Oh, Florida. Bless your endless bounty of WTF news stories!
At least they won’t be licking their balls when no one is looking.
As a kid, I simply would have went nuts over something like this. Seriously. I’m stunned anyone would ever think the cone of shame is a good idea.
Hard to judge without proper context. I can imagine something like this done in a genuinely joking manner, I’ve even got a couple of pics of my kids wearing the “cone of shame” in my house.
When I was in 3rd grade my teacher used to tape my mouth closed because I was such a “chatterbox”
“Under review” as in “current leading candidate for Teacher of the Year” AMIRITE?
Yes, I will be withholding my righteous indignation for now.
I guess the students have learned a good lesson here. Any attempt at discipline, however innocuous, can be circumvented by whining to higher up authorities. You can even cause someone to lose their job!
It happened in Florida.
Nuff said.
Talkin’ out of turn?
Ya get the cone.
Lookin’ out the window?
Ya get the cone.
Starin’ at my sandals?
Ya get the cone.
Askin’ for ice cream without a cup?
Oh, you better believe ya get the cone.
Linked article is from May 10, 2012. She was apparently transferred from that school to another nearby school just a few months later.
Hey, I can’t help but remember how hard it was for my teachers to deal with this kind of thing… it’s hard when you’re The Man to not just make the kid goofing off look cool! and rebellious!, but something like this that’s genuinely embarrassing would do the trick.
I had a math teacher who would threaten the whole class with pushups, but would only require them of the athletic guys who could do them and needed to get the energy out of their systems anyway… once I messed something up that she had said would be pushup fodder and she said nothing… a guy on the other side of the classroom looked at my flabby pallor and complained that I wasn’t doing them. So she made him do mine. If she had been punishing everyone across the board with pushups that would have been horrible, but any teacher worth their salt is going to see that some students need a little embarrassment for discipline, and some disciplines can’t be given to every student because they’d be humiliated (let’s be real, I had the upper body strength for maybe two knee pushups and I wasn’t exactly Miss Congeniality). So I guess I just have to wonder if this teacher was coning students indiscriminately or if it was for the chatterboxes who really have no incentive to quiet down, something like that.
Exactly, If anyone would have tried that on me as a child they would have been bleeding and bruised. WTF Florida? Seriously!
I can’t decide whether to be outraged or charmed.
When I was in grade school in Louisiana (and this was back in 1967) students were regularly spanked, with a paddle, in public school. However, the worst punishment I ever heard of was a student who had to hold his hand inside a fire-ant hill untill he got bitten repeatedly; an extremely painful ordeal.
So, over all, I would have to say that the cone of shame is a big improvement for public schools in the south.
Why?
I’m honestly curious what would cause someone to be so offended by a stupid shaming. If the teacher abuses a weird punishment it’s one thing, but it’s hard to come up with effective non-physically threatening punishments and it’s hard to see the harm in this one.
We all know the proper and accepted way to handle this this is with medication. Pop 'em full of pills until they are zombies. Seems like a rather silly innocuous way to take control of a class. Is it really that much different then a time out in the corner or making a kid stand in the hallway?
Further more reading the article it seems the students took it as a joke and for the most part didn’t mind. It was only when parents saw pictures that it became a huge deal.
I guess I’m a terrible person, but I think this is kind of genius.
