Summary
A Latina art teacher fights for her job and reputation after she’s accused by a conservative white parent of showing “pornography” to her sixth-grade students. Art & Class speaks directly to the controversies in US education with depth and compassion.
…sets new height of excellence…
From the script:
LELAND
I admire your depth of thought, you know I do, I find it refreshing at this school, // but—LUCÍA
But you want my students to stay in the shallows?LELAND
Obviously not. Students need to be challenged, // but—LUCÍA
How do we challenge them without real uncertainty? How can I, as an art teacher, challenge them unless I put images in front of them that they don’t automatically know how to feel about? Unless they question—there, in that second—what the appropriate feeling is? Or if there is any. How do I challenge them without a chance to dispute what they say they see? You, as a white LDS man, say “naked woman.”LELAND
She’s not naked because I’m white—and on Thursday, you were not leading a discussion. You were grading.LUCÍA
I was. Until // Isaac—LELAND
That’s the teacher you want to be, not the teacher you were.