Joseph:
You’re trolling. You are absolutely not speaking from a position of knowledge. חושך שבטו is the basis for any discussion about corporal punishment. That is a posuk in Mishlei. Can you finish that posuk without looking it up? Most mechanchim and menahalim can’t either. Let’s just stare at this first half of the posuk for a moment. Does it suggest hitting? That, my friend, is actually מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה. It refers to the “shevet” as a last resort, never a לכתחלה. Next, your reference to Tanach and Talmud are similarly inaccurate. Moreover, the purpose of any form of discipline is to teach, never to punish. Do these forms of discipline work to engage the talmid or do they reject? Today, the metziyus is that they reject. And our leaders for the past several generations have stated so consistently. The Brisker Rov stated that the first potch can be permitted under only very limited specific circumstances. The second potch is categorically ossur, as it is חובל בחבירו. The rage of the rebbe is not an excuse at all. The first potch can never be delivered out of anger.
Next – humiliation is NEVER permitted as a form of discipline. It crushes; it does not teach. No rebbe is hired to crush talmidim. If a yeshiva were to hire a rebbe to crush talmidim, I would make that public so quickly that it would need to close down. Have you ever met a rebbe that apologized to a talmid for shaming him? It might happen, but far less than 50% of the time. That is a black eye for chinuch, that has become numb to the dignity of the talmidim. Oh, you may ask, why should a rebbe respect a talmid? Isn’t the direction of respect from talmid to rebbe? If you don’t mind discovering the stupidity of this question, just cruise on over to Pirkei Avos 4:12.
Lastly, what makes punishment unreasonable is not the magnitude of it, but whether it teaches or punishes. Punishment has no place in chinuch. That is reserved for a court, where there is a prosecution and a defense, with an unbiased psak. Consequences in yeshiva MUST be educational to fill the mandate of the yeshiva. Otherwise, it borders on רשעות and is good reason why the menahalim of such institutions should change to another career. Any form of punishment is not part of chinuch, but of control. What is the true mission?