I’m pretty sure we dont have them under the bridges, which may explain things.
At least we can be thankful that they skipped the Barney exhibit.
UB, at some point, when you’re an adult, you have to take responsibility for your own decisions. The parents approved the trip. They knew when and where the trip would be, it is incumbent upon them to be knowledgable of the various issues before signing their approval. To expect anything else is to infantalize them, to imply that they are not mature enough to be given the responsibility to approve a field trip for their own children.
I’d just like to say that naked sculptures are the symbol of Calgary Board of Education.
CBE’s Mario Armengol statues.
For those that are curious, the photograph I described before did not depict a woman’s genitalia: as I said, it depicted her pubic region. Guin got it right. It depicted belly, thighs, and pubic hair. I believe there was writing scrawled on her belly; I can’t quite remember. I do remember that it was not a prurient picture; it was not nearly as erotically-charged as the billboards around town for America’s Next Top Model (or whatever), which show a woman with sensuously-pursed lips.
A student as immature as UB, who kept rocketing around the museum shouting about the huge cunt picture, would be sent out posthaste to the schoolbus, where he would wait until the rest of the students were done with the field trip. This may explain why he didn’t see any nudity at museums as a child, assuming that he was no more mature at ten than he is at fifty (or whatever). Fortunately, most fifth graders are more mature and in control than he is.
Is, through some mystical unexplained mechanism, a picture of a woman’s pubic area harmful to a child? Fuck if I know. I can’t imagine how it is. I don’t really think so, but I also don’t think denying them access to the photograph will be significantly harmful. There are a few parties that I trust to make that decision:
- The parent OF THE CHILD IN QUESTION. If their child requires extraordinary protection from photographs, the parent has an extraordinary responsibility to provide such protection.
- The teacher. The teacher makes a classwide decision about the maturity-level of his class and what they can handle. He’s a professional, and I generally trust his judgment, as long as it’s in keeping with established procedures.
- The principal. The principal keeps her finger on the pulse of the community, and it’s her job to let a teacher know if his action, acceptable elsewhere, is unacceptable in this community. The proper time for this to be done, of course, is when the teacher seeks approval for an activity.
- The art museum’s director of education. The DoE is an expert, and the teacher is taking the kids to the museum to benefit from this expertise. She’ll know what is and is not appropriate for kids to see; if she’s doing her job, she’s reading up on the subject.
There are some parties I don’t trust to make the decision:
5) The parent OF ANOTHER CHILD. Your mom has no right to tell me what my child can’t see, and it’s stupidity incarnate to decide otherwise.
6) Some ignorant dumbass on the Internet.
Okay, gramps, if that’s the analogy you want, we can go with it. I was trying to cut you some slack, but you’re right, with one tweak (representing the parent’s consent), this is a better analogy.
A teacher, IN SPAIN, asks the principal for permission to take the kids to a bullfight. The principal agrees. The teacher sends home a permission slip to the kids’ parents. The parents sign and return the permission slip. The teacher takes the kids to the bullfight. An animal-rights parent, unaware that bullfights involve the death of an animal, agitates to have the teacher fired for exposing her child to such a spectacle.
Analyze.
Daniel
Everybody know those Catholics are going to hell, anyway. Jack Chick said it’s in my bible, so I believe it… :rolleyes:
They’re just trying to be hip and with it.
Daniel
As far back as 1866, those hip, with-it Parisian fifth graders could go and have a gander at Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde.
You shouldn’t post images of genitals here. Someone may be offended.
So it never once occurred to you that many of the arguments, including LeftHand’s now infamous “cunt photo” were attempting to point out to you that these attitudes are not nearly as widely held as you think, and that plain common sense would ordinarily dictate that you’re going to see some nudity in an art museum, not that giving a ten year old a glimpse at the Venus de Milo’s boobies will get your ass fired? Seriously, now, you’re acting as though we’re all saying that we should send our five-year-olds to “Whorey McWhoreson’s House of Beaver and Sausage Photography,” as that is what the cool kids think is artistic. Not a damn person in this thread has said this. In fact, the consensus in this thread has been surprisingly uniform: Nudes have been a staple of art since art first began, and you’re a damn fool if you think your child can go to an art museum and not see some ta-tas or a dangle.
