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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: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:23AM (#616279)

    Can we improve the quality of the debate by being more explicit?

    Always, although I think you'd better be careful what you expletive deleted ask for you expletive deleted expletive deleted.

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