One of my graduate school professors frequently made his students cry. Never mind that we were grown adults. A single cliche used in a class paper could result in public humiliation. And yet the competition to get into his class was fierce. No honor surpassed the chance to be taught (and belittled) by such a masterful mind.
Tyranny like this abounds in campus fiction. There, heads of the classroom are often as selfish and manipulative as despotic heads of state. They turn their students into pawns, and they get away with it because students are impressionable and easily infatuated. Here are three books about teachers whose lessons hide plenty of booby traps: Each is a textbook case of leading the vulnerable student astray.
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