Re: [xmca] Fwd: [activists] TEACHER FIRED - MUSEUM FIELD TRIP DEEMED TOO REVEALING / NEW YORK TIMES / 2 OCT, 06

From: Mike Cole (lchcmike@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Oct 04 2006 - 04:11:42 PDT


If you think texas is bad, you should see Paris!! Simply scandalous.
Or, Teheran.
Or all the places where "To kill a mockingbird" is verboten.
mike

On 10/4/06, Shirley Franklin <s.franklin@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> Wow! Is it really that bad in Texas?!
> Shirley
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Robert Burbidge <rtb@aber.ac.uk>
> > Date: 4 October 2006 11:45:15 BDT
> > To: "UCU activists e-group" <activists@list.aut.org.uk>
> > Subject: [activists] TEACHER FIRED - MUSEUM FIELD TRIP DEEMED TOO
> > REVEALING / NEW YORK TIMES / 2 OCT, 06
> >
> > Published on Monday, October 2, 2006 by the New York Times
> > Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing
> > by Ralph Blumenthal
> > FRISCO, Texas - "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."
> >
> > She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy
> > Lawson, wrote:
> > "During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were
> > exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations." It cited
> > additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.
> >
> > The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.
> >
> > In a newsletter e-mailed to parents this week, the principal and
> > Rick Reedy,
> > superintendent of the Frisco Independent School District, said that
> > Ms.
> > McGee had been denied transfer to another school in the district,
> > that her
> > annual contract would not be renewed and that a replacement had been
> > interviewed.
> >
> > The episode has dumbfounded and exasperated many in and out of this
> > mushrooming exurb, where nearly two dozen new schools have been
> > built in the
> > last decade and computers outnumber students three to one.
> >
> > A representative of the Texas State Teachers Association, which has
> > sprung
> > to Ms. McGee's defense, calls it "the first 'nudity-in-a-museum
> > case' we
> > have seen."
> >
> > "Teachers get in trouble for a variety of reasons," said the
> > association's
> > general counsel, Kevin Lungwitz, "but I've never heard of a teacher
> > getting
> > in trouble for taking her kiddoes on an approved trip to an art
> > museum."
> >
> > John R. Lane, director of the museum, said he had no information on
> > why Ms.
> > McGee had been disciplined.
> >
> > "I think you can walk into the Dallas Museum of Art and see nothing
> > that
> > would cause concern," Mr. Lane said.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > The uproar has swamped Frisco school switchboards and prompted some
> > Dallas-area television stations to broadcast images of statues from
> > the
> > museum with areas of the anatomy blacked out.
> >
> > Ms. Lawson and Mr. Reedy did not return calls. A spokeswoman for
> > the school
> > district referred questions to the school board's lawyer, Randy
> > Gibbs. Mr.
> > Gibbs said, "there was a parent who complained, relating the
> > complaint of a
> > child," but he said he did not know details.
> >
> > 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. In citing the
> > students'
> > exposure to nude art, Ms. Lawson also said "time was not used
> > wisely for
> > learning during the trip," adding that parents and teachers had
> > complained
> > and that Ms. McGee should have toured the route by herself first.
> > But Ms.
> > McGee said she did exactly that.
> >
> > In the latest of several statements, the district contended that
> > the trip
> > had been poorly planned. But Mr. Gibbs, the district's lawyer,
> > acknowledged
> > that Ms. Lawson had approved it.
> >
> > "This is not about a field trip to a museum," the principal and
> > superintendent told parents in their e-mail message Wednesday, citing
> > "performance concerns" and other criticisms of Ms. McGee's work,
> > which she
> > disputes. "The timing of circumstances has allowed the teacher to
> > wave that
> > banner and it has played well in the media," they wrote.
> >
> > They took issue with Ms. McGee's planning of the outing. "No
> > teacher's job
> > status, however, would be jeopardized based on students' incidental
> > viewing
> > of nude art," they wrote.
> >
> > Ms. McGee and her lawyer, Rogge Dunn, who are exploring legal
> > action, say
> > that her past job evaluations had been consistently superior until the
> > museum trip and only turned negative afterward. They have copies of
> > evaluations that bear out the assertion.
> >
> > 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."
> >
> > None, Ms. McGee said, seemed offensive.
> >
> > "This is very painful and getting more so," she said, her eyes
> > moistening.
> > "I'm so into art. I look at it for its value, what each
> > civilization has
> > left behind."
> >
> > School officials have not named the child who complained or any
> > particular
> > artwork at issue, although Ms. McGee said her puzzlement was
> > compounded when
> > Ms. Lawson referred at times to "an abstract nude sculpture."
> >
> > Ms. McGee, a fifth-generation Texan who has a grown daughter, won a
> > monthly
> > teacher award in 2004 from a local newspaper. She said the loss of her
> > $57,600-a-year job could jeopardize her mortgage and compound her
> > health
> > problems, including a heart ailment.
> >
> > 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.' "
> >
> > Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
> >
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