Sensitivity training goes both ways. Parents of sixth graders in the heart of Mormondum are naturally going to go after a teacher who is exposing women's breasts and frontal nudity to their children. Even if it is art for art's sake. Maybe a class of sixth graders in Cache county, Utah just aren't ready for that.

He was a bit crass, based on the descriptives the students provided to their parents.

This is the "Iris Tree" by Modigliani

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4a/99/42/4a994246d1bcbaa30cfce20cc772b870--amedeo-modigliani-artists.jpg

Odalisque by Boucher

http://www.paintinghere.com/images-stretched-canvas/francois-boucher-brown-odalisque-print-L-13228.jpg

The first is a frontal nude portrait

The second is a bare buttocks portrait in a sexually provocative pose.

The first is not unlike pics in a centerfold Playboy magazine, truth be told. Maybe not as graphic, but close.

If it were my children and I was hearing the same reports of that teacher it would be upsetting to me. My children had to get permission slips from home to view mature themed movies even during high school.

The prosecutors office determined the material used wasn't pornographic per se. It may have been over the heads of both the students and the parents however at that school. The teacher should have shown more discretion IMO, because he's now out of a job.

"Parent Venessa Rose Pixton said she's upset because Rueda's handling of the situation belittled students, including her 11-year-old son.

"He said Mr. Mateo even told the class 'There's nothing wrong with female nipples. You guys need to grow up and be mature about this,'" Pixton said.

Rueda denied making that statement and said he simply explained the human body is often portrayed in art displayed in museums."

He crossed another line when he started attacking the students credibility for their accounts of what he said, not just did. For him to deny he made those statements after the fact and that he "had no idea" the material he was showing his students tells me he isn't being honest about what happened.

Sorry, but a county prosecutor in Utah or anywhere else doesn't get to determine whether famous paintings by Modigliani and Boucher are "pornographic per se" and if one tried to do it, a first-year law student could argue the case all the way to the US Supreme Court and win it.

I'm not surprised, however, if a conservative D.A. somewhere had the arrogance to imagine that he (it's normally a he) had the right to weigh in on the fine arts, too.

This makes my blood boil and makes our country (once again) a hypocritical laughing-stock to cultured people. Haven't I often read that Utah consumes more Internet porn per capita than anywhere else, or something like that?

To hell with blue-nosed puritans in Utah and everywhere else, including China and North Korea and the Islamic world, where our 21st century puritans often seem to belong. If that includes someone reading on RfM, then so be it....

Curelom Joe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> To hell with blue-nosed puritans in Utah and
> everywhere else, including China and North Korea
> and the Islamic world, where our 21st century
> puritans often seem to belong.

In some parts of the Islamic world, you mean. Iran or Pakistan, yes. But in Tunisia, all school children visit local museums with ancient Roman mosaics. Uncensored. Same in Turkey, Syria, Morocco and Algeria.

Utards do not deal well with art nudity. Just ask BYU.

Teacher crossed a line.
First one DEFINITELY NOT age appropriate.
And if he must persist, permission slips aren’t that big of a deal.

Sheesh, I was in junior high here in Salt Lake and twice in my memory we had presentations that involved extensive nudity among native peoples...

One was a show--in a science class--that featured Australian aborigines, and the other was an actual slide show in the auditorium with a lecturer who'd traveled extensively in the Amazon and had excellent pictures of the both the animal life and the Indians in that part of the world.

And as a student teacher I was assigned Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" which featured a slightly "abstract" description of a male phallus (as a turkey neck), and my 11th graders were definitely sophisticated enough to pick that up.

I had to overcome my "raised in Zion" hangups and behave as the grown-up, honest.

Right now we're seeing a "sociological crisis" with the widespread display of boorish--and abusive--behaviors by males on both sides of the political fence, and as I see it, the repression creates a "forbidden fruit" element of the pathology.

A moment of silence, please, for Ogden Nash, and his classic "Senator Smoot, Republican Ut."

Yes, he checked out these pictures from the elementary school library.

The parents and kids overreacted, but that's how the culture in that area would react, so perhaps the teacher should have avoided the problem and reported this to the librarian for review. It's too bad that children of this age can't learn to appreciate fine art, but alas, if BYU students can't handle it, then sixth graders would be much less likely to do so.

Growing up in Florence or Rome would be another matter. Even kids in Berkeley or San Francisco might not be able to deal with this unless it was introduced with great caution and the parents were warned and educated in advance.

