
By K. Walker
Parents at pricy private schools in New York are pushing back against aspects of the “progressive education” their children are receiving. The group isn’t comprised solely of stodgy right-wingers who bristle at buzz words like diversity, inclusion, and equity. Instead most are well-to-do New York City liberals who can afford the $55,000-a-year tuition.
Their mutual concern is the curriculum, which includes an explicit slide presentation about porn and a cartoon video teaching first grade students about touching themselves for pleasure.
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Both were featured in lessons at two elite Manhattan private schools given by the same teacher. The health and sexuality workshop for high school students at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School ended up being about “porn literacy,” and a lesson to first graders at The Dalton School included a cartoon video about masturbation.
Parents at Columbia Grammar who asked the administration for the content of the porn literacy lesson were rebuffed, and those who thought that the lesson to first grade students at Dalton wasn’t appropriate were told that they “misunderstood” the lesson.
But now it’s all academic (no pun intended) it seems, because the teacher of those controversial lessons has submitted her resignation. The New York Post reports:
Justine Ang Fonte, who also taught a one-day workshop on “porn literacy” to juniors at Columbia Grammar & Prep School last month that angered some parents, will not return to the school next year, according to an email Dalton’s head of school, Jim Best, sen [sic] to parents Friday. Best also will not be returning to Dalton next year.
“Throughout her tenure at Dalton, Justine Ang Fonte has helped to develop an exemplary K-12 Health and Wellness program. Dalton — our faculty, staff, administration, and trustees — continue to stand firmly behind this program and those who teach it,” Best wrote.
“At faculty and staff meetings this week, Justine announced her decision to leave Dalton to focus on her work as an independent Health Educator. She has been working toward this goal for over a year. We support Justine’s aspirations and look forward to honoring her accomplishments as the academic year comes to a close.”
One parent said that she was not impressed with the statement about Fonte’s resignation. “This inability to admit a mistake or acknowledge misstep is strange,” she said. “It shows a real lack of emotional intelligence and self awareness on behalf of the leadership team.”
Fonte’s lesson for first graders included the video below, which many parents found inappropriate.
Fonte said that the lesson had been “misinterpreted” and that she doesn’t use the word masturbation in class. Children, she claimed moreover, are not taught to not touch themselves in public.
Parents pushed back, however, and said that it was ironic that the school teaches about “consent” to an extreme — even saying that parents should ask their children if they can hug them — but didn’t get consent from parents for such a controversial lesson. One parent said, “We are not ‘confused.’ We are in fact just seeing very clearly for the first time what a ‘progressive’ education really means at Dalton. The fact that the school then gaslit parents into thinking we are confused is abysmal.”
The “porn literacy” lesson that Fonte presented shocked both parents and students. Most students were watching from home — which alerted parents — but some were forced to gather in the gym and watch on their laptops.
The often-explicit slide presentation and lecture by Fonte to the 120 boys and girls included lessons on how porn takes care of “three big male vulnerabilities”; statistics on the “orgasm gap” showing straight women have far fewer orgasms with their partners than gay men or women; and photos of partially nude women, some in bondage, to analyze “what is porn and what is art.”
Fonte’s presentation, some of which was seen by The Post, included a list of the most searched pornographic terms of 2019, including “creampie,” “anal,” “gangbang,” “stepmom” and more.
One slide cited various porn genres such as “incest-themed,” consensual or “vanilla,” “barely legal,” and “kink and BDSM” (which included “waterboard electro” torture porn as an example).
[…]
One part of the porn presentation involved something called the “marketability of Only Fans,” the hot new app used mostly for sex work. One slide included a photo of a pretty young woman who appeared to be promoting OnlyFans-type work.
“I identify as non-binary,” she is quoted as saying, “but because that hasn’t hit the general consciousness of the adult industry, I say ‘girl,’ because that’s what people who want to buy my content will be looking for.”
One outraged parent told the Post, “None of the parents knew this was planned. We were completely left in the dark. It makes us wonder what else the school is up to.” Another asked, “Why is the school making porn a priority as opposed to physics, art, literature or poetry?”
Good question. Maybe, now that the dust has settled, Dalton will be able to answer it.
Cross-posted at Clash Daily