got what Elijah Mohammed was talking about when he showed Malcolm the glass of water with ink in it: "if you offer only dirty water, people will drink it because they are thirsty. If you offer the choice between dirty water and clean, they will choose the clean water."
Too often people in charge fill the table with glasses of dirty water -- when the clean is at hand -- because the fact that people will drink it confirms their belief that the people just want dirty water. To propose to pour some clean water is to be naive or idealistic, or even to deny the people what they want. As if we were not thirsty ourselves. As if we did not drink from the same glasses.