Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has vowed to crack down on Critical Race Theory and ‘woke agendas’ in schools around the state. Last year, DeSantis introduced anti-CRT legislation, attempting to ban the ideology from curriculums across Florida. The bill prohibited teachers from giving lessons that could make students feel ‘guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.’
DeSantis’ said his proposed law, named the ‘Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act’, better known as the “Stop WOKE Act”, was intended to stop CRT indoctrinating’ kids. “We believe that every single student matters, every single student counts,” DeSantis said at the time. “We are not going to categorize you based on your race. We are not going to tell some kindergartener that they’re an oppressor based on their race and what may have happened 100 or 200 years ago. And we’re not going to tell other kids that they’re oppressed based on their race.”
DeSantis is not alone in his push to eradicate CRT from schools, with at least 26 states introducing bills or taking steps to restrict its teaching in schools or limit how educators can discuss racism and sexism in classrooms, as well as wipe out liberal policies in Florida’s education is a campaign to force universities to disclose all government funds spent on issues related to critical race theory.
DeSantis’ Press Secretary Bryan Griffin told DailyMail.com: “This is a fact-finding initiative to determine how many public dollars are going towards such things. Governor DeSantis believes that funding for higher education should go towards education – academics and truth – and not trendy ideologies,” he added over the letter, which was send December 28.
DeSantis’ common-sense approach to the extreme happenings in education is embraced by conservatives and main-stream voters, but liberals who push critical race theory are pushing back on the initiatives against wokeness in the classroom. At least one educator has now shown why there is concern about woke politics in the classroom.
In protest of Gov. DeSantis’ law but in a bizarre showcase of exactly why DeSantis has proposed it, a woke Florida teacher has sparked fury after mocking Florida’s CRT rules by creating offensive videos on the TikTok platform using students and posting those videos to social media.
One video had the teacher forcing his white students to act as slaves for black pupils. that video, titled “Black History Month… The Shortest Month of the Year” sees the black students made to sit and relax in the middle of the room, while the rest of the kids bow down and worship by their feet. The educator is seen forcing white students in his classroom to serve as servants to their black classmates by taking their coats and feeding them snacks, Daily Mail reports. The students role-playing were selected by race alone.
In another TikTok clip titled “Problematic Books”, the teacher hit out at the state’s recent push to ban certain books from classrooms by sarcastically screaming at the children while throwing their books around his classroom. “I’m gonna start banning these books right away,” he says, first snatching an edition of a Harry Potter and flinging it across the room. After he sees one of the students reading a book with a basketball player on the cover, he screams: “A black boy? No, absolutely not.” Taking aim at Florida’s push to ban certain books from classrooms, the teacher ends his controversial video by lining the students up and having them repeat “I shall not read books.” He adds that the students are no longer allowed to read anything that isn’t prohibited by “the feds”.
The teacher’s TikTok account also prominently features clips of children’s cartoons, including woke-Disney’s under fire show Proud Family – which sparked controversy for shaming characters for “white fragility” and including musical numbers about reparations for slavery, Daily Mail added. The teacher, who shared the TikTok videos to his 8,000 followers before they were circulated more widely, also did not cover the children’s faces.
Footage of his antics on social media led to a wave of backlash, where he says he is about to “run up on these kids” to oppose Florida’s school rules, Daily Mail reported.
Comments on the posts called for the teacher to lose his job, with one commenter adding: “Not only fired but there should be consequences to this for him,”
and another person saying: “He should be fired and permanently banned from the profession.”
“Wow. He is using the kids as political props to his TikTok? This is awful,” said another.
Others also took offense to his decision to widely circulate videos of the young schoolkids online. “Taking video of kids without parents’ permission and posting it to social media.. yeah that’s problematic to say the least.”
