Teacher Suspended For Ass Painting

[Anonymous]

Violation of the First Ammendment, or just plain good taste?

Stephen Murmer, by day a mild-mannered high school instructor. By night, famed Internet "ass painter" whose paintings (yes, painted with his butt and genitals) can sell for upwards of $900 (http://buttprintart.com/).

He appeared in disguise on the TV show Unscrewed With Martin Sargent, during which he demonstrated his painting technique, and was recognized and suspended (see the episode, warning, contains a slightly overweight middle-aged man in a thong). Later, the school board voted unanimously to fire him, against the protests of his students, with whom he is very popular. Why? Because his personal life does not set a good example for students.

Full Story

 

[madmax_vii]

To be honest, I think some people don't have a clue whatsoever. I mean, so what about his personal life? Doesn't mean you fire him just because he can paint roses with his ass cheeks and get paid $900 doesn't mean you give him the sack. Is it me or does no-one have a sense of humour whatsoever these days??

 

[Minkoff]

Is it me or does no-one have a sense of humour whatsoever these days??

It's not just you. Adults tend to be extremely paranoid and downright irrational when it comes to their kids (well, they are most of the time really). This is really stupid. I wonder what these people were thinking if anything at all.

 

[Erk]

They are clearly afraid that their children will become immoral ass painters and follow the inevitable spiral into decay and drugs, and eventually be found with their pants around their ankles in an alley in new york, "tagging" a brick wall on a two-bit deli by rubbing Home Depot all-weather exterior latex everywhere with their buttcheeks. I'd be afraid too.

Seriously, this is absurd. Every month a new reason comes out to ensure that no one ever tries to become a teacher... and parents wonder why lately it's hard to find anyone to teach! Well, for starters, maybe you shouldn't ban anyone with any kind of interesting character traits from teaching.

I hope buddy sues the school and gets his job back and some money for his troubles. These is absolutely nothing they can indicate about ass-cheek-painting that is outside the boundaries of what a teacher should do. Buttcheeks are not immoral, nor illegal.

 

[arev]

Apart from all that, what do you think of people paying $900 for a picture/painting made with ass? :]

edit: Good one, ArtBane ^_^

 

[ArtBane]

It must of been a mASSterpiece!

(dodges tomatoes)

 

[madmax_vii]

Apart from all that, what do you think of people paying $900 for a picture/painting made with ass? :]

I think it's a good way to earn money, as the teacher's salary ain't exactly that month, and plus it's a gift too use your butt to paint. I mean the guy wasn't a kindergarten teacher and if he was he wouldn't exactly teach little kids butt paintings over finger paintings is he?

@Erk - lol a bit extreme but I think kids will probably stick to using spray cans.



And also; there's a moral to all this: If it involves violence then it's ok, but if it involves toilet humour or is somewhat sexual then the American Censor's are swarming all over it.

 

[FlippyD]

I hope some better, more open-minded school hires that guy just for this travesty.

And whoever wrote that Fox news article can suck-it. Or just Fox news in general.

 

[Mac]

The thing is thats his personal life and it doesn't really effect his professional career in anyway, so what they did was completely irrational. Its practically saying you can't do something you like doing....pretty harsh stuff.

Butt painting will be the new fazz out in a few years time...you just watch ^_^

@Artbane
Lol classical..classical!

 

[alexia]

Unfortunately, teachers are held to a different standard than the rest of the general public. Teachers are just expected to behave in a certain way due to the nature of their job. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but it's reality.

 

[macchia]

I...dont think I get ass painting. But people do stupid weird stuff all the time, and if there's no harm in it I dont see the problem. This new uber-PC trend I see of being sent to the gallows on merit of things done in one's privacey reaks of fascsism. Where do we draw the line? Suddenly there are statutes of limitations on what we can do 24/7 under the pretext of certain jobs beyond standard laws? Where does it stop?

"Teachers are just expected to behave in a certain way due to the nature of their job. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but it's reality."
Since when? They get tenur after 3 years and many stop trying after that. Are personal hobbies more important than teaching competency? That's what they're saying with this action.

 

[Roman Candle]

I don't believe that teachers get tenure after 3 years. If that's really true, I'm going to pack it off to the US and teach classics for three years, then fuck off and fufill my dream of working out how 500BC cithera actually sounded. I mean, in Lydia, did they really only play in the Lydian mode? Were all the songs written in Ionia really happy?

Yes the actual story here is a travesty, blah blah blah. The man makes $900+ for pressing his arse cheeks against a canvas. I'd fire him too, out of sheer envy.

 

[alexia]

fyi, teachers do get tenured after 3 years.

