Inappropriate Art lesson

[Copingmama]

My 9 year old was shown a painting by Frida Kahlo in his Art lesson, which he also stuck into his book. It’s called ‘What the Water Gave me’ and includes naked women, including one being strangled. Does this seem inappropriate?

I think it's even worse for atheists as we don't believe he went to heaven after all the torture!!

No it’s not appropriate. I’m all for giving children challenging educational stimulus but children are exposed to too much that is beyond their level of personal development and this is the same. The artist had a fucked up and complicated life and that is what is reflected in this painting. So much other beautiful and diverse art work that could’ve been chosen - this is just self indulgence on the part of the teacher.

Ha, that is also true!

We went to the British Museum at primary school on a school trip to see the mummies and the actual preserved dead people. The main fact that stuck with was the brains were pulled out the nose - I still can't quite work out how.

But he came back to life!

Your 12-year-old would cry at a painting that isn’t even realistic? School must be very difficult for him if he struggles to engage with art or literature as mild as this without ending up in tears.

I’m sorry if he struggles with the kind of thing you can see in any art gallery, but I don’t think you can really use him as a benchmark for whether something’s appropriate, as he’s very much an outlier in terms of what educational content he can and can’t cope with emotionally.

But only briefly!

Interesting question. I don't think it's an ideal painting for a 9 year old art lesson and I am interested to know what the topic was, and the intended outcome of sharing it.

Having said that I would not be worried as such - I would have no problem with a child that age seeing painting featuring nudes, providing said nudes were not engaged in sexual acts. To be fair mosh parents would happily take a 9 year old to a museum or art gallery, which would contain lots of paintings and sculptures of the naked human form

As for the strangling, I am obviously being stupid but I can't see it!

To the poster who said her 12 year old lad would cry if he saw this, you must be aware that this is an extremely unusual response to such stimulus from a child this age, and that (if he is in mainstream education) it's not practical for his teachers to adjust the entire curriculum to remove any potential triggers for a child so sensitive..... I would of course hope that his teachers, if aware of his sensitivity, offer him prewarning when they are able to predict that a topic, text or image might distress him, and an opportunity to remove himself from the situatuon if he is struggling. I also hope and assume you are seeking some form of therapeutic support, as otherwise he is likely to find the world a deeply distressing and difficult to navigate place as he gets older......

I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all. It’s a symbolic, stylised painting, not a snuff film. You can barely even make out any strangling, and there is absolutely no issue with a child seeing nudity in art. Would you not allow your child to be taken into an art museum or gallery on a school trip? What about a cathedral? Your kids will see far more violent imagery there.

It’s an interesting painting which is open to anyone’s interpretation. It’s fine.

The nudes wouldn't bother me particularly but the themes of trauma are not appropriate for 9 year olds. They will have plenty of time in secondary school to explore more grown up themes.

I also agree that there is a bit of a trend to explore quite negative themes in art. Similarly DD year 8 English curriculum for this year sounds so depressing, I really don't think she's going to enjoy it which is such a shame as she can write beautifully. She just isn't ready for the dark stuff yet. Again what is the rush with all the hard hitting themes, save it for the upper key stages.

Did they then all have to create their own drawing showing scenes or metaphors from their own lives? It strikes me that this is exactly the sort of artwork that lends itself vey well to 'create in the style of this artist' lessons, which is probably why it was chosen.

I'm an upper key stage two teacher and I don't think it's appropriate.

But they wouldn’t be analysing any of those in depth. Whereas they will be analysing this.

Theres plenty of female surrealists, why not choose one of them? I bet there will be parental complaints about this.

We never taught negative themes until KS4.

For the posters who can't see the strangulation, it's this lady with the rope around her neck.

I don't think this painting is appropriate for 9 yr olds.

Do you even know anything about this artist?

This painting, like most of her work, is autobiographical and represents some of the hardship she went through in her life. There is nothing pornographic about it...

In fact she is considered to be a good example of a strong, talented, feminist woman who had to deal with a lot of physical pain /ill health in her life but who showed great resilience and ended up being a celebrated painter known worldwide.

Plus if you go into any museums your kids will be exposed to paintings and sculpture that show nudity, scenes of violence, death and suffering. That is just part of the human condition.

Frankly it is an odd thing to consider this "inappropriate" in any way.

(Liquidification - I did a topic on it - in Year 8 interestingly! Google it, it’s fascinating.)

Actually this has cast my mind back to when I was 10 (which was before they starting giving ‘year numbers’ so no idea what ‘year’ that is) and we all had to do an end of year project before we left primary. I asked to do ‘Mysteries of the Unexplained’ using my mum’s Reader’s Digest book. I did ‘sea mysteries’ - so the S.S Watertown, the Marie Celeste and Flannan Isle.

My teacher didn’t bat an eyelid and said to
my mum at Parent’s Evening: “She’s got a very inquiring - if spooky - mind doesn’t she?!”

I was ready to call you a prude, but no, I don't think this is appropriate for a year four / year five art class. It's a bit like getting them to read Jane Eyre in year six - they might be able to read it in a literal sense, but there's all the nuance and context and subtext that they're just not able to comprehend, and it's not Mary Whitehouse to want kids to study art which will expand their world view gently rather than ask them to comprehend extremely adult life experiences.

Flip it the other way: 9 year old child tells their teacher, my parents show me pictures of naked women being strangled.
The teacher would report to safeguarding!

Yep. As an ex art teacher this was my thinking.

But that would happen if a 9 year told their teacher lots of things: "Mummy showed me a cartoon where hundreds of men were brutally massacred, many of the them were naked with horses, one was even shot in the eye with an arrow."

There are lots of other feminist artists. She could have used any of them.

It IS unsuitable for year 4.

Its hard to look at. I used to take Dd to loads of art galleries. But she could just walk on by if she didn’t want to look. This will be a point of analysis in the lesson, so will be studied quite closely.

They would probably be talking about the Bayeaux tapestry. Which is nether threatening or intimidating.

This is a different sort of imagery and isn’t suitable for 9 year olds.

It's year 4 art not an History or Art degree. The insight level will be more like - I the green bit

Ds did this in art aged 9 too, he's 24 now.I think it was a bit wasted really as if they'd left it another couple of years they could've really discussed her life properly rather than a censored version.