Shortly after an instructor first arrives at Cardozo’s Intensive Trial Advocacy Program, after settling in with a bagel and coffee, Ellen Yaroshefsky would give a speech about how to critique the students’ performance.  It’s been the same speech for years: First, tell them something they did well. Give them praise. Then, when you tell them what they didn’t do so well, be gentle and constructive. End up on a positive note.

This is the new rule of teaching. Hurt no feeling. While it makes the students feel good about themselves, it doesn’t actually do much to help them. Via the New York Times, a study bears this out.

A recent research paper, “Tell Me What I did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback,” in The Journal of Consumer Research, says that when people are experts on a subject, or consider themselves experts, they’re more eager to hear negative feedback, while those novices are more likely to seek positive responses.

While it’s unclear whether the novice/expert distinction is a matter of cause or effect, the point remains that the accepted wisdom of pedagogy is to coddle so as to not hurt feelings and undermine self-esteem.  Some students prefer to learn what they can do to improve, while others can’t bear anything short of validation.

Why is that? One reason is that as people gain expertise, feedback serves a different purpose. When people are just beginning a venture, they may not have much confidence, and they need encouragement. But experts’ commitment “is more secure than novices and their focus is on their progress,” the paper’s authors said. Even labeling feedback as either negative or positive isn’t helpful, said Tim Harford, author of “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.” He noted that his karate teacher told him specific things to do, like bending his toes backward or rotating his hips. “It’s not useful to say, ‘That’s really good or that’s really bad,’ ” Mr. Harford said. “We need to separate the emotional side from the technical points.”

I have fond memories of teaching a group in advanced cross-examination, where one young woman, after being critiqued, demanded to know why her approach wasn’t working.  She took the view that her cross was brilliant and effective, though it was obvious to others in the group, and to me, that it was just awful.  While some students can be given specific tips and pointers, every once in a while there is a kid who is just so utterly lacking in the fundamentals that she needs to start fresh. This was one of those times.

After coming up with some nonsensical positive, she was told that her approach was all wrong and she to start fresh.  She was outraged, and persistent in arguing that she did a fabulous job.  She thought so, and that was all that mattered. Following Ellen’s instructions, I tried to be positive and constructive, rather than accurate and nip the problem in the bud. Eventually, I had to cut it off, as the student refused to let go.

From the perspective of instruction, this presented a problem. Her tenacity ate up a substantial amount of class time, at the expense of other students, and she was the only one in the room fascinated by herself. The others wanted to get on with their efforts, because they too were fascinated by themselves. A few in the class were quite good, and they were angry that the limited time we had with them were being squandered by one demanding classmate. Me too, as this was a fruitless discussion and the student was never going to accept the fact that she sucked.

Later, when I had an opportunity to see the reviews of the class by the students, it broke down like this: the student who sucked hated me for being mean, too stupid to realize she was great, and refusing to validate her. The students who were marginal blamed me for letting the one student waste the time they had to get more cross in. The students who showed skill at cross loved me, and recognized the situation for what it was.

As with every opportunity to teach, I learn as well.  What I learned what that some of us are cut out to be kindergarten teachers and others not so much.  I also learned that for some law students, kindergarten never ends, and they demand to be coddled in perpetuity.  Part of the problem is that entitled people hear only what they want to hear, but the other part is that the pedagogy of positivity prevents us from providing specific, meaningful instruction:

While many of us tend to hear what we want to hear, Professor Fishbach says she thinks the problem lies more with those providing the feedback. “The negative feedback is often buried and not very specific,” she said.

Professor Fishbach also said people giving feedback often didn’t give enough information, offered it too late or told subordinates what would happen if they did something wrong rather than what they were actually doing wrong.

For law students, who think this is all about them, their inability to accept specific instruction as to what they’re doing wrong and how they can do it better will ultimately come at the expense of someone else.  If their cross is ineffective, do they think they’ll get to argue with the jury after the verdict? If they can’t muster a coherent argument before the court, will they tell the judge that he’s mean and stupid?

The directions to say something positive first, offer “constructive” criticism (and I use scare quotes because construction is in the eyes of the student) and close on a positive note, creates what the study aptly describes as a Praise Sandwich, designed to make the student feel good at the expense of teaching the student to do better.

While one might hope, even expect, law students to be both tough enough and interested enough to be capable of handling more serious instruction, including the occasional harsh recognition that they are totally off the mark, the evidence is otherwise. They can be just as fragile, entitled and narcissistic as any kindergartner.  Should they end up before a judge or jury one day holding another person’s life in their hands, their praise sandwich isn’t going to do them much good. But as long as they feel they were fabulous, that’s what really matters.

Of course, while they’re eating their praise sandwich, their client will be munching on American Cheese on white bread in the lockup.