American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten invoked Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” Tuesday in an attempt to defend young children reading sexually explicit books.
Fox News host Martha MacCallum told Weingarten that books suggesting that an individual can change their gender or were born in the wrong body is going to “freak out” children and their families. Weingarten said that schools have an obligation to alert parents about any book that is possibly controversial, including “To Kill A Mockingbird,” a book widely praised for its moral lessons about race relations.
“You don’t want a child to hear a book read to the whole classroom and go home and say ‘why am I being taught that I was born a girl but that was just a guess?’ I mean, that is going to freak out some children,” MacCallum said. “They’re going to be very confused at 4, 5 and 6 years old and I know that you said you don’t agree with reading this in the classroom, but I’m saying this is the problem. And then that same kid can’t read and is pushed all the way to 8th grade and they still can’t read.”
“So Martha, I suspect that you and I agree on more than we don’t. I know you don’t believe me,” Weingarten said. “But, what I’m saying to you is that I saw that case and if you had not socialized books with parents and a book that may be controversial and you talk to the parents of your kids in that classroom, that’s gonna be a problem regardless of what’s in the book. And look, that was a problem, look at ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ think about ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ think about other books out of different eras that’s a problem. You have to actually spend time, as a schoolteacher or a school principal, with parents before you end up talking about issues that some people will think is controversial.”
WATCH:
The Supreme Court held oral arguments Tuesday on whether parents have a constitutional right to opt their children out of lessons involving sexually explicit and LGBT books. A group of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who brought the case to the high court, argued that they have a First Amendment right to opt their children out of LGBT-related lessons based on their religious beliefs.
Weingarten, who pushed for school closures during the COVID pandemic, said that teachers spend the majority of their time encouraging students to “be their full selves” rather than on controversial books. MacCallum then said she is more concerned about children becoming proficient in core subjects rather than learning to be their “full selves.”
“I’m honestly less concerned about them being their full self than I am about them being able to read and write and do math,” MacCallum said. “And that is the biggest problem that we face in our schools today and if I talk to one more teacher who tells me that they’re not allowed to hold a child back until they learn to read … What I really need is for the school to teach them to read and write and do math than get into all of this other stuff.”
Schools across the U.S. have exposed children to several sexually explicit and LGBT-related books that have deeply concerned parents. In February 2023, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approved the removal of over 100 books from school libraries not deemed age appropriate, including “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which contain sexually explicit content.
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Republished with permission from Daily Caller News Foundation
