UnNews:Play-Doh penises perturb parents
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| Play-Doh penises perturb parents | 
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30 March 2007
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WHIDBEY, Stencilvania - North Whidbey Middle School’s attempt to combine art with sex education angered several parents in this small Connecticut town. Giggles could be heard up and down the hallway, coming from Rose Hawkins’ kindergarten class, which prompted a visit by Agatha Hagg, the school’s principal and Mollie Brighton, the president of the local chapter of the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA). Both were “shocked,” they said, to see four- and five-year-old boys and girls sculpting clay penises, and Brighton was “outraged.”
The PTA president called an emergency session of her organization’s members to warn them of Hawkins’ “flagrant disregard” of the school’s policy, which requires all teachers to notify parents in advance of any instruction or assignment that features or references human breasts, buttocks, genitals, or related body parts.
Prior to the children’s sculpting of the penises, they had drawn sketches of them, which they’d tacked onto the classroom’s bulletin boards. Then, using these preliminary sketches, they attempted to sculpt a three-dimensional likeness of the male reproductive organ. The results were erroneous, but amusing, to the children, at least, resembling rocket ships, candy canes, and, in one case, a simplified dildo, whom the children named "Fido." The boys and girls recognized the disparities between their clumsy attempts to depict the penis in clay and decided they needed live models in lieu of their sketches. When Hagg and Brighton entered Hawkins’ classroom, the boys had their pants down and the girls were examining their “wee wees” in an attempt to gain a better idea as to how to mould the organs.
The problem, according to four-year-old Samantha Mendel, was that her partner’s penis was flaccid, rather than erect, which is the state that Hawkins wanted the sculpted penises to assume. “Johnny’s weenie wouldn’t stand up like the one Miss Hawkins showed us when her boyfriend, Mr. [Edward] Stanley, was our guest speaker last week.”
Horrified at the thought that an adult male might have exposed himself to the preschoolers, Brighton asked Samantha whether Mr. Stanley had shown the students his “wee wee.” The girl said he had, “and his stood up, all by itself, for the whole class period.”
The penises were an odd collection, the principal told Unnews’ reporter, Lotta Lies. “There was a rainbow of deformed organs, red, purple, yellow, orange, green, blue, pink--a penis in every color available in Play-Doh. It was rather amusing,” she added, giggling.
Some of the sculpted penises were also given facial features--in one case, a handlebar mustache--and several were partially “clothed” in jackets or, in some cases, dresses.
The students also made Play-Doh sperm, poking indentations in the sperm’s heads for eyes, and tracing arcs for smiles.
The sex education class didn’t teach the children much about sex, but, as an art class, it was regarded as “somewhat successful.” The preschoolers, unfortunately, were left with the impression that the vast majority of males suffers from erectile dysfunction or, as the kindergartners put it, “droopy weenies,” and that sperm have happy-go-lucky personalities but are easily excited. “They wag their tails, just like my dog Benny,” Samantha informed Brighton and Hagg.
They also learned an unintended lesson in sexism. “Boys’ sex organs are fun, but girls’ are boring,” Dottie West, another student in Hawkins’ class complained. Her comment touched off another round of giggles.
Although Hawkins has been suspended with pay and her boyfriend is in police custody while school officials investigate the Play-Doh penises further, the company, reportedly, is considering offering schools across the nation a Play-Doh Sex Education Kit, which would include directions for sculpting ithyphallic (erect) penises and non-anthropomorphic sperm, complete with artists’ representations of the intended results.
Some schools have expressed an interest in the kit if the company can find a way to make “girls’ reproductive organs fun and exciting to preschoolers as well.”
Source[edit]
- Lotta Lies "Play-Doh penises didn’t stand up to parents’ sex education expectations". Instant News, .666 second ago