In the late 80s RAAF, we had a senior officer (AOC Training Command as I recall) issue a directive to the flying schools that we were to lift our game regarding attitudes towards students generally.
It was an attempt at forced cultural change that involved things like trying to stamp out some of the jargon in use (eg you weren't to say a student was up for a scrub ride, it became an assessment ride or something like that), and we were to focus on helping people pass rather than weeding out the shaky ones.
To some, it wasn't much of a change - lots of us had great empathy for the studes and didn't like seeing them fail, but there were definitely some QFIs whose default mode was pressure and more pressure, a real 'them and us' attitude.
You can't be everyone's mate, of course, and not everyone will pass - we still need to fight to maintain standards - but there were a few shockers around.
I remember one bloke who would berate his students sarcastically and mercilessly. His cubicle wasn't far from mine; the put-downs and rhetoric would come floating strongly overhead and you'd think 'Glad I don't have to fly with you!'
We did have a few guys around the system who would whack the students on the side of the helmet, but I think verbal abuse was more the order of the day for those who leant towards an anti-student stance.
Having said all that, the system worked pretty well on the whole and I think the number of good guys well outweighed the bastards. There was just a less politically correct way of doing things, and less arse-covering paperwork required when someone did get scrubbed.