Texas...and something about "mess"

One of the many things I remember Dario Robleto saying when he spoke at UArts was that he liked being in Texas because it was a stand-in for all of American culture. Of course he didn't say this was necessarily a good thing, but it took a turn for the worse recently, if we're to believe a recent report in the New York Times describing the suspension of teacher whose student complained about being exposed to nude statues on a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art (no nudes on their home page...).

Yes, this is another example of the idea that one upset parent can derail the education of hundreds of students. Yes, this is an examples of how conservatives bent on speaking their minds can intimidate a school and the media (reports that Dallas television stations broadcast pictures taped at the museum's collection with black boxes concealing their sculpted naughty bits hints at how salacious, sensational, and ultimately cowardly local coverage of the event has been). But what's really interesting to me - as a teacher - is the way a cowardly administration can decide that such a complaint is an occasion to reprimand a teacher for past transgressions (as frivolous as "wearing flip flops" (the Times takes issue and reports that the art teacher wore sandals).

Although one gets the feeling that the Times article was intended to depict a Texas in which conservatives wield scary power over teachers and school administrators, it left me thinking more about the expectations to which education is held these days. If no child is left behind, it’s because we’re too afraid to go anywhere with our students. The complaining parents’ argument (I can only infer because they aren’t interviewed) appears to boil down to “Little Timmy got something on the museum trip which we didn’t expect to find bundled into an education and for which we refuse to pay.” Never mind that it’s unsafe to assume that liberal education is goal of any district, it appears now that schools are expected to be in the business of keeping students from experience and knowledge. The uncontrollable assets exceed the narrow limits of what passes for education and expose children to possibilities their parents might not recognize. At all levels, education now appears to be more oriented toward certification than the development of critical thinking, and this is yet another example of that phenomenon.

And, if you followed the above link and want to play devil’s advocate (wait, who am I alienating with that?) by reminding readers that it was the child who complained to the parent about the nude statue, by all means, remind away. I maintain that children are interested in making their parents happy and in combating the institutions in their lives that challenge stability, e.g. school. The complaining parent no doubt thinks his or her little angel has been brutally scarred by the experience. Thank heaven legions of future kids in Marlboro country will almost surely be spared the spectacles of human anatomy of inappropriate footwear, as this will surely linger in one form or another until school budgets are discussed in the next legislative cycle.