That mentality sounds like instructors aren’t properly setting expectations for students. If going over checklists is a required skill, students should be informed regularly that they need to be doing XYZ and should be writing that down.

Yeah, that's what I meant by "it's a fun bit of deprogramming to do." Especially younger students are strongly conditioned to think of tests or performances as "closed book" unless specifically informed otherwise and often demonstrate actual fear of being caught using reference materials or god forbid open a reference manual. Breaking them of that habit often takes more than "setting expectations." It can take some effort to get students to realize the game we're playing here isn't "You have to know everything in all the textbooks," it's "You've got to know which book to find which answer in."

Having gone back to college after becoming a flight instructor, I'm strongly under the impression that college just doesn't matter. There is no certification or accountability requirements for professors; no legal requirement for them to study the fundamentals of instruction, hell I'm not convinced anyone actually interviewed some of my professors before hiring them.

I had an English professor tell me she "likes to give students enough rope to hang themselves with." I want you to imagine hearing that out of a flight instructor.

College professors seem to see themselves as gatekeepers rather than guides. Their classes have to be hard so that only the worthy graduate. Flying an airplane is already complex enough, my job as a flight instructor is to make the process of learning that complexity as easy and safe for my students as possible. What even is college if not corrupt?