Currently on Metafilter is a link to a writer's letter in which he explains why he resigned from leading a fiction workshop after receiving critical student feedback. "On Thursday afternoon one of the students confided that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with my critiques. When I asked what the trouble was, he explained that I approved some stories and criticized others, which the students felt was unfair." The next morning, the teacher was given a letter "purporting to speak for the group," which further critiqued his teaching style. The teacher immediately resigned, and claims that "whatever rumor may say, the fault was entirely mine. It was my job to communicate with the students. I tried to, but I failed."
While the teacher blames himself, the author of the MeFi post suggests that the students were too narcissistic to appreciate helpful feedback. My responses to the posting are various, and very informed by my own job as a fiction writing instructor and my constant exposure to the workshop environment (I'm in what's often thought of as the most competitive, discouraging MFA program in the US).
My first response was disgust with the poster. He singles out "one student's arrogance" by linking to her livejournal response to the workshop. But the response didn't exhibit arrogance so much as confidence that, despite negative feedback from her teacher, she would continue writing. The mefi post, on the other hand, exhibited, in my opinion, the arrogance and self-satisfaction of getting to call someone else arrogant (if you want to get meta, then that's what I'm doing too, I know). Americans seem to love the "suck up and deal with it" attitude, which has more to do with impatience towards others than humility. Does it make good sense to critique people for critiquing people?
On the other hand: I'm not very good at accepting criticism. I wish I were better at it. I tend to be defensive of my stories, and only months later realize how spot-on my classmates' critiques were. Do I have a talent-inhibiting expectation that all feedback should be praise? If so, where did I get this from? Does our culture privilege encouragement over honesty?
But, when you enroll in a workshop, you're showing that you're willing to work at your writing, and spend time on it. What you're paying for is an assessment that highlights your strengths, so that you know what's working for you, and constructive criticism that helps you see what isn't working, and how you can repair it. The goal is improvement, never discouragement. The workshop is based on the assumption that everyone in it should be shown how to move forward in their writing---and not to realize that they shouldn't, after all, be writing.
What counts as discouragement is tricky, and obviously depends on each student's level of self-esteem and sensitivity to criticism. It's impossible to guess what those levels will be, what will make a student want to quit. But the livejournal writer reports that her story was singled out by the teacher as, in his opinion, the worst in the class in all aspects other than language (I'm guessing plot, character, tone, etc.). That, to me, seems blatantly discouraging. But I'm happy that the student, whether or not she's a good writer, still wants to continue writing and took in the teacher's lessons, if not his feedback. That seems healthy, and what seems unhealthy is the MeFi poster's response to a beginning writer's perseverance.