Totally agree. My TBM mother made sure all of her kids were exposed to classical art at a young age, nudity or not.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Donatello's David:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Florence_-_David_by_Donatello.jpg


Michaelangelo's David
http://cdn.accademia.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/david-full-front.jpg


The Venus Of Willendorf:
https://arthistoryproject.com/site/assets/files/17097/venus-of-willendorf-28000-25000bc-trivium-art-history-min_upload_tmp.png


Naujmeta's Latex Legs
https://naujmeta.deviantart.com/art/latex-legs-285081782


Ars longa, vita brevis.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> A moment of silence, please, for Ogden Nash, and
> his classic "Senator Smoot, Republican Ut."

Ah yes, "Smoot Smites Smut" by Ogden Nash

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)
Is planning a ban on smut.
Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.
And his reverend occiput.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
Grit your molars and do your dut.,
Gird up your l__ns,
Smite h_p and th_gh,
We'll all be Kansas
By and by.

Smite, Smoot, for the Watch and Ward,
For Hiram Johnson and Henry Ford,
For Bishop Cannon and John D., Junior,
For ex-Gov. Pinchot of Pennsylvunia,
For John S. Sumner and Elder Hays
And possibly Edward L. Bernays,
For Orville Poland and Ella Boole,
For Mother Machree and the Shelton pool.
When smut's to be smitten
Smoot will smite
For G-d, for country,
And Fahrenheit.

Senator Smoot is an institute
Not to be bribed with pelf;
He guards our homes from erotic tomes
By reading them all himself.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
They're smuggling smut from Balt. to Butte!
Strongest and sternest
Of your s_x
Scatter the scoundrels
From Can. to Mex!

Smite, Smoot, for Smedley Butler,
For any good man by the name of Cutler,
Smite for the W.C.T.U,
For Rockne's team and for Leader's crew,
For Florence Coolidge and Admiral Byrd,
For Billy Sunday and John D., Third,
For Grantland Rice and for Albie Booth,
For the Woman's Auxiliary of Duluth,
Smite, Smoot,
Be rugged and rough,
Smut if smitten
Is front-page stuff.

gettinreal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Teacher crossed a line.
> First one DEFINITELY NOT age appropriate.
> And if he must persist, permission slips aren’t
> that big of a deal.

Why oh why is it not "age appropriate", and what oh what would the appropriate age for learning about art be?

Also, do they still burn witches in your village?

? the images were in the school library??

When I was in school, the library’s National Geographic collection was the go-to porn source. Boys will always find their “porn”, even if they have to draw it themselves. Utah has to make it a fetish, like they make even heaven a fetish. They aren’t being besieged by a disease. They are the disease.

"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...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.'"

Oops.

Imagine a doctor prescribing some medication, then after a bad reaction, claiming he didn't know what ingredients were in the medication.

Wasn't there a Rodin exhibit years ago in Utah where the statues had to be covered?

Considering the sordid history of the Mormon church this is ridiculous.

I recall that one of George W. Bush's cabinet appointments, former senator John Ashcroft, a Bible-pounder from Missouri, was justly ridiculed for having the bosom of big statue of Justice (?) in his building's lobby, depicted in a classical style with a bare breast and robes, covered up with some sort of drape before he gave a speech in front of it.

The sooner this element in our society is ridiculed and resisted out of any power, the better.

And I sympathize only with the teacher -- these paintings were in the goddamned school library! And no doubt in art books in public libraries all over the western states!

Reality check here...

In really good schools (not only private schools, but also some of the best public schools and public school programs) students visit museums and art galleries as a regular part of their studies, and these venues mostly all include works with nudity in them (two-dimensional art, as well as three-dimensional art such as statues).

Nudity in art, as with nudity in history (beginning with the art and histories of prehistoric and ancient times) is "everywhere," and those art works with nudity in them are foundational in our culture. Trying to ignore or hide this reality is an attempt to cheat our kids of real understanding...or the opportunity to advance their individual maturity levels.

My thoughts about this kind of bowdlerizing began in twelfth grade, when we were studying Shakespeare in American Lit, with our standard-issue American Lit text. (In other words, this text was meant for general students, not for advanced learners or advanced learning programs.) In whatever play we were studying, there was a reference to "a French hose"...but what I REALLY remember about that play and that passage was the printed footnote at the bottom of that same page which said: "A kind of French fashion, [in vogue] at that time."

Okay, it was obvious by the context that this "French hose" reference had NOTHING to do with wearing apparel, and was intended, by the speaker of the passage, as an insult to the person being referred to. It was obvious to ME that Shakespeare was saying "a French whore," and although it may well have been that, back in Shakespeare's time, French "hose" and French "whore" may have been synonymous with each other---the PRINTED FOOTNOTE BENEATH THAT PASSAGE IN OUR TEXTBOOK WAS PLAINLY trying to "educate" us (by lying and misdirection) with an institutionally-approved "fact" which was absolutely and obviously NOT true.

