wsoxrebel

Note to Fodors - it is travel related because it is a field trip. Adults often ask questions such as "Is this event/town/museum/etc appropriate for our children?"
- please don't pull the thread -

Seamus

1. Please don't overgeneralize - Texas is a huge place and not everywhere is like Dallas (thank heavens!) That said, this is SO typical of the Dallas area, a bastion of condescending fundamentalist wackos who do wield a frightening lot of power.
2. The article does not say that the teacher was fired, but given negative performance review comments. Still sucks, but let's be accurate in our indignation.

tuscanlifeedit

Travel related: we may need this information to decide where we don't want to go on vacation. :-<

AustinTraveler

Thank you Seamus.

yk

Just want to say, I live in Dallas and me & DH are proud members of the Dallas Museum of Art. I go to the DMA probably once a month, and I certainly have seen many school-age children there with their parents.

padams421

I can make this thread travel related. This summer we were in Scandinavia with our sons. We visited Louisiana, the modern art museum, outside Copenhagen. As we were walking through a gallery, our 8 year old noticed a particular piece of art that was a tv showing a video "loop" of a naked man taking a shower. Son says "hey Mom, that guy is naked in a shower." I take the opportunity to explain that art isn't just paintings and sculptures, and then we continue on with our trip.

On the first day of school last month, the art teacher asks son's class if anyone saw any art over the summer. Of course, son tells the teacher that his parents took him to an art museum in Europe to see a naked guy in a shower. Son says teacher was excited about his experience.

travelbear

I want to second what yk said. When my wife and I lived in Dallas we spent many a Sunday afternoon at the DMA. The museum has a tremendous collection, is very easy to navigate and makes for a wonderful afternoon. Just because one parent in a suburb did not approve of their child seeing some of this world's great works of art should not be taken as a negative indictment of the DMA. If one should find themselves in Dallas, this place is a must.

Mary2Go

Good thing my son didn't attend school there. He got suspended in 5th grade because he found a naked lady playing card somewhere (not in my house!) and took it to school where he was busted for selling looks at it to other students! Well, just one kid paid a dollar twice before he was caught. They made him write me a letter telling me what he had done and it is hilarious. (he is 19 and I still have it) It asked for my forgivness for having brought "pornography" to school. I saw the card and it was very tame, less to be seen than on a beach. The Dallas school would have had him drawn and quartered! He went on to a school of the arts and part of what got him in was a rather skilled nude he had in his portfolio!

L84SKY

When I was at the Centre Pompidou in Paris there was a group of elementary aged school children touring the museum and I was thinking how lucky the kids were to be able to see art of that caliber, even if some of it may have been a bit shocking.
It’s sad to think of parents with such limited minds.
I do wonder what the piece was? I was there a few years ago. It seems they had a decent collection of ancient art, some nudes.
Gee, I thought this thread fit nicely into travel.

LoveItaly

Hmmm, thank goodness for the Nuns at my daughters school that made sure the students had field trips to museums. Cool sisters lol.

But seriously, dangerous times for sure bill/iamq.

jorr

I saw the Berlin memorial hole in the ground where Adolf Hitler burned thousands of books. No doubt he deemed them XXX in his twisted mind. There are lots of Hitlers in the United States.

maria_so

this story is truly disturbing...

bardo1

That school board (elected? if so, it does says much about the Dallas citizens) should take a field trip to FLorence, Italy.

The beauty of the city and its hundreds (thousands?) of nude sculptures (both public and in museums) will make them realize how ignorant they have been or they will have to walk around the city with blindfolds on.

Wait a minute, thay are ALREADY going around with blindfolds on...

rubytwo

Just as bad in Lakeland, Florida, where a few years back, a lawn ornament dealer was requested to cover all statues of David with some sort of bandana or scarf by the mother of a 10 year old girl!

Budman

<There are lots of Hitlers in the United States.>

Oh, really?

ilovetulips

Having worked in a school district myself, it is so bad that this district allowed itself to be bullied by a parent and didn't stand behind its employee ( the Art teacher.)People shouldn't be so ignorant that a permission slip needs to state "your child might see some nudity in an ART museum. Give me a break.

joan

"District officials have repeatedly pointed to other performance issues and said the trip didn't spark the reprimands."

