Human relationships are frequently very challenging. How do we get our needs met in relationship? Those pesky emotions always getting in the way. It is very tempting, I believe, to polarize the situation: either the other person has what I need completely or I reject them completely. Living in the black and white polarities of life reduces stress in the short term because at each end of the polarity, at least I minimize the stress of disappointment. The disappointment of earnestly trying to negotiate a middle path and not having it work out the way I want it to. Unfortunately, the result of this type of living is that we tend to overuse punishment. Complaining about what we didn’t get from the other person in the past instead of skillfully eliciting more of what we do want to get in the future. And the problem with punishment is that it rarely leads to new learning. It just teaches avoidance of the punisher, and the punishment. In my experience as a teacher, ineffective learning is often the result of ineffective teaching. Of the teacher being out of tune with the student. Bringing myself more in tune with the student is often very difficult, almost impossible at times. But when it does happen, nothing is more rewarding to me!
March 30, 2013 by m4u
metonymy4u 
Succinct.
You bring the problem of being an intelligent, sensitive, teacher the fore.
Of course there is always the situation that you are often required to teach what the student neither needs, nor wants, to learn.
As you point out, punishment does not generate love of learning or conformity.
Take it from a left hander who went to school in the days when the miscreant could be slapped, kicked, whipped, and tied.
When I flunked the sixth grade I quit school forever and swore I would never read another book the rest of my life. Then I promptly sat down and read the Encyclopedia Britannica from one end to the other.
After that I was very careful what I vowed to do or not do.