Dear everyone;
in an ideal world no teacher would ever discipline a child unfairly, for one very simple reason – no child would ever play up.
chinuch is VERY VERY VERY complicated. no punishment is ever given without the teacher thinking it through many times, as to how it will affect this child, and how it will affect the rest of the class.
for instance if a child is sent down a couple of grades, you can trust me that we have taken into account the humiliation, we have thought about how confident the child is, how it will affect him, in which grades he has siblings, or even nephews, etc…
When this child shoes were removed, think for a second of the counsellor. one cannot allow cheating in a camp race. the obvious punishment would have been to stop him from participating in that day’s races, but very often these children will just make more trouble if they sitting on the side, and you also need a punishment that will strongly discourage anyone else from doing it. I am not saying that i would do it, but all in all i understand the counsellor.