 

[macchia]

I don't believe that teachers get tenure after 3 years. If that's really true, I'm going to pack it off to the US and teach classics for three years, then fuck off and fufill my dream of working out how 500BC cithera actually sounded. I mean, in Lydia, did they really only play in the Lydian mode? Were all the songs written in Ionia really happy?

Yes the actual story here is a travesty, blah blah blah. The man makes $900+ for pressing his arse cheeks against a canvas. I'd fire him too, out of sheer envy.

Well its true. Yes its ridiculous, if I didnt know it was true my first thought would be it couldnt possibly be true. Are you starting to understand a little more why our public education system is in so much trouble? Your jaw would drop to the floor if you knew how much paperwork you'd need to go through to fire a teacher for harrassing a student or worse even if they've only been teaching 4 years. The rate of acceptance, by the way, for tenur is a bit over 99%. I think maybe they're afraid to change the system because even with such incentives most schools still dont have enough teachers.

 

[Edible Face]

I thought that the teacher was beating down on her students, from the topic title, and I was like "HELL YEAH KICKASS."
Instead, another asshole making money off of "Meaningful" art.
I hate it when people make a thousand bucks because he threw a bunch of paint at his white wall, or they slip while painting (Naked, for some reason?) into the paint, and get up, and end up smearing the paint all over the plain white wall.

So, yeah, I hate the fact that this dude is making money off of his "Effort."

However, sacking the bag of ass for it? Dude, not cool. It makes no sense that ass-painting would be even vaguely inappropriate for school. Damn, man. Kids shows have comedy-with-butts, and now asses are innapropriate?
What, do these parents censor their HIGH SCHOOL kids from Spongebob or something? Jesuso Christo, the hell?
I mean, the hell?
And why aren't these stupid school-board dumbasses BURNING in hell?

 

[Erk]

And edible face once again demonstrates his talents at political punditry.

I am surprised and disturbed that american tenures are so rapid. It rather defeats the purpose of tenure.

 

[Narkidin]

Unfortunately, teachers are held to a different standard than the rest of the general public. Teachers are just expected to behave in a certain way due to the nature of their job. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but it's reality.

Reality or not as long as he is not in class showing how to ass paint I see no problam with it (though painting with your ass seems a little odd). Teachers are people, would they fire a Police Officer for ass painting because they to need to behave in a certain way. All it proves is that people are dumb.

 

[macchia]

And edible face once again demonstrates his talents at political punditry.

I am surprised and disturbed that american tenures are so rapid. It rather defeats the purpose of tenure.

There's more too it as well. Tenure is stilted here, there's no incentive to to be a better teacher than the teacher next to you. Its like communism, you may be a hard worker but after 10 years of hard work and seeing that you're in the same spot as someone who hasnt worked nearly as hard, what's the incentive to really try and raise the bar? It creates an environment where the only people really trying are teachers who have a geniune love for their job(which there are quite a few of where I live, luckily, though Im sure many areas arent so lucky).
And the low tenure standards mean essentially you need only "survive" 3 years then you're in the clear. It bothers me a lot because this is the next generation(and the current one, honestly) and I hate to see them sink into mediocrity because of something they couldnt help like who was teaching them and misguided policies like the SOLs which discourage creative teaching practices and teaching relative to environment(that is to say, kids in New York have different job opportunities than people living in a rural town or a factory town and schools dont reflect this with a panoramic standard over such a vastly large and different country). Sorry for the aside, but this is just one of those things that bothers me because the longterm implications are huge and it can still be pre-empted with some policy changes now.

 

[Edible Face]

I apoligize for that previous post. My opinions are far too extremist at night, for some reason.
Anyway, I dislike this collection of school board members. It is incredibly disturbing to see personal lives affect an important job. No wonder we have trouble finding teachers! A majority of them are afraid of being sacked for being gay, lesbian, Conservative, Liberal, or some other difference. Why, precisely, is this happening?
Its due to a majority of parents complaining and sueing. I despise the school board, but I also feel majorly sorry for them.
It is likely that they were afraid of getting sued for some other ridiculous cause, simply because the world is trapped within the lawyer bubble.

I still despise the entire "Abstract" art idea, asspainting is an incredibly effortless way to make money, so I believe his "Performance" art is lacking. He should be sacked if he's not doing his job well, but based off the fact that a majority of the students liked him, I doubt that.
Keep the man, because "Don't ask, Don't tell" works really, incredibly well when it comes to a personal life.

 

[Caesis]

ROFL the title of this thread made me crack up.

This is sorta weird. Not quite illegal I think. But weird. Why did he paint his ... ass?

Terrible example, deserved to be fired.

Venetia: Why?! Why why why would you necropost this?? Whyyy??? ~~~~~~~~~