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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37951 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.

I'm on the fence about this. I have no problem with my kids seeing nude figures in classical art. But it seems to me this teacher was either asking for trouble or had some motive that superseded his job survival instincts.

It's clear from the chain of events that this teacher knew this might be an issue for some kids/parents, because:

  1. The school already considered it controversial enough to (fail to) send out a warning letter.

  2. The teacher felt the need to categorize it as "non-pornographic" (Why, exactly, did he feel this was necessary? ISTM that raising the topic of porn is more likely to get him into trouble, not less likely. Hopefully, it wasn't to differentiate Michael from the art he showed the students on other days....)

  3. "Don't tell your parents." Come on. Maybe he wanted this. Maybe he wanted to become a cause celebre for the left. This is not the behavior of a teacher without some other motive. He got what he wanted. He poked the bear and the bear gutted him and we all know about it and I'm sure there's a related GoFundMe we can support or a TikTok we can heart.

Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David? Yes, it's famous. But it's not like it's the only work of art in existence. I don't know enough about art to tell you why David is more famous or worthy of study than any other partially clothed statue. They all look pretty good to me. He chose it for a reason. Maybe laziness. Maybe a lack of imagination. Maybe he just a little bit likes to make kids look at schlongs. Maybe it's his favorite work of art and he has a unique and scintillating perspective on it. Maybe he holds that fraction of parents in contempt and wanted to fuck with them. All or some of the above, still it was poor judgement on his part, unless it's what he wanted.

I don't think we can reasonably speculate about the teacher's sinister ulterior motives given that they asked the principal to notify the parents and it was the principal who forgot.

Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David?

Per the BBC article:

The lesson, given to 11 and 12-year-olds, also included references to Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" painting and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus".

Both images depict nudity. Note that it isn't claimed anywhere that this is an exhaustive list. It is quite possible that other artworks that don't feature nudity were discussed in the class, and the news reporting only mentioned these three because they are pertinent.

Both images depict nudity. Note that it isn't claimed anywhere that this is an exhaustive list. It is quite possible that other artworks that don't feature nudity were discussed in the class, and the news reporting only mentioned these three because they are pertinent.

If it's not the teacher's choice and they are merely following a curriculum set by the board, that's the board's problem. If the board is telling teachers: Pick any lesson that doesn't contain nudity, and the teacher picks one full of nudity, they have only themselves to blame. If a teacher is required to inform parents of something and doesn't and then tells students not to tell their parents, they should be fired. There is no situation in which teachers/school should be hiding things from parents, and that's the key to this entire culture war chapter.

tells students not to tell their parents

Do you think that the teacher might have been joking?

Doesn't matter. That specific "joke" (EDIT: "Don't tell your parents.") is off-limits to teachers. Teachers, as mandatory reporters, should be keenly aware of this.

I think this is a very good point. Imagine a defense lawyer who's opening statement to the jury is "You know what, my client did it! hahah...jk, ok, let's get going." I feel that would be close to an instant mistrial and maybe action by the state bar association.

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