I don't agree.

I loathed History class. Memorizing dates, places, and events was stupid. I forgot all of them within a week, the whole thing was just pointless, temporary memorization tasks regarding shit I did not care about and had little, to no, effect on the current world. So, "why the fuck was History class required?" was a favorite gripe of mine...

...Until Junior year of highschool. My U.S. History teacher was also the (and this is going to make the region I grew up super obvious,) school's Surf Team coach. He was exactly as laid back and casual as you imagine. He also did not care what you did in class, as long as you did not disturb those around you. This guy was literally the inverse of your "strictest teachers." I, also, fully admit I slept through the first 3 weeks of his class. This teacher wouldn't grief you for not turning in assignments, drawing all over your test, anything like that. The exact second you interrupted class for anything off-topic, you were flying outside, if not to the principals office.

He also said that he ran his class like that, because "COLLEGE PROFESSORS WILL NOT BABYSIT YOU." AKA the inverse of your strict teacher theory.

Then I listened to his lectures a couple times.

He was vehemently against memorizing dates, all that mattered was order of events, and why things had happened. He told crazy stories, like:

Back when New York was springing up, everyone would throw their feces out the window and into the street. A woman lived alone in a house in a valley between two large, heavily populated hills. One year, the rain was substantially bad, worse than it had been in years and the water washed all the feces, from both hillsides... into the valley. This woman drown, alone in her house, in shit.

Bam, I had an interest in history. Not a single previous history teacher had made me laugh before, and he'd do it regularly. History became a subject I was increasingly less wary of, and the teacher spoke to me like I was an adult. I usually was just silently sleeping/coasting on being able to memorize things easily at the last minute, and he engaged me.

I took double the necessary number of history classes in college, just because I kept getting just absolutely fantastic history teachers. I had 4 of my favorite teachers of all time in a subject that in my sophomore year of highschool would have gladly spent twice the class time digging ditches to avoid.

TLDR: College professors =/= strict. Strict teachers =/= emulating college. Teachers who engage and teach those who want to learn = college. Teachers ignoring the apathetic students = college.