meta-roj

it’s been here before, and i guess it’ll keep happening, so i’ll keep pointing….

a teacher has been suspended because some of her students were “exposed” to nudity in art.

Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing [ny times, 2006.09.30, registration required]

“Keep the ‘Art’ in ‘Smart’ and ‘Heart,’ ” Sydney McGee had posted on her Web site at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in this moneyed boomtown that is gobbling up the farm fields north of Dallas.

But Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended.

Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and “bashed.”

sooner or later, this society will have to come to grips (literally, perhaps) with the concept that while violence is optional in the span of a human life; nudity (and sex) is not. we’ll have to deal with the fact that when we’re young, we use naked breasts for food, and when we’re old, we’ll probably have people wiping our naked asses – that sometimes nudity isn’t about sex.

and we’ll have to deal with the fact that our parents all got naked and had sweaty, passionate sex. we’ll have to deal with the fact that we get aroused and most of us do something about it. and hopefully, we’ll embrace the idea that knowledge is empowering and it’s impossible to shelter everyone from the world, so we might as well know something about it.