> This is all very vague and abstract.
Fair enough. Lets start with a definition of what is torturous. I tried to condense it but there is a lot of background details/material that matter.
To recognize torture and torturous processes you need a definition that is objectively measurable (i.e. is it there or not).
The subject matter on torture for thought reform (not information extraction) is often broken down into three subgroups, and with sufficient exposure anyone breaks.
Those subgroups are: Elements, Structuring, and Clustering.
Elements include topological (interaction) or environmental based isolation, cognitive dissonance, a lack of agency to remove oneself, and coercion/compulsion with real or perceived loss or the threat thereof.
Structures are often circular, with periods of strictness followed by leniency; requiring the participant to engage in their own torture, these are often structured to elicit a response, such as harassment, invectives, false accusations or claims, etc, baiting the person to respond to set the record straight, which are then used to repeat the trauma loop and cause further confusion and suffering turning the victims psyche back on itself, eventually making them believe its all their fault.
Clustering relates to things that increase susceptibility, how much exposure one has to repeated stimuli associated with torture within a short time, blindspots, as well as other processes which naturally make one more susceptible like narco-analysis/synthesis where barbituates were used (in the 50s), or rather today the more modern addiction/dopamine triggers from operant conditioned stimuli (via cell phone/social media/audio or ui triggers).
Psychological blindspots in clustering cause you to fight your own psychology these can be incredibly subtle. Cialdini's book on Influence covers all the known blindspots except distorted reflected appraisal which is the same underlying mechanism for how we adopt culture from our parents/community during development, where that is reflected; the malign version is distorted and it increases as you become more isolated. Reflected appraisal operates primarily through communication, and intentional distortions would be gaslighting. The more isolated the person the more effective this technique is.
Some of the elements are related, generally speaking at a bare minimum at least two elements (coercion/compulsion with loss coupled with any other in whole or part) are needed coupled with or without structuring or clustering.
The more you have the more severe it is.
These defined elements combined with structure or clustering indicate torturous processes being present.
Unironically, you will find these things not only in education, but literally almost everywhere these days. Its primarily used to impose cost on others, like circular CSR/AI driven doom loops (when you've paid and still have a problem) etc.
Incidentally, I'll also mention, a useful takeaway from Lifton's case studies includes a strong argument for developing faith-based belief systems. The victims who had strong faith-based beliefs were significantly more resilient both under and following torture than all others. Its dark reading matter, but critical for recognizing and acting to reduce exposure when its inflicted on you.
In my opinion, nothing is more evil than destroying a mind, but you need to know how it works to defend yourself.
--- Examples to follow
For the direct examples, I'd suggest reading the case studies documented by Robert Lifton following the return of PoWs after the Korean Conflict (under Mao) he covers the actual torture process in full detail, and describes the natural physiological response to extreme stress under such conditions.
The thousand yard stare for example related to disassociation/escape might easily be mistaken in children as just zoning out on their phones or in front of a TV, and the seemingly irrational (but quite rational) need to pretend to be sick to avoid going to school.
The physiological responses generally range with exposure starting with reduced cognition (rational thought), involuntary hypnosis, through to psychological break (two types, disassociation/nonresponsive & semi-lucid psychosis seeking annihilation). The latter psychosis aligns quite closely with all school shooters.
Joost Meerloo covers a broad overview of torture from the Nazi's through to Mao in his book called "Rape of the Mind", also written 1950s. These are sound academic references.
The former author started with "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism", and then moved on towards cult programming/deprogramming (indoctrination), and overall its the same process, they are both acclaimed professionals and the material has only gotten more sophisticated since then.
Now to modern examples:
The hot potato is a concrete example in education where the teacher isolates a student to answer a question publicly in front of their peers. These questions often mix fact questions and opinion together in a session. The student is nervous and anxious because if they answer incorrectly the approval seeking people in the peer group will bully them later, whether that's outright bullying, or shunning makes little difference, it all comes down to whether the teacher expresses disapproval of their answer, and this aligns perfectly with the domestic versions of the reeducation camps under Mao.
Another concrete example is the structure of the infamous three question test commonly found in physics college weedout courses circa 2000-~2014.
To break it down, you paid upfront, and you lose time/money when you don't pass, and passing is arbitrary and separate from knowing the material. The only two parties involved are the student and professor. They will say you can go to the Chair/Dean/Board of Trustees, but this is a lie. The centralized forever job structure fails to common corruption issues. There is no duty to investigate complaints, and there is a longstanding bias against creating a hostile work environment. These people are often teachers themselves, who close rank preventing any external resolution. Even court cases get dismissed on the tax-payer dime.
The questions are structured to be causally dependent on the previous question instead of independent.
This means that the answer to question 1 is used in the calculation of 2, and in 3. Get the first one wrong, and its a domino, and the percentages whether they are graded on bell or not, favor perfect or fail.
A gimmick is often used in the form of significant digits which is not disclosed in class and the significant digit process is formally described as only rounding once at the end to reduce the propagation of error at each step, but following this principle provided in a causally dependent set of questions propagates the error. Doing it the right scientific way also fails. A third undisclosed process is provided to students whom the professor deems worthy to become an engineer.
Another way is in structuring coursework with so much graded busy work that its impossible to pass ot along with other scheduled classes. It becomes clear after the withdraw deadline which all classes have scheduled before or right at the first exam.
If the units for a class are 12 units for full time student status. Thats 3.3 hours per unit expected for a 40 hour work week (including lecture). In reality this ranges depending on the professor and class. I've seen multiple instances where a 4 unit class ends up being 9 hours per unit despite the curricula being quite manageable. GE Anthropology was the worst offender, Calculus 2 was a nominal second 8.5/unit (not Calc 1 or 3 which averaged 4), Oral Communications (6.8).
If you spend 36 hours on 1 class, and your other classes cummulatively require another 28-30 hours, and these run 18 weeks, do you know any working professional that can sustain 70+ hour work weeks that long on top of the other shennanigans? The colleges still get your federal money even if you withdraw.
Back to the physics, a two exam test following this means you can only get the last question wrong on one of the two tests to pass the class. You either get a perfect or you fail. The professor at the time was bragging to other colleagues in the cafeteria about how they got the idea from an NEA sponsored workshop aimed at reducing their workload and were able to teach more classes as a result.
The same can be said of published material where you aren't taught what you need to know to answer the exam because they intentionally mismatch material (i.e. they say there's a lecture and you find out the professor has referred you to Khan Academy with a mismatched textbook; and with dark patterns from Pearson built into the autograder he's set up so he can teach 15 sections across the county and pool his office hours virtually for all those sections.
With the autograder, its a bit more subtle, if you get a correct answer it moves on to the next question, if you get a wrong answer, you are prompted in bright red alerts that you got it wrong and must click to accept this (Cialdini blindspots). This happens a few times in a row in a timed test where they bonk you on the head every time you get it wrong, and the interactions delay you further, any student shuts down.
The material published is often also contradictory, like about how all parties involved are both right (economics) despite the question and broader material (not the textbook) saying its mutually exclusive and one is clearly wrong but you can't tell. A test requires properties of determinism where there is one single correct answer that is being tested; but if you have material that provides no signal, and you have multiple seemingly correct answers, you fail because you can't mindread. Many professional certifications as well use this to fail people.
These are just a few 'concrete' examples.