The accidental learner

Students have a knack of always having an answer that turns the tables on you, even when they don't have the answer they actually need. I present in evidence of this generality the specific instance of the lad who had performed his calculations in a practical report all wrong today, but when I presented the meaningless disaster to him he wailed that he just did not understand how to do these things. And when I reminded him that I had lectured on how to do these things and that the explanation was also available on my online site he said, "but I just don't understand it." So, leaving him for a while, I went to retrieve a previous report of his, took it back to him, laid it out before him, jabbed my finger at the relevant place on the page and said, "Look, here, a few weeks ago, you did exactly the same sort of calculation completely correctly."

He looked. He pondered. He shook his head a little and then declared, "Well that must have been completely accidental."

I gave up.