Yep, sometimes you gotta go to extremes to get it to sink in, but so long as you can control the situation (more or less), just about anybody can be educated. The caveat I suppose is being willing, even if they are dumb as a box of rocks. If they want to learn, then you can always reiterate, re-emphasize, or what have you until they can demonstrate that they get the point. Hiking the fjords of British Columbia educated a certain 16 year old when they thought they knew all about the outdoors from the weekly excursions we'd make into the forest behind our house. It's one thing to be mucking about in the rain and at the end of the day go home and have some nice barley soup and a warm fire and bed, quite different to be sitting at the foot of a glacier with the rain going sideways and trying to find enough big rocks to hold the tent down with, in the dark, then eating cold grub out of a cold tin cup.

You do what you can. Sometimes it's enough.