Isn’t this hilarious? The student looks just like that funny animated dog!
Laurie Bailey-Cutkomp is, among other things that I will enumerate as we go, a science teacher who until recently was employed at Zephyrhills High School in Dade County. The Pasco School District fired her for devising and employing a unique form of punishment for misbehaving students: she placed them in a wide plastic collar of the sort used by veterinarians to keep dogs from licking their stitched up wounds, what the talking dogs in Disney’s animated film “Up” amusingly called “the Cone of Shame.” But they were dogs, and they were animated. The Cone of Shame isn’t funny on kids, except maybe to Ms. Bailey-Cutkomp.
Then the same school district that fired her, following negotiations and a settlement agreement, allowed another school in the same district, Middle School, to hire her to teach science there.
Oh, darn…my head just exploded all over my computer screen! There…it’s wiped off now.
At the risk of triggering another blast, let me present three mind-blowing quotes. Here is what Kim Anderson, the principal at Bailey-Cutkomp’s new school had to say:
“I’m very excited she’s going to have this new opportunity. I really liked “Up”, and I think it’s going to really liven up the place to see our students with those funny cones around their heads. Watching them at lunch time should really he hilarious!”
All right, she only said the first sentence. But why in the world would any principal be excited that she has a sadist and child-abuser on the staff? Meanwhile, the school district said…
“Ms. Bailey-Cutkomp is a certified science teacher, and our district has a shortage of certified teachers in this area. And, let’s face it, what matters most is that she’s certified, not that she was run out of her previous job for torturing her students and treating them literally like dogs. We’re just relieved, frankly, that she’s not a cannibal or a serial killer, because that could really cause some, well, uneasiness, don’t you know. Certification…that’s what matters, not the safety of the kids.”
All right, you caught me again. The school district also only said the first sentence, but it is just as absurd as my embellishment. So she’s certified…the woman put students in giant plastic collars so they looked like satellite dishes!
Finally, we have Ms. Bailey-Cutkomp herself. Here’s what she said:
“I will continue to teach. I love my students. I’m sorry this has happened, but what can you do? People will form their own opinions. I just want to be a good teacher. My students and my own children are everything to me.”
Now she really said all of that, but if we examine her statement, it’s more absurd that any of my additions to the other quotes. She loves her students? Gee, I’d hate to see how she treats people she hates. “What can you do?” You can not treat your students like dogs, Laurie—did that ever occur to you? She just wants to be a good teacher? Here’s a tip—good teachers don’t abuse their students. She has children of her own? Quick, someone call child services…she probably has them eating out of a metal bowl and chained to a stake in the back yard.
Every single decision-maker in the Pasco School District should be fired and preferably exiled for allowing Laurie Bailey-Cutkomp to have any children trapped in her classroom with her again, and any parent who allows their children to go to a school overseen by these negligent incompetents should get a visit from child services themselves for intentional child endangerment. A teacher who would treat students this cruelly lacks empathy, fairness, respect, self-control, kindness, responsibility and judgment. Bailey-Cutkomp is a bully and quite possibly a sadist; she is definitely incompetent and dangerous. She cannot and must not be trusted, because the character and judgment of any teacher who would treat children like dogs is untrustworthy, now and forever. It doesn’t matter that her settlement agreement probably included a promise not to use the “Cone of Shame” again. She’ll just start hitting students across their noses with rolled up newspapers, or maybe rub their noses in their own excrement.
As for the school district’s leaders, they obviously can’t be trusted either.They have intentionally inflicted a woman of mind-boggling character and judgment deficiencies and a history of child abuse on more children. They are too stupid to be trustworthy, too reckless to be allowed to continue in their jobs.
There is a level of incompetence that parents have a duty to reject, and the Pasco School District just blasted past it, leaving it as but a speck in the distance
_________________________________________________
Facts: WTSP
Source, Graphic: Daily News
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
A few years back, I was going to make a parody informercial where an obnoxious Billy Mays-type guy sells people human-sized Elizabethan collars for a multitude of ridiculous uses (weight loss program, stop biting your nails, be heard at the next meeting, fill it with popcorn for movie night, easier headstands, save money on haircuts, of if you’re just not much to look at).
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. With people like this, what is the point of trying to make anything ironically when someone will just do it for real? Can anyone tell a good idea from a bad idea anymore, or has postmodernism infected everything so deeply, ideas are just ideas?
And she needed the movie to give her this idea? Nobody show her Quills or Secretary…
The funny thing is, turn the collar upside-down, bring it to a point, place it on top of a kid’s head instead of around his neck and write a big letter D on it… and suddenly, there’s a precedent for it. Maybe then, they’d have thought better of it. But probably not.
