A lot of news that's significant on various levels out there at present, so you may or may not have heard about this:
The line between art and pornography is at the center of an education dispute after a Florida charter school principal resigned following accusations that middle school students were shown inappropriate adult content.
At issue? Students in the school were shown images of Michelangelo’s Renaissance period sculpture “David,” leading to complaints that the children were shown pornographic material.
Tallahassee Classical School, a private institution focused on “training the minds and improving the hearts of young people through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue,” gave its principal an ultimatum to quit or be fired after three parents complained, according to reports by the Tallahassee Democrat.
“David” is a Renaissance Period sculpture depicting biblical hero David of the famous David and Goliath tale, holding his sling in the nude and standing at over five meters tall. The statue itself, sculpted by Michelangelo Buonarroti in the early 1500s, is currently on display in Florence’s Galleria dell’ Accademia.
Principal Hope Carrasquilla, according to the Democrat, resigned Monday after the school board chair told her to resign or be fired. Chair Barney Bishop confirmed to the Democrat that he gave Carrasquilla that ultimatum, but would not explain why due to “advice” from the school’s attorney. Parents were informed by email on Monday.
According to further reporting on the topic by the Huffington Post, the issue, at least in part, was that a protocol to inform parents in advance of showing similar types of artwork was not sent out to sixth-grade parents before the lesson due to “miscommunications.”
Bishop told the Tallahassee Democrat that the notification policy at Tallahassee Classical was relatively recent, and required a parental notification two weeks before “potentially controversial” materials are shown.
Speaking with HuffPost, Bishop claimed that the sculpture issue was “one of multiple” issues involving Carrasquilla. He also told the news organization that he was lobbying for legislation to give parents even more control over students’ primary education, saying that “parental rights trump everything else,” and saying that the parents who complained “didn’t like the woke indoctrination that was going on.”
At The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes, whose core from which he plies his trade as a cultural observer is getting harder to decipher, and who, on his podcast with guest Tom Nichols had quite a har-de-har the other day about Bethany Mandel's momentary brain-freeze when asked to define "woke," clearly derives a lot of pleasure from exposing the boneheadery of Tallahassee Classical's board chair. To be sure, the board chair provided some low-hanging fruit:
The school’s chief idiocrat and board chair, Barney Bishop III, explained:
Well, we’re Florida, OK? Parents will decide. Parents are the ones who are going to drive the education system here in Florida. The governor [Ron DeSantis, Slayer of Wokeness] said that, and we’re with the governor.
He insists that Florida parents who chose this kind of classical education expect to have their children shielded from actual classics like David—or any of that other woke/CRT/1619 crap.
Parents choose this school because they want a certain kind of education. We’re not gonna have courses from the College Board.
We’re not gonna teach 1619 or CRT crap.
I know they do all that up in Virginia. The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids.
And who needs experts?
Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities, you’re on better drugs than me.
**
Sykes goes on to strongly suggest that the Hillsdale curriculum which informs that of Tallahassee Classical is tainted due to the palpable drift of Hillsdale toward Trumpism, a process that has been underway for some years. It makes a number of us uncomfortable, but Hillsdale's heritage predates our present cultural difficulties.
Let's remember why the classical-education movement has been gaining steam. Parents of school-age children are increasingly aghast at the identity politics militancy, climate alarmism, and "service learning" model that has left their kids bereft of any understanding of the civilization that spawned them, and the distilled values that it has granted them. These parents will no longer tolerate the public school system, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gramscian conquest of societal institutions generally, telling their kids, "You will get your mind right."
But I'd like to draw momentary attention to the second paragraph of my excerpt from the Hill coverage of this story. That a mainstream publication would need to devote that much verbiage to explaining that statue does not speak well for anyone's understanding of our civilization. Knowledge of Scripture and art can no longer be assumed about the reading public.
Which then gets us to Chairperson Bishop and the parents who weren't prepared for David's nakedness. They need an honest-to-God classical education as much as the kids.
I hope this doesn't signal that Tallahassee Classical has been an abortive undertaking. The basic idea is noble, but those in positions of its stewardship need to cool down, humble themselves and do the kind of real learning they ostensibly want their kids to be doing.
And Charlie Sykes needs to tell us just what the hell his idea of a livable society is, if he even has one.
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