No More Humping Dinosaurs

As I think I've mentioned, my new school is the oldest school in the school district and the oldest school in town.  About 40 years ago, several murals were painting on the inside walls of the main building.  The murals depict scientific, historical, literary, and social studies content as well as some cultural references for that time.  They are bright and some are cute and cartoonish.  They have been a trademark of sorts for the school.

When I started working there last summer, a few of the murals had been painted over and bulletin boards were placed on top of them to display student work.  At first, I felt a little bad that this part of the school's history had been covered up, but in reality displaying student work is very important for the culture of the school and several murals remained - it was like a happy medium.

Throughout any school year, some decisions on how to use funds are brought to the grade level team for discussion and input.  The murals were brought up this year, in fact it's been an ongoing discussion over the past few years.  There are mixed emotions about their fate.  Because of their age, they have been deteriorating and not looking up to par.  Some of the staff wanted them restored while the rest of the staff has been indifferent.  All the options were researched and presented to us this year.  Restoring the murals turned out to be quite cost prohibitive for a public school, while the cost of painting over and installing bulletins boards was more manageable.  Our team had a discussion during one of our team meetings midway through the year.  Most of the team agreed that bulletin boards were the smarter direction due to cost as there are always things we need that take priority over restoring the murals.  Since I haven't been involved in the past discussions, I didn't feel right voting but playing devil's advocate, I mentioned I was feeling nostalgic and might be sad if they were painted over.  There was some understanding, but the two teachers on the team who have been there for a few years shared a few examples of how the murals may not be the most appropriate for school.  They pointed out that in the paintings Huck Finn smoked, a few characters carried guns, and best of all...the dinosaurs in the prehistoric section were "doing it"!

Since arriving at my new school I've run around campus like a chicken with my head cut off so hadn't taken the time to really look at the murals when I walked through the halls.  After our meeting, I made an effort to do so.  On my walk from the cafeteria to the office I noticed the cigarette and the guns as well as a Eurocentric cultural diversity with stereotypes section - the Dutch girl and boy with wooden shoes, the Irish leprechaun, a kilted Scots boy, etc. - which was kind of funny being that our school is now about 80% Latino.  On our way to the science lab, I walked the class past the prehistoric mural and, sure enough, the dinosaurs look like they're humping (or at least what we think dinosaurs would look like humping).  Actually, it's just a really bad example of foreshortening or perspective.  I don't think the artist's intent was to paint fornicating dinosaurs, but still it was pretty funny.  On the other hand, maybe it was the intent.

Today I popped into my classroom for a few hours to get my furniture set up.  As I walked to the office to check in, I was surprised to see ALL the murals were painted over this summer.  Even though the hallways look very clean and bright without the murals, it is a little sad that part of the school's history has been removed. From now on, every time I walk by the science lab I'm going to giggle thinking about the humping dinosaurs.