I have never forgotten this, because what I really learned from studying that Shakespeare play was that (at least in part) a portion of the education I was being given was an intentional lie.

This was a rite of passage for me: I learned that the adults in a student's life are not the only "authorities" who will lie to you...because, at least at times, the "authoritative" textbooks you are learning FROM will, knowingly and intentionally, lie to you too...

...and they will treat this lying as if it is an established fact you should "learn," and then shut up about. (Most specifically, the implicit lesson is: Do Not Question An Institutionally-Approved Lie!!!)

I understand that naked bodies in culturally iconic art are problematic when art is being taught to children growing up, but trying to pretend that those naked bodies in iconic art are not "there" is just as misleading (and certainly bordering on dishonest) as trying to "explain" to students something (like a "French hose" as an item of apparel) which is, in truth, totally and absolutely fallacious.

How much better it would be if teachers just said, up front: "Many of the most important artworks of human history include naked bodies, and the task you have, as a student, is to accept this reality of life."

And then (amid the temporary giggles) just continue on with the art history lesson in question...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2017 01:09PM by Tevai.

Are these parents and students ignorant and parochial? Yes, they are. They won't likely come around unless someone helps them learn to appreciate the fine arts. I'd suggest parent appreciation and educational evenings to explain some of this to parents and to show them the beauty and grandeur of some of the best art pieces available on slides and perhaps on trips to a museum.

People react better to respectful presentations than to ram-rod rancorous demands. Students learn better if their parents are supportive of a program and not dead set against it.

This is a great way of dealing with the problem (and I do recognize that, on a number of levels, this IS a "problem").

Well done, Cheryl!!!

:)

Excuse me. This is the day of the INTERNET. Kids will check out things in droves now because of this lunacy. (Not that I consider that necessarily bad)

Parents and teachers be damned. If you want to make sure something is expanded in life experience, just be sure and say 'no-no'.

Reminds me of my teen years and one of the scouts brought a play boy to the camp out. Everyone would would gawk at a page and say.. "oooh, that's so bad, now turn the page". Total explosion.

These poor damned kids would see nudity in nature too if they would just get out in it.

Sex starved (and foolish)

ART starved (and ignorant)

Literature-Music starved

Nature (reality) starved

SPIRITUALITY starved

(not necessarily in that order)

How is one "SPIRITUALITY starved" ?

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How is one "SPIRITUALITY starved" ?

They worship/ believe morMon BS *church* cultURE.

Ever been to an LDSC?
It's a spiritual vacuum.
Void of an unadulterated spirit.

Does that help your question?

They’re like God’s little taxidermist. Suck the life out them, stuff them and look. Good as new.

I wonder what images—those complaining the loudest—have on their password-protected phones?

Come on. I grew up across the street from a famous Utah art museum in Springville. All town students toured the gallery where there was a full-size replica of the David statue. Along the walls were paintings of nude or semi-nude folks. Holy hell! We live in an insane world!! What in the world is wrong with our bodies that so offend? Taking the next trip to Mars, even on a rover. Gotta get out of Hotel California.

As an educator, you have to know your community. Nudity in art is likely not going to fly in middle school in Utah, and perhaps not even in high school. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but that is the community standard.

Sometimes I've seen it go the other way, when the community is more liberal and accepting than a given educator.

Summer,

I think the school district may have to reverse itself on this one. Not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I doubt the school can fire a teacher for teaching classical art that is available in some of the state's public libraries as well as this particular school's library. Such institutions generally embody the community's standards.

My guess is that the school district, populated as in most places by political invertebrates, was just doing what appeared safest. The next step would be for the district lawyers to write up a little document saying that, evil as the teacher may be, what he did was constitutionally protected. Then the bureaucrats will tell the public that its lawyers forced it to reinstate the teacher. Everyone will then go home, having found someone else to blame.

And yes, I am pretty cynical about public school administration.

Interesting.

I wonder if he might still have recourse. Firing him for incompetence, or for nothing, might be legal; and yet in this case there is a documented record of his being fired for what may be exercising his right of free speech.

What I mean is that while a company or district might be able to fire without cause, that doesn't mean thy can fire for unconstitutional reasons like the color of one's skin. If this teacher was exercising his right to speech within community standards, his discharge could still be illegal.

I guess we (or at least I) will see.

