why do you assume that a punishment is to “cause pain”?? i think your example with a kid fiddling at his desk is not true to life because i can’t imagine punishing a kid for fiddling/drawing, etc. i’m not going back and forth, and i never said i “call…babies”
i said: i think that just as you put a kid in the corner in playgroup when he hits, or send him to his room to calm down, a kid can be put in the hallway, or computer lab, or office, or diff class to do his work. a step more severe, which i’ve never had to do, is to put a kid in a lower class. this takes away the reinforcement he gets from his classmates and makes him do his work.
i did say that other teachers put kids in my class pretty regularly and i know they’re told that they can’t behave/do their work with their class so they’ll do it with the third grade. thats very different than being called a “baby”. this happens so often and so not harshly that i’ve never seen a kid embarrassed.
it looks like you want to paint the whole world of chinuch black. its easy to go on a website and say things like “those who can do…” and to say very harsh things about mechanchim and the “whole system”.
i did not read the article, by the way. i saw this thread and wanted to know if there are other teachers here, not backseat ones, and what their thoughts are.
finally, i find popa’s line about “treat the students like fellow humans” offensive because i specifically said that i’m very careful with derech eretz as are many teachers i know.