...them saying 'at the college we were taught xxxxx' and me replying 'that was the college, this is the real world'...
Does that sort of thing still go on? I remember speaking with someone high up in NATS years ago saying that the transition from college to unit was now seamless.
But you can't put all the blame on trainees. Even if they don't happen to be enthusiasts, the training should prepare them to do the dob. If they're told something at the college it's not unreasonable that they expect it to be true in the real world. I guess the problem arises when a trainee doesn't have the ability to be flexible and adapt to the new information - but then, that's a fairly key ability that a successful controller needs to have.