The greater tragedy, though, is that kids are being taught that the human body is problematic and that there is no difference between classical art and modern pornography. That is a heavy burden to bear into adulthood.

This is where tenure and union representation helps, especially in light of the fact that the pictures came from the school library, and thus were already presumably vetted.

Teachers aren’t paid to teach. They’re paid to indoctrinate. This guy didn’t understand the distinction, which isn’t really fair because nobody ever explains these things. How can you do your job if the mechanics of it are shrouded in secrecy? Or is cargo cult teaching all they can manage?

I do see the irony in trying to get through to this culture so caught up in its own dysfunction. So resistant to seeing things as they really are, as opposed to how they want them to be. The way things are is the beauty upon which we impose our ugliness. We only imagine that we impose beauty. Beauty doesn’t need to be imposed. It just is. That’s why art.

It’s not the teacher who crapped in the village well.

The NEA could make real political hay out of this (and have some fun at Utah’s expense), so this guy could come out ahead in a case of life imitating art.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As an educator, you have to know your community.
> Nudity in art is likely not going to fly in middle
> school in Utah, and perhaps not even in high
> school. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but that is the
> community standard.

As an educator, you have to educate your community.

In that respect, educators in UT have a lot to work with, not reasons to abstain from their task. As the poet said, "What do they know of England/ Who only England know?"

That kind of conversation happens at a much higher level than in an individual teacher's classroom. When a subject is sensitive, a teacher is wise to fall back on the curriculum, or failing that, to get clearance from the principal.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That kind of conversation happens at a much higher
> level than in an individual teacher's classroom.
> When a subject is sensitive, a teacher is wise to
> fall back on the curriculum, or failing that, to
> get clearance from the principal.

Or failing that, stick to the stuff in the school library. Oh, wait, that's what he did.

Again, even IF there was anything wrong with the pictures (which there emphatically isn't), it's not the teacher who would have to be fired but the people above him.

I have used nudity in art in high school classes in Utah with no issues other than a little immature giggling.It was in videos owned by the school. I would get approval before showing such things in junior high though. We did show 'Roots' in eight grade with approval and there are some bare breasts. The kids were so busy yelling, 'Run, Juice, Run' at OJ that they didnt notice.This was in the 90s during his murder trial.If this teacher was showing art and not erotica or porn I hope he sues them. He would have been wise to run it by administration first though and get permission slips.I would also be moremcareful in a small or rural school. I taught for Granite which is large and pretty diverse.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2017 06:03PM by bona dea.

I find a couple of things interesting.

-That the pictures to be prohibited were in the kids' library, and it was the teacher, not the librarian or principal, who was fired.

-That only female nudes were in the collection.

-That no concernerd parent knew the content of art in the school lihrary.

-That anyone would be able to differentiate between differentiate these images given out in an off-hand classrom setting, or in a "private session" with a single child. The former could be considered grooming for the latter. We are talking eleven and twelve year olds. Taking them on a field trip where nudity is a part of the artwork being displayed is a very different situation to giving a child a nude picture to carry around in a backpack, to take home and share with possibly even younger children, or play show and tell with a horny older teenage neighbor or sibling, to ask questions of a teacher in an after-classes session.

I don't think that the teacher is necessarily "guilty" of anything except possibly apathy or poor judgement. On the other hand, I think his firing is a red herring to detract from the fact that the artwork has likely been in that library for a long time. Was the art a part of a set appoved and purchased by the district, part of a donated collection? In any case, the ignorance of the teacher is believable, because apparently, so was the ignorance of most other adults giving care to those children.

One can only wonder how long it will take how many RS ladies to clean up that den of iniquity.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1981.317/

btw, I have no problem teaching children art, including nudity, but to do it in such an uncontrolled and careless way is another thing. Little girls being "laid bare" with the little boys sitting next to them, without preparation, explanation or context is just plain unhealthy, especially when one considers the lack of naked penises in the collection. That would have made it no more "right," given the lack of education to go along with the nudes, but the one-sided presentation adds to male entitlement at a very impressionable age. Little girls sell cookies, little boys go camping, right?

The teacher was scapegoated. No other way for me to see it. If he was "guilty," so were a lot of other adults.

yummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I find a couple of things interesting.
>
> -That no concerned parent knew the content of art
> in the school lihrary.

Just goes to show how far their commitment really goes, doesn't it?

That’s beside the point. He violated a social contract between the master and the slave. Who will atone for the master’s failings? Why is there a need for atonement? Do the scars really run that deep? Great legacy, Briggy.