You are not only the only person in this thread to argue that the parents could not have foreseen said dangle, you are arguing this in the face of a thousand children FROM THIS SCHOOL DISTRICT who have seen the dangle without incident. You are arguing this in the face of every person who has gone to the museum, seen the dangle, and not made a complaint. You are arguing this in the face of thousands of years of recorded human history, where people from every culture have had their own chance to come to terms with with the dangle. To quote YOU:
Darling, I don’t know what definition of “common sense” you’re using, but it usually has something to do with the opinion of the majority. In this case, the majority seems to believe that there’s nothing wrong with a pair of marble ta-tas. Dopers from all over the country, from the most “hip and cool” areas to the most conservative, have clearly stated that there is nothing wrong with a kid seeing a pair of marble ta-tas. There is nothing common sense about your opinion - from what I can see, you share it with a reactionary family from Texas and our beloved Attorney General, and that’s it. Maybe you should rethink how common your beliefs are.
Unregistered Bull, if nudity is such a problem for 10 year olds (about 5th grade), how do you reconcile that with the fact that there are cultures with topless women, or men with minimal covering of their penis?
Either those culture’s kids are severely scarred by growing up in that culture, or it’s really not a big deal at all.
I would argue that it’s only a big deal to some adults and not the kids at all. If you think viewing the nude human form causes psychological problems for kids, do you care to back that up with any scientific studies?
Oh, you meant Barney the dinosaur. I thought you were talking about Matthew Barney. There’s no way I’d show that to a fifth-grader. Not that there’s any nudity or anything. It just fucks with your head.
I remember sex-ed started for us in fourth grade. They divided us up by gender, and the girls saw one video, while the boys saw another in a seperate classroom. My mother was offended that they’d seperated the boys from the girls; she thought that boys should know about menstration and the girls should know about… whatever was in the boys’ video.
I hope she got your teacher fired for not adequately predicting her response to the material.
Daniel
You forgot cool
What’s really laughable, in this day and age, is that the same 5th graders probably went home that night and behind their parents backs got online with one of many devices available to them, seeing pornographic images and videos so extreme they would make a 60 year-old street whore sick. Hellfire, I can go to pretty tame websites and see “pierced enema nurse who LURVES her great dane” advertisements in pop-ups. Or if they don’t see it at home, they go to the neighbour’s house and see it on their computer. Or on cable or sat TV. Or at the library or school.
Obviously it’s much worse to go to an art museum and have art explained in a cultural context by adults.
Improves New Mexico, too. Win-win.
Sure, why not?
Theory: Unregistered Bull IS John Ashcroft?
I am afraid I don’t understand his whole, “it’s ok if it was an accident on the part of the teacher.” bit. That seems to say that if the purpose of the field trip was to view nudes* , then the teacher should be hung out to dry.
*(a perfectly valid reason for a field trip, IMO, yes, even for 5th graders. Perhaps they have learned about them in Art or in History etc)
I get so embarassed by the lower half of the map sometimes. Not that bluer regions don’t have their walks of shame, but seriously, this is some fucked up shit. I must keep in mind that not all those who reside in Texas are of this mindset.
I hope she sues and bankrupts this district. Perhaps starting over is the best way to deal with the messed up attitudes exhibited by prospective winners of Darwin awards. Of course, that hurts the other 88 kids, plus all the other students in the elementary system, but I feel that it’s worth it.
And this is the state that essentially controls textbook publishing. The mind reels.
This is an example of parental idiocy which unfortunately has been allowed to grow on the vine, as opposed to being snipped.
I took my daughter to the Franklin Institute last Christmas and we toured the Gunther von Hagens ‘Bodyworlds’ exhibition. She asked many questions, and raved to her teacher about what she’d seen-she was in third grade at the time.
I wonder if it’s nothing more than an opportunity to oust the teacher based on lame unrelated issues.
Wow, I just hope it never occurs to any of those parents to go see what books are in that school library. Books that any child attending that school, from Kindergarten through 5th grade, can look at. Books on art, history, mythology, biology, anatomy, architecture, and more, I’m sure. Encyclopedias. National Geographics. All there for children’s perusal, all full of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs of “boobies,” “peckers,” and “cunts.” Oh my God. There’d be a book banning to end all book bannings.