Vegan Art Teacher fired...It all started with peeps...

I received an email today from Dave Warwak telling me about his being told to "stay away from children" after handing out cards to them at a homecoming parade in his hometown of Williams Bay, Wisconsin. He shared a link to his website, inslide.com and as I started reading, I wanted to learn more of the facts of how he ended up being fired for being a vegan. There were some local news reports, like this one from CBS in Chicago that gave some of the basics, and a Chicago Tribune story that reported on why he was fired,:

"We are not going to go vegan at this time," said Pat Hughes, president of the Fox River Grove School District 3 School Board.

The board, which voted 7-0 to fire Warwak, said in a prepared statement that he told pupils not to tell their parents, teachers or the school's principal what he was teaching and that he repeatedly refused to answer questions from school officials on that subject.

There are a few blog posts out there, some written by Vegans who are either supportive of or at least understanding of the frustration Dave Warwak felt and a few by non-vegans who call him a "waccko" among other endearments. Yet there were really no details as to how this all happened until I found this post on animal rights meet up. This is how the peeps comes in (though it must be said that since Peeps do contain gelatin...they are not vegan or vegetarian friendly):

He bought peeps for many students and for the entire faculty and asked that each person personalize the peeps and keep the peeps safe and sound for three days before returning the peeps to Dave. Principal Mahaffy even drew a balloon in which his peep pointed to the Principal and said "he's the greatest." Many of the children became attached to the peeps and only reluctanly gave them back to Dave on the 4th day. Dave then took the personalized peeps and put them in a mural in the school's hallway. On the first day, Dave took a few peeps and put their heads on plaques painted on the walls as if they were hunters' trophies. The next day, he put a few peeps in cages as if they were in a zoo. On the third day, he put a few peeps between slices of bread. Now, the point of the Peeps became clear: Animals, like the Peeps, may taste good but humans should care for them, not eat, jail, and kill (and run lab tests on) them. To underscore his point, Dave painted pictures of Einstein, da Vinci, and other famous vegetarians on the mural with quotations from each of them lauding the practice of vegetarianism and condemning meat-eating. He invited his students to join him on painting the mural and replaced all the signs with "school rules" in his classroom with signs saying "YES" all over the classroom.

In April, when his point became clear, the Principal and Faculty shunned Dave with the Principal (who has a PHD) feeling he was "bamboozled." Although the children loved the project (some of the children who killed frogs were now hanging up PETA literature at the local Jewel's bulletin board), Dave felt defeated.

There's more at the post

Dave Warwak did what many people do when they find something new that changes their life, the same thing two of mine did when they became a vegetarian/vegan, it almost became an evangelical thing for them. He wanted everyone to discover what he felt for him had been a life changing experience.

I think the peep experiment was a creative way of getting his message through, though as a parent, creating a scenario where middle school kids who are most likely not eating a healthy diet in the first place, just stop eating meat or dairy products without some type of a substitute being available isn't helpful. I also can't help feeling that if he would have been a Life Sciences/Home Economics or even a Gym teacher it might have been just a bit different. While he used Art to start the peeps message, some of the questions were directly related to how much art was being taught.

As to the cards with the message about Santa being a lie? I'll write the same thing I told my then five year old when she had a kindergarten teacher who decided to inform the class that Santa wasn't real. Talk about some upset five year olds...

The stories of Santa, the reindeer's and the North Pole aren't true, but the reason the stories were created was to remind people about what the spirit of the Christmas season is supposed to truly be about, the spirit of love and giving. Then again, my five year old already knew that...each parent has their own system of beliefs and traditions while it's great for teachers to share a bit of their beliefs so that our children learn diversity, if it's taken too far it creates situations like Dave Warwak is experiencing right now.