Posted on 12/30/2017 8:29:17 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
A Utah art teacher was fired amid complaints that images of classical paintings containing nudity were passed out in a classroom and seen by sixth-graders, a newspaper reported.
Mateo Rueda said he wasn't aware that a set of educational postcards from the elementary school library contained a few works depicting nudity when he handed them out during a lesson, the Herald Journal newspaper said Thursday.
The two images seen by students were the Impressionist-era portrait Iris Tree by Amedeo Modigliani and the Rococo-style partial nude Odalisque by 18th-century artist Francois Boucher, the teacher said.
Also included in The Art Box are Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, as well as work from Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Claude Monet and more.
He removed the cards when they made students uncomfortable, the paper reported.
'This is not material at all that I would use. I had no idea,' Rueda said.
He said he has requested a hearing and plans to appeal his termination to clear his reputation.
A few days after the December 4 lesson, police went to Lincoln Elementary School in Hyrum, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Salt Lake City, to investigate a complaint that Rudea was showing pornography to students.
Cache County deputies found Principal Jeni Buist shredding postcards - at the request of the school district - that contained nudity, said Sheriff Chad Jensen.
'She said she was putting the postcards and paintings in the shredder at the request of the school district so they wouldn't be distributed again,' Sheriff Chad Jensen said.
'We got some of the pictures and showed them to the County Attorney's Office, and they said these wouldn't meet the definition of pornography. They declined to file charges.'
The Cache County School District declined to comment, saying it's a personnel matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The offending material was in a set of 100 postcards that was in the school library, so it wasn't like he was passing out nude art to students. But the other side of the story is that he basically told the students to deal with it when some of them pointed it out. The bottom line is that it's getting so you have to spend your life walking on eggshells and treat any interaction with other people as if the slightest misstep can be a career ender.
He should have known and deleted them. Everyone knows classical paintings have nudes. Better safe than sorry and fired.
Did they shred all 100 of the post cards or just the nudes?! At some point, there will be almost nothing left to teach. The history of the burka??
He didn’t know that the “art” included some kid diddling a woman’s nipple.
I don’t believe it.
And the ones who deliberately push homosexuality and dick chopping on to their students are rewarded, promoted, and praised.
I would be upset too as those two paintings are not Francois Boucher or Modigliani’s best works....
Per the article:
Also included in The Art Box are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, as well as work from Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Claude Monet and more.
He removed the cards when they made students uncomfortable, the paper reported.
‘This is not material at all that I would use. I had no idea,’ Rueda said.
These kids have seen all manner of debauchery on their phones, in video and gaming. These old pics are the least of it.
Reminds me of the story my wife told me. She works as a librarian at an elementary school.
While checking in books, two little boys brought a big picture book to the desk and claimed that the book had “dirty pictures.” My wife opened the page and sure enough there was a picture of Greek art and statues.
My wife acted shocked and then the cut out pieces of paper to cover the “naked parts.” The boys were happy. :)
Who wants to “teach” a bunch of future criminals anyway and get paid some of the lowest wages in America? Find a real job or acquire new skills that really pays. This might be the best thing in disguise. Highschool art teacher lol
This seems oversensitive to me. One can display nudes without the attitude of carnal passion. The smart thing to do would have been just to avoid the risk completely. We are talking 11 year olds here. If they don’t ‘discover’ the body now, there is still plenty of time before high school.
Boys have evidently changed a lot since I was one...
Notice the painting on the wall behind the teacher in the photo.
That is a painting by a person who has a lot of suppressed anger. I’ve dabbled in art therapy and read a few books on it as part of other research I was working on.
Sharp angles, dark outlines....
I have a feeling there is more to this than the facts in the article.
With the right lawyer, this guy will be able to retire early.
The box was in the school library. Why not fire the Librarian, or whoever ordered and placed them in the library in the first place? Why not sue Art Box for sending inappropriate material in articles intended for schools? Why are people losing all common sense and becoming so easily traumatized?
I'm glad I retired and don't have to deal with the public any more.
The picture I posted is a promotional picture put out by the company that publishes the Art Box, just so you could get an idea of what the story was about. The pictures that offended the parents are at the link.
Oh, probably not. They probably snickered and giggled when they saw it and then figured they’d win a few points with the librarian.
That piece by Caravaggio is one of my favorite, in spite of the ‘impossible’ proportions of the cherub who embraces the main figure.
All those post cards depicting nudity came from the their own elementary school library. Now they want to fire this guy for what the school district approved?
Check out this story!!!
They need to pass out old copies of ‘National Geographic’...and old Sears catalogs too.
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