Of course part of the problem is that finder is absolute and utter garbage as a file manager and the mystery of the save dialog is complete nonsense. I've been

Of course part of the problem is that finder is absolute and utter garbage as a file manager and the mystery of the save dialog is complete nonsense. I've been using Macs since MacOS8 and I still can't figure out how to navigate in finder or properly save files maybe 20% of the time. I think it comes from some kind of pathological belief inside of Apple that people can't possible learn how the file system works and try to hide it even as it exists in reality. Even in your example the students managed to figure out how the filesystem hierarchy works, but only through a saner interface so I believe it really is the software that's the problem here.