This year’s public school teacher who uttered the word “vagina” in front of a class of students and got in a heap of trouble for it is Allison Wint.
Wint, a substitute art teacher at Harper Creek Middle School in Battle Creek, Mich., says she was fired on Friday because she had used the “v-word” during a lesson the previous day, reports local CBS affiliate WWMT.
According to the sacked sub, she was discussing Georgia O’Keeffe’s famous up-close flower paintings in a segment on art history. At one point, Wint explained, she noted that many art critics have noticed the appearance of a very vagina-like quality in some O’Keeffe flower paintings.
“Yes, I did say that word. However, I was saying it in the context of art history,” Wint told WWMT.
The specific context of Wint’s statement, as she recalled the moment to the Detroit Free Press, went something like: “Imagine walking into a gallery” when Georgia O’Keeffe “was first showing her pieces, and thinking, ‘Am I actually seeing vaginas here? Am I a pervert? I’m either a pervert or this woman was a pervert.'”
“I thought if I used a euphemism, that would make it into a joke,” she told the Free Press. “And I don’t think that’s a word you should be afraid of.”
Wint’s problems may have arisen because of her repeated use of the word “vagina” in a pretty limited amount of time. She said she used the word “vagina” “maybe 10 times” during her discourse to the eighth graders concerning O’Keeffe’s flowers.
“But it was never in a vulgar capacity,” Wint assured the Free Press.
In any case, administrators say Wint violated Harper Creek Middle School’s official guidebook policy because she used a word related to human reproduction — “vagina” — without first obtaining express administrative permission.
Wint said Harper Creek Middle School principal Kim Thayer approached her Friday morning and gave her just an hour to collect her things and vacate the premises.
It’s not clear how Thayer learned about the content of Wint’s lesson.
Wint had been teaching art at Harper Creek Middle School since January.
“I harbor no ill will against them,” she said of school officials, according to WWMT.
She noted that she will miss her students a lot. She also said she hopes to find a new job.
In 2013, the state of Idaho’s professional-standards commission investigated a science teacher in the tiny, rural town of Dietrich because four parents objected to his use of the word “vagina” — and the word “orgasm” — in a 10th-grade biology lesson on human reproduction. (RELATED: Idaho Science Teacher Uses The Word ‘Vagina’ In Sex-Ed Lesson, Gets Investigated)
The teacher, Tim McDaniel, also stood accused by the unnamed parents of discussing birth control, telling unseemly jokes and showing a video graphically detailing some of the reasons why it’s good to avoid contracting genital herpes.
McDaniel ultimately kept his job. However, someone else began teaching sex education material.
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