Posted on 09/26/2006 9:33:20 AM PDT by Abathar
Children Were On School-Approved Field Trip
FRISCO, Texas -- A award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.
The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years. She has been on administrative leave.
The teacher took her students on an approved field trip to a Dallas museum, and now some parents are upset.
The Fisher Elementary school art teacher came under fire last April when she took 89 fifth graders on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. Parents raised concerns over the field trip after their children reported seeing a nude sculpture at the art museum.
The parents had signed permission slips allowing their children to take part in the field trip.
McGee's lawyer said the principal at Fisher Elementary School admonished her after a parent complained that a student had seen nude art.
McGee said the principal had urged her to take the students to the museum.
Now, McGee, who was honored with a Star Teacher Award two years ago, is on paid administrative leave until her contract with the school district expires in March.
Other parents are worried about the future of the art program at the school, which they cite as a reason for moving into the neighborhood.
"Our main concern right now is what's going to happen to the children and what's going to happen to the art program at Fisher Elementary. It is the best art program. That's the reason we moved to this neighborhood. It's because of the teachers," said Shannon Allen, parent. "It was a principal approved trip. What's the big deal?"
Officials with the Frisco school district declined to comment on the matter.
I don't understand why taxpayers' money is being wasted on having 5th graders spend a day wandering around an art museum. I think "art" in general is way overrated in our society, especially in the leftist realm. There's this notion that art is "important". Important for what? Certainly not for earning a living. As for its popularity with educrats, that's in accordance with their dogma that it's critically important for children (and later adults) to "express themselves". Part of the larger no-standards movement, in which anything that any genetically human organism "expresses" is "valuable", while actual knowledge, skills, and achievement are not.
Whenever a fellow called Rex
Flashed his very small organ of sex,
He always got off,
For the judges would scoff,
‘De minimis non curat lex.’— Anonymous.
Without the screeching and outrage of the moralists taxpayer funding, most shlock artists simply wouldn't exist.
Purveyors of trash-as-art do not thrive simply because they set out to shock and offend people - although they do tend to attract publicity in that way. Such "artists" are frequently subsidized by involuntarily contributions - often taken from the very people whose values and beliefs the same "artists" seek to ridicule. To remove the subsidy would not be censorship. If artistic works were made to stand on their own merits (for sale or lease without subsidy), easily-offended souls could still object, but would have no right to interfere with the artists' right to arrange for their private display.
"The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years."
It is not unknown for school systems to want to get rid of the longest tenured and highest paid teachers and replace them with recent graduates. So they find a pretext.
Quality of life issue. If you understand a little bit about art you will lead a richer life. And no, there isn't a way to quantify that.
Another fact that can't be quantified is if you want to rise above middle management cube-dweller then a basic knowledge of art, literature, architecture and classical music is pretty much a requirement.
My wife and I have several sculptures that are certainly not going to be hidden from our children. Among them are Rodin's "The Kiss"...
...and "The Three Muses."
...to name but a few.
Personally, I think the complainers have a screw loose. The kids saw a nude statue and they're acting like the teacher took them to a strip club for cryin' out loud.
Actually, you can make a living as an artist. Of course there are regular artists, and it takes a lot of talent to make a living. However, these days people that are artistic can work in digital media, animation, graphic design, interior design, and a whole slew of other careers.
Especially in elementary school, it is good to expose kids to all sorts of things (science, art, music, math, computers). If a kid has a talent in an area, then they can pursue that further.
LOL! I remember that one from Junior Classical League . I miss the toga Senate sessions, the olympics, the comraderie with other Latin / Greek geeks!
"I don't understand why taxpayers' money is being wasted on having 5th graders spend a day wandering around an art museum. I think "art" in general is way overrated in our society, especially in the leftist realm. There's this notion that art is "important". Important for what? Certainly not for earning a living. "
First off, art museums are history lessons. As for making a living as an artist, there are lots and lots of folks doing that. From advertising layouts to designing your next car, artists are involved. There is art around you every day. The buildings you visit were designed by artists. Every magazine you read is full of the work of artists.
For pete's sake, art is important to human beings. The cost of taking a 5th grade class to a museum is minimal, compared to the value of their exposure to the arts as they have been practiced for centuries.
You may not value art, but you are a consumer of it all the time in your life.
Don't you think they got dragged to the museums themselves on school field trips when they were kids? Even if they weren't, the existence of art museums is so much a part of the culture, I can't imagine anybody NOT knowing there's nude statues inside. My dad is the strictest Southern Baptist you can imagine and he had no problem signing the permission slips for me back in the Sixties.
If I'm wrong, and these were just standard classical nudes, then these parents need to put their kid in private school, because exposure to real art (not modern crap) museums is a basic part of education, funded by tax dollars even I don't begrudge.
Well, I only see quotes from the teacher's lawyer...
A friend of my girlfriend is a teacher in another North Texas school district and has one student with a 'modification' for his lesson plan; The male student is allowed to 'spank the monkey' once per class. It's documented, approved, and part of this kids official paperwork. Too bad the parent that overacted about the nude art didn't have her brat in the same class as this brat!
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum
"Don't you think they got dragged to the museums themselves on school field trips when they were kids?"
Not necessarily. There are millions of kids living in small towns with no museums nearby. They don't get dragged into them...ever. I grew up in a town like that, and we never went to any museum until I was in high school and the honor society got to go to a couple.
If you're in the city and visit a museum, you'll see lots of busloads of kids at the museum. But that's just the kids who are in schools close enough. I have no idea where Frisco, TX is.
Field trips are a dying thing these days.
Art is critcally important to life, and to earning a living. I can make a case that it's more important than algebra. The study of art teaches creative thinking. When was the last time you had to find a creative solution to a problem at work? When was the last time you had to solve a quadratic equation?
I'm as tight with a tax buck as anybody, but art (and music) dollars are money well spent. Sports dollars I'm not so sure about.
I grew up with a smaller marble version statue of David in my home all my and I turned out alright.
Please do not forget your sarcasm tag.
Most schools would only fire the teacher if the nude sculpture was holding a Bible or praying.
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