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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37953 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.

"Don't tell your parents."

Feels like this could easily be an off-hand gag in the genre of the chemistry teacher telling her class "We're going to be playing with fire today. Don't rat me out!" Such quotes, said every day, can look monstrous in print when a personnel decision needs to be justified.

deleted

They even showed it in years past with a permission slip and just forgot to send out the slip this year. It's a paperwork mishap elevated to a firing offense because of the ongoing culture war over parental rights.

failing to get permission to show potentially sexual content to other people's children isn't merely a "paperwork mishap" and trying to downplay it to that characterization looks like agenda

potentially sexual content

What precisely do you mean by this term?

something which can be viewed as sexual content by a reasonable person

not interested in playing these games where you pretend you don't understand what that phrase means when the reality is you simply disagree a reasonable person would view showing penises on the statue of David to children is potentially sexual content

Why put it in terms of perception or the display to children? A penis is a sexual organ. Is there a context where you wouldn't regard a representation of a penis as sexual content?

A penis is a sexual organ. Is there a context where you wouldn't regard a representation of a penis as sexual content?

Equivocation fallacies are a dirty trick.

  • "Sexual content" = "Pornographic content"

  • "Sexual organ" = "Reproductive organ"

More comments

I'm just trying to say it's incompetence not malice, their policy was to send out a notice to parents, they had sent that out in the past when they showed the same images. They just didn't this year and the principal blames miscommunication. This wasn't a malicious conspiracy to sneak nudity into schools without parents permission, they had been showing this stuff and getting permission for a while they just messed up this year and didn't send out the notice.

You can say that's a really severe a form of incompetence and we can disagree about that, but it's not malice.

causing an accident and killing someone may not be malice, but the person is dead all the same

if this "paperwork mishap" was failing to send homework home, no one would care

you don't think there is even a reasonable argument for there to be harm (or even justifiable suspicion) in this scenario which sets the context for the strategy of downplaying anything you cannot look past through benefit of the doubt

Yes there are forms of incompetence that have severe consequences and which people need to be fired for. I don't think this is such a case, you may think it is, but it's still not a conspiracy to corrupt the youth.

What is the harm done to a 12 year old when they see Michelangelo's David? Are the 49/50 parents who said they're totally fine with their kids seeing this sculpture abusive parents authorizing the school to harm their child?

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