Nude art deemed offensive; gets teacher canned!
The Times has been on fire with its educational articles recently, revealing just how horrifying American values, as shown in its public schools, can be.
The first piece is the one that, as a certain brother of mine says, makes one want to be a lawyer. A veteran art teacher in the Texas school system took her class to the art museum, only to find herself verbally disciplined, suspended, and her contract under threat of termination because of a few nude sculptures in the gallery.
This is our society. We let our children play with toy guns, watch violent movies and video games, and some of us let them get the crap beaten out of them by way of punishment in school. but NUDE SCULPTURES are unnacceptable? And then of course, a morally and educationally bankrupt school administration stands with the parents and uses the dirty, dirty trick of complaining that the field trip was disorganized/the teacher had other problems on her previously clean record. It's just enough to make one's blood boil, and thik that our public schools should be razed and built again with all the money we're pumping in to foreign conflicts. UGH. Not to mention our pseudo-puritan values.
What were the sculptures, by the way?
"the marble torso of a Greek youth from a funerary relief, circa 330 B.C.; its label reads, “his nude body has the radiant purity of an athlete in his prime.” She passed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s tormented “Shade;” Aristide Maillol’s “Flora,” with her clingy sheer garment; and Jean Arp’s “Star in a Dream.”"
Oh my God! The scuptures had anatomy! Imagine what they would have said had there been Titians and Michelangos on display.
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On a more positive note, my first Saturday morning grammar class was on the successful side. I realized that working with these bright, eager, kids, the problems are 90%pedagogy and 10% management, as opposed to... you know. The other way around.
The first piece is the one that, as a certain brother of mine says, makes one want to be a lawyer. A veteran art teacher in the Texas school system took her class to the art museum, only to find herself verbally disciplined, suspended, and her contract under threat of termination because of a few nude sculptures in the gallery.
This is our society. We let our children play with toy guns, watch violent movies and video games, and some of us let them get the crap beaten out of them by way of punishment in school. but NUDE SCULPTURES are unnacceptable? And then of course, a morally and educationally bankrupt school administration stands with the parents and uses the dirty, dirty trick of complaining that the field trip was disorganized/the teacher had other problems on her previously clean record. It's just enough to make one's blood boil, and thik that our public schools should be razed and built again with all the money we're pumping in to foreign conflicts. UGH. Not to mention our pseudo-puritan values.
What were the sculptures, by the way?
"the marble torso of a Greek youth from a funerary relief, circa 330 B.C.; its label reads, “his nude body has the radiant purity of an athlete in his prime.” She passed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s tormented “Shade;” Aristide Maillol’s “Flora,” with her clingy sheer garment; and Jean Arp’s “Star in a Dream.”"
Oh my God! The scuptures had anatomy! Imagine what they would have said had there been Titians and Michelangos on display.
*********************
On a more positive note, my first Saturday morning grammar class was on the successful side. I realized that working with these bright, eager, kids, the problems are 90%pedagogy and 10% management, as opposed to... you know. The other way around.
Labels: New York Times on Education
posted by SarahMarian at 8:55 AM
1 Comments:
i find it disturbing that in today's society it is getting harder to see nude art be it statues, paintings, photography,without fear of be harrassed,threatened to be arrested, fired from a job,etc. i am sorry that the teacher in question got fired from her job she did nothing wrong.its too bad the parents who complained overreacted to the extreme. europeans are so way ahead of us when it comes to this issue.children see art in all its forms on a daily basis and they don't seem to be harmed hope the teacher sues the hell out of the parents and the school district for ruining her life.
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