Comment of the day: What he learned from 6 years of teaching at West Point

This one, from "Catullus," caught my eye:

After six years teaching at West Point, I came to the same conclusion as Tom: What the hell are we wasting our money for? The cadets are on average far less attentive than normal college kids, and they are sequestered in an environment that imposes the burden of their success upon their teachers in an alarmingly disproportionate way. It was damn hard to fail a cadet. That was a sickening experience for me personally as a teacher.  What mattered more at WP was religion and, as an extension of religion, the creation of a weirdly narrow perspective on the importance of the place and its denizens. It was flat-out perverse in the level of self-deception it fostered. Sorry, but the place left a palpable bad taste in my mouth. The "character building" aspect of its pretensions was the most appalling. How do you, on an individual level, develop character when you have a safety-net strung below you and the institution holds teachers responsible for your success or failure? It’s nonsense."