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Teacher fired for museum field trip
Art in America, Nov, 2006
An art teacher in a sprawling exurb of Dallas was suspended from her job in late September after a parent complained that a fifth-grader had seen a nude sculpture during a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art in April. The offending work of art--perhaps viewed incidentally while passing through galleries containing nudes by Maillol and Rodin and an ancient Greek torso--was not specifically identified by the school district of Frisco, a booming conservative town of vast new subdivisions and shopping malls located 25 miles north of Dallas.
The teacher, Sydney McGee, who has taught in various districts for 28 years, was reportedly already under scrutiny by the school administration for such things as wearing sandals to work and not displaying student artwork, though it's not clear when these other alleged problems surfaced. McGee has maintained that Fisher Elementary School principal Nancy Lawson had urged her to take the students to the museum, and that she received a negative review of her teaching from Lawson only after a parent complained about the trip. The 89 students were escorted by four other teachers, 12 parents and a museum docent.
Local TV news reports showed images of some of the museum's sculptures with parts of their anatomies blacked out. Reports in the Dallas Morning News prompted angry letters to the editor from local readers, including a few who pointed out that the child is probably exposed to more explicit images on television and in video games, and another reader who, having been an educator, doesn't "believe the 'other factors' excuse for a moment." At this writing, McGee is on suspension with pay, but her contract is not expected to be renewed.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