“And she needed the movie to give her this idea? Nobody show her Quills or Secretary…”
Or “Human Centipede”…
Seems to me you are being a bit harsh on this teacher. What sounds like abuse to you might not sound that way if you have a child disturbing the class and won’t allow others to learn. Admittedly this is a bit off the deep end but you treat her as if she was a pedophile and that is simply too harsh or do you think a bit of shame will scar the little darlings for life?
I hope you’re not a teacher.
It’s abuse. It’s in the same category as handcuffs…it is a physical restraint. The shame is the least of it. It is grounds for a lawsuit, and possibly arrest.
‘A bit harsh’…amazing.
What sounds like abuse to you might not sound that way if you have a child disturbing the class and won’t allow others to learn.
So, if a child behaves badly, abuse no longer is abuse? What kind of ridiculous rationalization is that? If she’d hit the kid with a baseball bat, would that be cool? Made the kid strip in front of the class? Burned a cross into the kids’ arm?
Not only do I hope you aren’t a teacher, I hope you aren’t a parent: “Hey, Mikey’s refusing to pick up his toyes, and it’s making it difficult for the other kids to do their chores, I guess we should chain him to a post in the backyard for the next 48 hours.”
Boy, did you fall for that one! You thought teachers unions were in place to keep good teachers from being fired. ROFL. No, silly, they are desperately needed to help bad teachers stay employed. Otherwise responsible education administrators like those of the Pasco School District can be forced by the impassioned tide of public opinion to actually discipline a peer, and that could ruin everyone’s day. No, this way is best. That misunderstood teacher has been dealt with and in a week or two the whole rhubarb will be forgotten, Ethics. In education? Never happen.
On a serious note, I do wonder what her actual options were for dealing with disruptive students. Is it possible her principal restricted her options? Course no one would admit it if that had occurred. Why is it she didn’t just quit?
Teacher’s unions are in place to keep administrations from abusing teachers. Think of them as lawyers. Even criminals have the right to council.
Out of line perhaps,.but a.far.cry from abuse for a teenager who I guarantee knew that.she.ciuld have opted to leave class and gone.to the office.
Another principle—just because a student may choose an abusive option over one that isn’t abusive doesn’t change its abusive nature. To avoid being sent to the office and facing parental anger, a student might agree to be put in the stocks, wear a tutu, get punched in the face, get burned by a cigarette or submit to sex with the teacher…that makes it OK to you?
“You have been found guilty of DUI. You can either go to prison for 3 years, leaving your young children fatherless and unsupported, or you can let me sodomize you for the next 20 minutes.”
Honestly, I’d take option 2 any day of the week, but it’s still abuse.
Exactly. This is the theory embraced by the guy who is advocating flogging as an optional substitute for imprisonment.
Poor analogies, there was no physical harm or risk of it. The student was at worst.embarrassed and had the power to end it at anytime. Again I think the teacher was out of line. But it still falls.way.short of abuse. This is more like a dunce cap than stocks or hand cuffs.
*sigh*. Update my situation as such: the father can stop the sodomy at any time to be given prison and the judge will use a condom. Now, there’s no physical harm, the protagonist is, at worst, embarrassed, and he has the power to end it at any time.
Also, you do reaize that dunce caps are emotionally abusive, right?
Sodomy causes pain and physical damage(hemroids fisures, rectal prolapse). Dunce caps are intended to shame. and thats what disruptive students should feel for preventing other students from learning.
Sodomy does not necessarily cause pain, and 20 minutes isn’t going to cause those long term damage possibilities. You’re reaching man.
Dunce caps do not correct behavior. Instead, they make recidivism more likely. That you see shaming kids as a positive shows the problem you’re having.
Making a kid masterbate in front of the class would also likely cause shame. So that must not be abuse either.
And a dunce cap is a HAT. Hats are not restraints. How anyone can look at the photo of the student forced to wear this thing and say that it isn’t a physical restraint and abusive eludes me. Would making the kid wear a dog collar and a leash be similarly unobjectionable? Why would anyone defend this?
A few seconds are enough to cause.fissures. But if you.really cant tell the difference.between embarrassing a student and trying to compel sexual favors.from a position of authority im not sure that what pount.there is.in.trying to explain how your analogies fall.short of accurate.
Jack your right it is not the same as.a dunce cap but it is similar, students wete often required to sit infront of the class and remain there. This type of behavior from a teacher is out of line and she.should have.been reprimanded. But she shiuld not have lost her job over it.
Shame is an emotion that teenagers should already understand, but teens often need to be reminded of thing they should already understand.
