Teacher Fired for Visit to Museum

This woman, Sydney McGee, was fired from her job as an art teacher for allowing her students to visit a museum. It happened that the museum had a nude sculpture, and one of the students saw a stone penis.

The worst part was that it wasn't even in the exibit that she brought them to see. It was just there.

www.nbc10.com...

FRISCO, Texas -- An 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 approved of te field trip, but now she's fired. Sometimes I really think that there is no hope for mankind with this type of idiocy around. What did the parents think was in a museum? Actually, chances are that the parents complaining have never been to a museum in the first place.

This is nothing more than an obnoctious parent who is making a lot of noise. The pathetic part is the administration not standing behind their teacher.

I hope she sues the ass off of the administration for wrongful dismissal and takes a huge lump sum of a settlement.

The poor kiddies. They are probably all now in need of therapy and counselling to get over the trauma. Much like the trauma suffered by millions across America due to Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the SuperBowl festivities a couple of years back.

This is just another prime example of just how srewed up society is getting with regards to puritanical censorship of anything slightly risque. I'm sure the pop culture a lot of kids these days are fed on is responsible for a lot more when it comes to real flesh.

What a sorry place this world is becoming

I really didn't know that you could visit an art museum without viewing at least one nude in one medium or another.

There isn't much in the way of details in this story, but it should be remembered that in recent years, what is art and what is pornographic has been blurred.

There must be more to this story than is being reported.

As a native Texan, this dosent surprise me in the least.

An abnormal quantity of Texas are emotionally, culturally and artistically challenged. Maybe a better term rather than "Challenged" would be "Constipated."

Sadly, this is the wave of the future with the fundamentalist attitudes sweeping the south.

Remember when the Taliban blew up Buddhas? Get ready for an American version of the Taliban with a Christian focus. No book or work of art will be spared that doesnt fit into their biblical interpretation of what is "good and proper."

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
There isn't much in the way of details in this story, but it should be remembered that in recent years, what is art and what is pornographic has been blurred.

There must be more to this story than is being reported.

Why must there be more? Is it that hard to believe that some people are just morons? It's based on the testimonial of children. How would they know what's pornography and what's art unless someone teaches them? It's much more dangerous to just call it all porn.

Here is the problem with this.
We in my city anyway are budget cutting the schools to bits. Some are even closed now. Most teachers are sorely underpaid and overworked with crowded classrooms.
Now fast forward to this particular teacher who is taking a vested interest in her class to take them to see fine arts.
Last time I checked stone sculptures qualify as art. If it's of a woman it's gonna have breasts and of a man a penis. My God! What is wrong with these parents.
Shouldn't they have already covered this with their own kids?

And what of permission slips? Did these parents of protest not stop to think that some material may have been what they considered inappropriate? Then why did they give permission to go?

This is just a sad story.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Why must there be more? Is it that hard to believe that some people are just morons?

No, it's not hard to believe that some people are morons, but I know how the news is reported and my gut feeling is that there is more to the story than in covered in a few paragraphs. I could be wrong, but that is my feeling.

Aren't you one of those people who mistrust the MSM?

I feel bad for the schools ystem afterwards. From this point on, no field trips to any place that may have art. No books aside from the bible. No stimulating education what so ever.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Aren't you one of those people who mistrust the MSM?

The media has NEVER been guilty of slandering the truth.

...Right! Keep telling yourself that chissler.

Grady is right. We can all jump to conclusions but until it is confirmed that there is no further details to report, we should try to hold off. Its quite possible somebody is guilty of a punishable infraction.

From what I have read so far, we can come to conclusions.

But more information may exist.

Anyone know if Fox is reporting on this story?



[edit on 11-10-2006 by chissler]

Good point

www.commondreams.org...

Various facts that I thought were interesting

Over the past decade, more than half a million students, including about a thousand from other Frisco schools, have toured the museum’s collection of 26,000 works spanning 5,000 years, he said, “without a single complaint.” One school recently did cancel a scheduled visit, he said. He did not have its name.

In the May 18 memorandum to Ms. McGee, Ms. Lawson faulted her for not displaying enough student art and for “wearing flip-flops” to work; Ms. McGee said she was wearing Via Spiga brand sandals.

Ms. McGee, a fifth-generation Texan who has a grown daughter, won a monthly teacher award in 2004 from a local newspaper.

Some parents have come to Ms. McGee’s defense. Joan Grande said her 11-year-old daughter, Olivia, attended the museum tour.

“She enjoyed the day very much,” Ms. Grande said. “She did mention some nude art but she didn’t make a big deal of it and neither did I.” She said that if Ms. McGee’s job ratings were high before the incident, “something isn’t right” about the suspension.

Another parent, Maijken Kozcara, said Ms. McGee had taught her children effectively.

“I thought she was the greatest,” Ms. Kozcara said. But “knowing Texas, the way things work here” she said of the teacher’s suspension, “I wasn’t really amazed. I was like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”

Sounds to me like they had it in for her (principal and superintendant)

And the work in question

Retracing her route this week through the museum’s European and contemporary galleries, Ms. McGee passed 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.”

www.lhelmerich.com...

www.bluffton.edu...
Couldn't find the Arp work inquestion, but here's a sample of his other work

www.racheladlerfineart.com...


[edit on 11-10-2006 by Rasobasi420]

No wonder God expelled Adam and Eve from their reaction of knwing they were nude. What did they think God knew Adam could get an erection?
Well I think he made you like that too, they must have felt really silly losing all that nice land and realising that maybe God knows all he made you anyway.

Don't blame God blame man that we can be this down hill.

What an absolute joke and embrassment for the school systems of Texas. The administration of that school responsible for her dismisal is a complete waste and their place in the school system should be called into question. Art is art. A stone penus, are you kidding me? Any parent that called to complain about that is obviously an ignorant fool. Yes, I would love to hear from those of you that agree a teacher should be fired over children seeing a nude statue. They need to educate themselves and take a step into history. It amazes me that a parent even had the audacity to complain about that in the first place. I believe a child has the ability to see themselves nude, why not a stone statue.

If anyone can get the school information, address, and names of the administration, I would like to write to complain about this and to the state government.

[edit on 10/11/2006 by infinite8]