Identifying students' purposes and institutions' purposes I don't necessarily consider it a hardship to teach calculus or the like to students whose preparation in prerequisites is weak, but but I am offended by the practice of making it a personal policy to treat learning the material ONLY as a price paid to get a grade to put on one's resume, rather than as the thing they're there for.


I'm wondering how to identify instances of such behavior quickly when they occur.
How can one identify institutions that tolerate or encourage my position as outlined in my first paragraph above, and those that are hostile toward it?  I think the latter---where that hostility may exist---often include respectable institutions in which lots of students want to get degrees in law or business or the like.
I understand that you are offended by students who do not take your subject as seriously as you do but that is just the way some students are.

There are students who are really interested and there are those who are not. In the case of calculus, if a student is required to take it for their non-math major then you will certainly have students who just want the grade. One way around this is to only teach elective classes but that will not work for everyone (I'm not sure it would work for any teacher).

Still, your questions are clear. How do you find the students who don't really care? I find that they usually bubble to the surface quite quickly. I tend to be quite interactive with my students, asking lots of questions. I also give them additional 'required' reading. Even the required reading doesn't get read by the students who just want to pass and be done with it. So, those students who actually read the material and can answer it meaningfully in class are the students you are looking for.

Now, as for identifying institutions I will say that I have read a lot and talked to a lot of teachers and one thing EVERY serious teacher wants is to teach a class of highly motivated students who care deeply for their studies. This is simply unrealistic and I have never heard of a teacher who actually achieves that.

I think the better question to ask is: How can I motivate a deep love of my subject in my students? By stimulating their desires, you will naturally end up with what you want. However, this is not easy and it takes a lot of time and effort. However, you seem like a serious teacher, so perhaps you can make the investment. Certainly the results, if you succeed, would likely be very rewarding for you.

My perspective is that a great teacher has no bad students. By this, I mean that a great teacher is able to motivate their students to want to learn the material. By this measure I am not a great teacher, but I keep trying.