Okay. Reality check time. Any child who has taken a bath already knows about nudity. Why do people not want children to know that other people also have nudity. Everyone in fact. Nudity is a part of life. Get used to it. Why can't we just grow up and stop warping the minds of our children?

Legally maybe, but morally? And perhaps not even legally. I do not believe parents have the right to "protect" their children from learning reality (evolution comes to mind) any more than they would have the right to "protect" their children from, say, vaccines, antibiotics, blood transfusions and surgery.

Funny thing is, I have noticed that many of the American parents who are so eager to shelter their kids from all the aforementioned evils, don't think twice of getting their boys circumcised for no reason whatsoever. The irony is mind-boggling.

Rights. Where would we be without them? Pushing up daisies with the Timpanogans? Utah, America’s last refuge of true defiance. Rights are what will condemn them, even as they fight for them. Justice is coming on its own terms. Their terms, shame and humiliation and secrets wide open. Self delusion was never a virtue. It’s a great privilege to watch it unfold, this great unmasking.

We live in an age where violence of prime time television is at an all time high. Severed heads in this fridge is a okay for kids to see.....but heaven forbid a nipple be seen...

Imagine the horror kids would suffer if they saw a female nipple. It's much healthier for them to see blood and gore.

Reality check, for real.

So, raise your hands if your 11 & 12 year olds bathed naked boy/girl together, or walked in on the other sex when naked, especially if they were anything but flat-chested and mostly hairless. Or if dad walked around without pants in front of daughter or mom without a top in front of son.

Or, if any of these things occurred with groups of unrelated children in your home, or if you would allow your child to visit a friend's house where these behaviors were the norm.

Do you not know the term "age appropriate?"

Whose nudity do you suppose they "know" about, and in what settings?

I am an artist and a liberal living in s liberal state. I personally dont think this is appropriate in a 6th grade class. I have two kids that age and I’m totally fine with exposing them to this type of art but I don’t think it should be in an elementary class room (although, maybe that 6th grade is middle school but that doesn’t change it for me).

I would be fine at that age doing a field trip to an art museum that exposed kids to this art. That way they could see it in real life and really enjoy and learn. Plus they have been prepared for how to act appropriately. On s postcard the beauty isn’t there and it’s just going to be passed around and the only thing the kids will learn from it is “boobies!”

I think the teacher is in the wrong but doesn’t deserve to be fired if he’s been a good teacher in the past. It should just be a good learning experience for everyone and hopefully open up communication between kids and parents.

It’s a bit like offering wine (or Jesus juice depending on the size of your ranch) to 6th graders. They’re not ready to process that level of consciousness. In time, they should experience those things as part of the normal human condition. Powerful things are not to be trifled with. But they also must not be avoided. There is a time and a place, at least this is where tradition saves our ass.

So in all fairness, Mormonism had a time and a place. But that time is not now and that place is not Utah. I have hope that the Utah that emerges from the wreckage of Mormonism will be as pristine and beautiful as its natural wilderness.

I once had an experience that could be somewhat related to this incident.

I had just taken over an 8th-grade English class mid-year (this was in rural, central Utah). On the shelves of that classroom was a set of supplementary textbooks. I wanted to include weekly spelling/vocabulary exercises for the students. Not knowing how far the students had gotten in their regular textbook, I used word lists from these supplementary texts.

Several months later, I was informed that a parent had made a complaint to the principal over some of the words contained in these spelling lists - that they were inappropriate. Of course, rumors about this complaint quickly spread among the rest of the staff and students, so that I was developing a reputation as a person who was using inappropriate language in the classroom.

After reviewing the lists, I came across the culprit. The word was:

'lecherous'

It may have been an appropriate word for them to learn, as many 8th grade students naturally have a strong interest in sex at that stage of their development. I would have been happy to remove the offending word from that week's list, but I believe that telling the students to skip that particular word on that list would only serve to increase attention and interest in that word and what it meant.

When school administrators purchase textbooks and materials for their schools and students, they should be willing to take some responsibility for the content of such materials.

Since it's Utah, I'm assuming that the parents just knewthat the kids would come home from school and immediately masturbate, having been exposed to porn.

Art has value, but once there's nudity, it's PORN!!!

Draw garments on them and they will be fine!

I swear, that was exactly my thought!

Art?

Nude/ Natural?

Oh boy!

Girl, what's that?

M@t

Some people see nudity in art. Others see art in nudity.

About art, why are fruit and plants always portrayed naked? Plants especially, reproductive organs out there in the breeze for any old bee to come along and pollenate. You see a picture of a flowering plant, their junk is all hanging out there. And children see this!