I'm betting there's another side to this story...

pepper131

Here's some insight into Frisco. Sorry this is a long...very long cut/paste, but it explains the mentality perfectly. It's from the dallasnews.com forum.

Frankly this doesn't surprise me a bit. My family and I moved to Frisco because of a promotion I got to a location near Frisco, it was the worst experience of our lives, hands down! We moved after only living there for a year and a half to Richardson, where we are very happy. The people there are so stuck-up and the kids are so spoiled it is just disgusting. We lived next-door to a boy who didn't like coming over to play because my son didn't have a big screen, flat panel TV in his room. There is no color diversity there, it is nothing but a bunch of nouveux-faux-riche people who are mortgaged to their eyeballs, who are so uptight and culturally illiterate it boggles the mind.

The kids in Frisco do NOT deserve a teacher such as this. Can you imagine a parent complaining because their kid saw a nude statue? I mean that just blows my mind! I'll guarantee that the very same parents that are complaining about their kid seeing... oh NO a marble boobie!!!, are the same parents that are teaching their kids that it's ok to treat people less privileged as them like dirt.

At soccer games near there, they actually had a policy where you couldn't clap or cheer for your team, because parents had gotten out of control and acted inappropriately! There are some good kids there, but the majority are as I said, pampered little punks with very little impulse control. My family was so miserable there, I can't tell you how many ways it caused my family problems living there. When we moved to Richardson, after about three weeks the joy started coming back in our lives. We are so happy to be back with normal, friendly, centered people.

I say that this teacher, and any other who wants to enlighten, teach and prepare students for the real world should work anywhere BUT Frisco. I won't even go into the type of kids my son was exposed to in his Christian youth group there. Frisco is little more than a fake, privileged bubble; raising pampered, culturally illiterate brats. Just spend one morning at any elementary school, jr. high, or high school line dropping off your kid. It is chock full of giant, expensive Hummers and SUVs, with kids getting out with Prada backpacks, piling out already on their cell phones and Blackberry’s. AHHH, puke! I couldn't leave fast enough. Thank god the company decided to open an office in Richardson, so I didn't have to keep driving up into traffic-clogged Frisco every day, past all the BMWs, Mercedes and Lexus' dropping kids off at expensive, Christian schools where they don't have to worry about seen a painted boobie at the DMA. Ugh. If I had driven past one more trophy wife blaring Celine Dion out of their Lincoln Navigator, I would have died.

We moved to Richardson and found a great church there, where there are kids who aren't wearing Haute couture and chatting on cell phones. Our kids go to the public schools and both are in A.P. (advanced placement) classes making straight A's. I take both of them to the DMA at least once a year and yes, they have both seen a painted boobie, even a marble one. Teachers, go where you are appreciated, out of the plastic bubble that is Frisco.

GeorgeW

1) How is this travel related? 2) Technically, the teacher is not yet fired. Most likely she will be reinstated with a reprimand or she might sue the school board, who might just pay her off rather than face a law suit. 3) Art is wasted on fifth graders. Kids that young have almost no cultural understanding. 4) Notifying parents with regards to this sort of trip was the norm when I grew up in "progressive" suburban Washington DC in the 70s. On a field trip to view Romeo and Juliet at the old Langley Park Theatre during the 9th grade, I remember having to get parental permission to attend- Romeo's bare bottom makes a two second appearance during the film. Permission for such things seems wise of any school system. Until very recently, this was the norm throughout the country and not just in some rural backwater. 5) Those who pay the bills, the Frisco TX taxpayers, should make the rules. 6) This is the sort of controversy that makes me glad that my wife homeschools. 7) I hate the Dallas Cowboys. Just thought I'd say it however irrelevant.

Nikki

If we cultivate the attitude that "art is wasted on fifth graders", then we ensure that they have "almost no cultural understanding". If, however, we expose them to art and the creative process from infancy, surround their homes and their schools and their lives with art of all sorts, and integrate art into education at all levels, we raise children with wonderful experiences and memories who are appreciative of art and wider culture at all stages of their lives.

This is how I was raised, and I hope I have succeeded in raising my own children this way as well.