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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37945 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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An Interview With the School Board Chair Who Forced Out a Principal After Michelangelo’s David Was Shown in Class

On Thursday, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that the principal of a local charter school, the Tallahassee Classical School, was forced to resign after three parents complained about an art teacher showing a picture of Michelangelo’s 16th-century sculpture of David.

Reading the entire interview, the school board comes out looking only slightly more reasonable than was portrayed in the "mainstream media".

The chair of the school board, Barney Bishop III, insists that the David incident was only a small contributing factor, but when asked to elaborate why the board decided to pressure the principal to resign, he says:

based on counsel from our employment lawyer, I’m not going to get into the reasons.

To me, the overall tone of Bishop's statements suggests that the David incident was in fact a major reason, if not the sole reason, for the firing (sorry, "resignation under pressure"). Bishop says:

The teacher mentioned that this was a nonpornographic picture, No. 1. The teacher said, “Don’t tell your parents,” No. 2. (...) Three parents objected. Two objected simply because they weren’t told in advance. One objected because the teacher said nonpornography. Nonpornography—that’s a red flag. And of course telling the students, “Don’t tell your parents”—that’s a huge red flag!

The interview doesn't say in what context the teacher told the students not to tell their parents or that the images were not pornographic. (Maybe the original article does? I haven't read it because it's paywalled.) Out of context, it does sound suspicious. I suppose the first could have been a joke. As for the second, I'm not sure why the teacher would need to tell the students in the classroom that the images were not pornographic. In any case, my priors are that it is extremely unlikely that the teacher was a "groomer" trying to sexualize the kids.

The year before, the school had notified the parents that their children, who are 11 and 12 years old, were going to be exposed to the horror of a statue depicting a human. This year, the teacher teaching the class told the principal (the one who was later fired) to send out a similar notice, but the principal apparently forgot. This is an "egregious mistake":

98 percent of the parents didn’t have a problem with it. But that doesn’t matter, because we didn’t follow a practice. We have a practice. Last year, the school sent out an advance notice about it. Parents should know: In class, students are going to see or hear or talk about this. This year, we didn’t send out that notice. (...) This year, we made an egregious mistake. We didn’t send that notice.

Michelangelo's sculpture of David is "controversial":

Well, we’re Florida, OK? Parents will decide. Parents are the ones who are going to drive the education system here in Florida. The governor said that, and we’re with the governor. Parents don’t decide what is taught. But parents know what that curriculum is. And parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture.

Parents choose this school because they want a certain kind of education. We’re not gonna have courses from the College Board. We’re not gonna teach 1619 or CRT crap. I know they do all that up in Virginia. The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids. Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities, you’re on better drugs than me.

The interview ends with the reporter saying "I just don’t think this statue is controversial", to which Bishop responds:

We’re not going to show the full statue of David to kindergartners. We’re not going to show him to second graders. Showing the entire statue of David is appropriate at some age. We’re going to figure out when that is.

And you don’t have to show the whole statue! Maybe to kindergartners we only show the head. You can appreciate that. You can show the hands, the arms, the muscles, the beautiful work Michelangelo did in marble, without showing the whole thing.

An article in the BBC relates this to the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, AKA the "Don't Say Gay" Bill. Personally, I think it's just typical American prudishness. In other Western countries, it is perfectly normal and unremarkable for statues with exposed penises and breasts (non-pornographic, of course) to be displayed in public, where they are easily seen by children of all ages.

At one point, in describing the school, Bishop says:

We don’t use pronouns.

Obviously the sentence is false if taken literally, as critics have pointed out. But does anyone know what he might have actually meant? They don't have pronoun badges? They don't put pronouns in their email signatures? They don't use trans people's preferred pronouns? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious as to what leads people to say nonsensical things like this, what they understand the word "pronoun" to mean.

We’re not going to show the full statue of David to kindergartners. We’re not going to show him to second graders. Showing the entire statue of David is appropriate at some age. We’re going to figure out when that is.

This really caught me off guard. Really, not to kindergartners? He states it as if it's just obvious that no decent person would show this famous statue in its entirety to kindergartners just because it has anatomically correct genitalia. I don't know if it's American prudishness even as an American, since American prudishness has changed a lot in the past 30 years I've lived there. I have to wonder if Donald Rumsfeld's John Ashcroft's, per correction below practice during Bush 2 of covering up breasts of statues when he was speaking in front of them had downstream effects I didn't anticipate.

But I think there's at least something to it; when I was growing up in Korea, it was pretty normal for cartoons and comic books for kids to have full frontal, often in comedic contexts (and always in non-sexual contexts - since sex didn't even mean anything to the target audience of <10 year olds). This was the case for Dragon Ball, a Japanese comic book series which is internationally popular including in both Korea and the US, and in which I discovered censorship of the protagonist Goku's dick and balls when I came to the US and read English localizations.

Also, I was randomly reminded of something from the DVD commentary of the 1999 film Election, a very good comedy about a high school president election, where one of the last scenes of the film starts with a close-up of the genitals of some statue at the Metropolitan museum. Apparently for TV/airplane/otherwise age-restricted versions of this R-rated film, they had to cut that opening shot, despite the fact that the statue was right there at the front of the museum for anyone walking in front of it to see.

As an American of a conservative stripe I would definitely object if my children were shown depictions of genitalia as Kindergartners, and wouldn't really feel "fine" about it until they were, I dunno, maybe 10 or 11? It's just not what you do. You don't show kids penises!