A few seconds are enough to cause.fissures.
It’s called lube.
But if you.really cant tell the difference.between embarrassing a student and trying to compel sexual favors.from a position of authority im not sure that what pount.there is.in.trying to explain how your analogies fall.short of accurate.
When you intentionally mischaracterize arguments, I’m not sure what point there is in arguing with you. Clearly, a teacher is not in a position of authority over her students. Also clearly, using your authority to embarrass a child, because, well, you feel like it, could not be abuse. I stand by my analogy.
Also, here’s a tip for you. When your reasoning gets refuted, jumping to new reasoning for your position looks like rationalization.
Jack your right it is not the same as.a dunce cap but it is similar, students wete often required to sit infront of the class and remain there. This type of behavior from a teacher is out of line and she.should have.been reprimanded. But she shiuld not have lost her job over it.
What is the line she would have had to cross to lose her job? What if she made the kid dance in a circle for a while? What if she made the kid repeat “I’m a dumb dog” for a while? What would it take?
Shame is an emotion that teenagers should already understand, but teens often need to be reminded of thing they should already understand.
So, making a kid feel shame in and of itself is good for the kid? Seriously? Heartache is an emotion that adults should already understand, but adults often need to be reminded of it…that’s why, in response to your fallacious arguments, I should seduce your girlfriend/boyfriend/other type of significant other. Of course, seducing your significant other has nothing to do with your fallacious arguments and making you feel heartache has nothing to do with your fallacious arguments, but hell, it makes as much sense as your statement in defense of treating a kid like a dog for being disruptive.
Teachers are supposed to be authority figures. I was not aware that I had changed my reasoning.
It is a responsibility of parents and schools to prepare teenagers for their adult lives. If a teen has not yet learned that they should be ashamed of their actions that are disruptive to the work or learning of their peers, then they need to be taught.
I dont believe that a scrach collar was the best or the right way, but it was certainly not worth firing over. Unless there were other issues with the teacher, she should have been reprimanded, and allowed to continue teaching. Not every offense is worth a firing
This is an incomprehensible point of view, but you are obviously stuck on it.
I’m not going to regurgitate my original post, but I’ll just say that nobody has a right to treat my child like that, and if I treated him like that, I’m guilty of child abuse. And no teacher who has to resort to that kind of cruelty for classroom discipline is qualified to teach, by intellect, judgment or competence. She would be fired because I would make sure she was fired.
Anyone else have flashbacks of the child abuse scandal in the catholic church and how abusive priests were shuffled around?
These things make me angrier about the science teachers that are fired for actually requiring the students to learn science.
Stupidly, I didn’t even think of that, maybe because my head exploded. You are right…this is the same phenomenon, but done in the open.
Is the constant head explosions why you shave your head nowadays? It’s just not worth growing anymore?
exactly.
That’s exactly where my thoughts went. As Jack has written in other contexts, the problem of abuse (in all of its horrible manifestations and toward all ages and genders) seems to be much more rampant than anyone has ever suspected. I often hear the words of Anne Frank in my head — “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart” — and in my most cynical moments I think back, “What a crock!” Then there’s the great Charles Schulz quote, usually stated by Linus, “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.”
I must add that I am stunned that anyone would minimize the outrage of this. Dunce caps were banned as cruel and stigmatizing decades ago. This is infinitely worse. It carries the same stigma while being intentionally de-humanizing, and it is imposing an uncomfortable restraint (yes, I put on my dog’s collar to see how it feels. Not good.) that impedes vision, speech and movement, Yet already too usually reasonable commenters have suggested that, well, come on, it’s not so bad.
It is so bad, and I’m amazed that isn’t obvious to everyone.
Anyone who has to resort to this type of behavior or worse yet corporal punishment doesn’t understand at all how to control a classroom or discipline students. The best teacher I ever had never had to raise his voice or threaten anyone. All he had to do was give you a good stare down and you shut up.
Ethics Alarm is failed to mention the source of my wife. As you are aware, those were not her words, but the interpretation of a news broadcast from a Media personnel. You have failed ethics by not mentioning your true sources. Get your facts straight. Yes, you are entitled to the First Amendment and your opinions. However, the facts have been omitted. Move on, stop the slander. You failed to mention this was a medical device used in pediatric patients whom have cranial surgical procedures. You as well as others are aware, only partial information will be relayed, not the whole truth.
What in the world does the use the cones may have been put to originally have to do with the central issue: it’s cruel.inappropriate, abusive and embarrassing punishment for students that warrants immediate termination if not prosecution.
And why does any teacher have a husband who can’t write clearer than this? I can’t even tell what quote and which wife you’re talking about.