Look back on your life. Do you remember the individual lessons in school? Unlikely. Do you remember the time you got sent to the principals office or the time you got yelled at for breaking a lamp or having a party? Much more likely. Lessons bundled with strong emotions make far better memories.

You learned pretty much everything that you are doing right now and I am fairly certain that 99% or more of that was learned without you feeling bad about yourself.

I for one can't remember a single lesson from school, yet I can still recall some of the stuff I learned and apply it, despite nobody yelling at me for doing it wrong at some point.

Being upfront and honest about stuff is all nice and good but when I give a code review or get one, I find it far better to constructively discuss stuff and not yell at people or insult them for whatever reason. Linus did not even ask why it was done that way, he did not have all the info. Would you prefer being instulted for doing something the "wrong" way, eventhough you had a perfectly good reason for doing it that way? Even if you knew it was "wrong" but there just isn't a good solution and you are just trying to fix the problem at hand?

For sure. The proximate lesson was 'make sure not to trust teacher X or administrator Z; those two are assholes who don't pay attention and just try to solve problems in whatever way is most personally convenient without caring about anyone else or what really happened or fairness.' It was an effective more general lesson in (a) what never to do if you want people to like or trust you, and (b) what to watch out for before trusting someone in a position of authority.

It seems like my education was vastly different than yours.

Well I don't remember any of that. Never was sent to the office, don't recall breaking anything save for one of my own plates recently. I do recall a few lessons though. Parties are more of a blur to me. If I recall something with strong emotions any other significant information will be lost. I am definitely personally not capable of learning from someone yelling at me. I will just feel remorse or awful about myself. That is not productive.