An Art Educator Takes Issue

The dismissal of Texas art teacher Sydney McGee has provoked outrage and debate especially within the visual arts community who have objected to the thoughtless and ill-informed decision made by the Frisco Independent School District. Art educators sound off in their indignation over Ms. McGee's dismissal and the still-held supposition that museums can be venues for the display of subversive elements that can be deemed inappropriate, especially to children.

Viewing Antiquity

The quality of a city's museums says a lot about its citizens. Museums are a chronicle of what a culture treasures and earmarks in its history. Museums provide a view of a city's capacity and willingness to share its wealth and culture. Sydney McGee obviously felt joy in sharing with her classes one of the great cultural institutions in Texas. She no doubt anticipated sharing with her young students a visual story, curated for the public's edification and enjoyment. How unfortunate that a few uninformed, misguided families and educators cut her career short and damaged her reputation. Author Arthur Miller recounted a similar public mindset in The Crucible.

As a figurative artist and art teacher, I often hem and haw when editing presentations of paintings and drawings. A component of my portfolio contains life drawings - the product of spending hours learning to draw the figure and hours in life class. The human form has been one of most prominent subjects in art; in all cultures… just take a tour of the vast art collection at the Vatican in Rome for an immeasurably rich display of classical figurative art.

My father was both a teacher and an artist and my home was filled with books about the subject…the nudes were not edited out. I spent many a Saturday walking through rooms filled with ancient sculptures and intriguing African artifacts at the Brooklyn Museum. References to the human form seemed natural and were neither exaggerated nor neglected. I can recall friends giggling at some of the figures but there was an implied reverence for the museum's stature…similar to walking into St.
Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. We acknowledged the concept that the museum and its art collections were part of a larger cultural history and that the museum was the place where history is treasured and shared.

Many parents today expect teachers to be culturally neutral, to tiptoe around Halloween and Harry Potter because of the witchcraft, or Christmas and Hanukkah because of their religious connotations. Most art teachers understand the need to be sensitive about the material they use in the classroom. Ms. McGee's fifth graders were young, 10-11 years old but were fortunate enough to benefit from [cont...]