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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 31 2017, @08:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the grooming-for-museums dept.

Teacher, parents weigh in on nude-artwork incident

Lincoln Elementary School art teacher Mateo Rueda had no idea what was in store for his career when he wrapped up a lesson Dec. 4 by telling students to look through some art postcards in the classroom library for examples of color usage in notable paintings. The cards, which were part of an educational package called "The Art Box" produced by Phaidon publishing, were placed in the library before Rueda began working at the Hyrum school. He knew the set portrayed a wide variety of classic artworks, but he has since said he was not aware that three or four of the 100 pieces featured in the box showed nudity.

Before the week was out, Rueda would find himself at the center of a controversy at the school, would be contacted by police after someone filed a classroom pornography complaint against him, and would eventually be out of a job.

The situation came to light Wednesday when The Herald Journal published a letter from the mother of one of Rueda's students complaining about the art teacher's dismissal and praising his work with students. She also let her feelings be known on Facebook, where her posts gained wide circulation among local school parents and educators.

Cache County School District officials have declined comment on the matter, noting that this is "an ongoing personnel issue." However, one district official who asked not to be identified said that Rueda's termination had more to do with the teacher's interaction with students after the students noticed the nudes than it did with the actual pictures themselves.

Parent Venessa Rose Pixton said this was the nature of a complaint she lodged with the school after learning about events of that day from her 11-year-old son, who was in Rueda's class. "It wasn't the pictures so much that really bothered me; it was the method in which he went about it afterward," Pixton told The Herald Journal, though contending in the same interview that she thinks the teacher shirked his responsibility by not reviewing the pictures thoroughly before allowing children to access them. "My son felt that Mr. Mateo belittled them," Pixton said. "He said Mr. Mateo even told the class 'There's nothing wrong with female nipples. You guys need to grow up and be mature about this.'" Rueda flatly denies he said this or took such a tone. "No, that did not happen," he said this week. "I did say that when you grow up, you're going to find yourselves going to museums or to places where unavoidably there's going to be nudity."

This is The Art Box, containing 100 postcards. Also at Fox 13 Salt Lake City and Snopes.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:10PM (6 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:10PM (#616231) Journal

    Better to show some scenes of biblical carnage, like any of the many times the hebrew god strikes entire cities or armies dead just for being on the Other Side, or smites the firstborn son of every family because of something the Pharaoh didn't do quickly enough.

    Even worse:

    From Exodus 7: [biblegateway.com]

    3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you.

    So it's not even the Pharaoh's fault, but God himself made the Pharaoh unable to grant the request, just to be able to bring on the plagues.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:45PM (4 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:45PM (#616244) Journal

    Yeah, the contortions apologists go through when I talk to them about that would be hilarious, except that the shit they say is utterly horrific. It boils down to "because what the fuck are YOU gonna do about it, huh?!"

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:56PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:56PM (#616253) Journal

      "If God wasn't a dick, we wouldn't worship him!"

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 01 2018, @04:03AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday January 01 2018, @04:03AM (#616339) Journal

        That is what it eventually boils down to. The calculus they do, unconsciously perhaps, is "Yahweh can hurt me more, and longer (eternally) than any other being in any possible world. Therefore I'm going to do what he says and hope he won't."

        The flaw, of course, is that any being with a character like Yahweh's is, shall we say, unlikely to keep his supposed promises of eternal bliss for his devoted, obedient followers. We're talking, as far as we can observe, about a being who routinely does the godlike equivalent of pulling the wings off flies and roasting ants with a magnifier for fun, *and blames the flies and ants for being killable despite deliberately making them that way.*

        Simple law of large numbers says that, assuming there is nothing logically impossible about Yahweh dumping someone into Hell for any reason or no reason at all--and as he is omnipotent and absolutely sovereign, there is not--at some point as time T approaches infinity *all* non-Yahweh essences will end up in Hell.

        But that's too complicated and involved for the average Jew, Christian, or Muslim.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @06:02PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @06:02PM (#616464)

        I'm guessing a lot of those people also voted for Trump.

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 02 2018, @10:21PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday January 02 2018, @10:21PM (#616927) Journal

    http://archives.adventistworld.org/2011/september/choice-or-coercion.html [adventistworld.org] TL;DR God was showing Pharaoh that the gods he worshiped weren't real gods. God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart until the Pharaoh had repeatedly proven that he wouldn't change. So, God made an example out of him.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"