Certainly Americans are more "prudish" about this than other cultures, but that doesn't change anything about the hypothetical, since it was directed at Americans with hypothetical American kindergartners. Things may be changing in certain subcultures, but generally in American culture genitals mean sex and its taboo to combine children and sex. From this cultural mindset the difference between showing a 5 year old a picture of a marble penis and showing them hardcore pornography is one of degree, not kind.

All that to say that the comment that we're not going to show the statue to kindergartners is plausibly just that obvious to the average American.

but generally in American culture genitals mean sex and its taboo to combine children and sex

How do you do toilet training with your kids if genitals mean sex and a taboo with regards to children? Besides, how does the statue with a penis become okay at 10 but not at 6 years old? They are still very much kids right?

I'm confused. Why would toilet training require showing my children other people's genitals? I'm genuinely confused here.

My understanding was that not only showing genitals but just generally talking about them was taboo since culturally genitals mean sex according to the OP. Besides, when I was a small kid I remember peeing together with my dad or older cousins and everyone thought this was pretty normal. We had contests between cousins of who can pee the farthest. It was fun. I didn't start associating genitals with anything other peeing until much later.

Ah, that makes sense. I only have girls myself so I forgot peeing with my dad to learn how to do it without making a mess.

Really, now that I consider that, I think the main taboo is against girls seeing male genitals, and vice versa.

How do you do toilet training with your kids if genitals mean sex and a taboo with regards to children?

Presumably one would not employ a real or photographed demo penis during toilet training. I think keeping the kid's focus on their own penis is good enough. Thankfully, in the Elmo book/video that was popular when my kids were learning how to become civilized, Elmo was not hanging dong.

Besides, how does the statue with a penis become okay at 10 but not at 6 years old? They are still very much kids right?

If we can agree that older kids are better at contextualization than younger kids, I think that answers your question. Anyway, these questions are irrelevant.

Do you never do things like bath with your children when they're young? Or do you always wear bathing suits even at home? I have to admit I find the attitude genuinely puzzling, I don't want to make fun of you, I just don't even get how you manage to avoid them seeing nudity until a certain age. Many children's books here include nude people. If anything, there is the problem that older kids are more likely to associate nudity with sex so you show less nudity around them, while with small children your main problem will be that they think pulling or pinching your penis is funny when they see your reaction.

Do you never do things like bath with our children when they're young?

Never! That sounds bizarre to me. Definitely taboo. Fully grown penises should not be floating next to toddlers.

I don't want to make fun of you, I just don't even get how you manage to avoid them seeing nudity until a certain age.

You can be nude around a baby, but once they're smart enough to start talking you treat them like other people. Do you walk around nude in public? Maybe you do, but that isn't done here. With our oldest I remember the day that my wife scolded me for letting our toddler see me on the toilet. She was about 2 years old, I think.

An important piece of context that might be missing is that gender really matters. My wife can be naked around our young daughters, that's not taboo. If we had young sons I could be naked around them, though it's not something you'd do casually. But in my America little girls shouldn't be looking at adult penises. It's taboo.

With our oldest I remember the day that my wife scolded me for letting our toddler see me on the toilet. She was about 2 years old, I think.

Ha, I guess the only constant is that we all get scolded by our wifes. I just want to sit on the toilet in peace, but both her and our daughter constantly come in for various reasons and if I complain I'm scolded for being silly, it's not like there's anything they haven't seen a million times before!

You can be nude around a baby, but once they're smart enough to start talking you treat them like other people. Do you walk around nude in public? Maybe you do, but that isn't done here.

Come on, "we treat our children like adult strangers" is hardly a generalising conservative principle, if anything it's usually progressives that are often criticised for that. I'm also neither changing the diapers of other people nor am I scolding them for improper manners and in general I will keep my distance, both emotionally and physically. Intra-family behaviour is just something else entirely from public behaviour. Also, we have public nude beaches here, although they are fringe they also aren't looked down upon, so I guess our culture in general is more comfortable with nudity and less sexualised.

Come on, "we treat our children like adult strangers" is hardly a generalising conservative principle, if anything it's usually progressives that are often criticised for that.

Oh I don't think any of this is a generalized conservative principle. I'm not saying this is how it should be, just how it is in conservative American culture. At least, my corner of it. I'm describing, not prescribing.

That referred to the "Do you walk around nude in public?". No, and I do not consider my behaviour around strangers to have much bearing on how I behave around family.

That was more from pre-emptively avoiding answering questions that I was not sure to answer but when I was bathing with 2 year old sister (making mini-water park in bathroom) I was wearing bathing suit (I was 18 years old at that time).

I have to wonder if Donald Rumsfeld's (I think it was him?) practice during Bush 2 of covering up breasts of statues when he was speaking in front of them had downstream effects I didn't anticipate.

It was John Ashcroft, of the Justice Dept.

I'm an American and I have a young child. I don't suppose any schools are going to be showing him artistic nudity at a young age, but I would not object to it. If we walk by statues or Renaissance paintings I'm not going to be concerned for his wellbeing.

These three parents are unreasonably prudish in my opinion.

Allegedly, one set was prudish, but the other two were more offended that they weren’t informed. I could see that as bandwagoning, looking for something to give them leverage. It could actually be a product of DeSantis’ strategy of getting parental consent into curricula. The much-maligned bill did emphasize parental notification and vetoes.

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