Fascist Florida Investigates Teacher For Showing Disney Movie In Class
How are they not the least bit embarrassed?
We now live in a country in which elementary school teachers are investigated by the state for showing Disney movies in the classroom.
Florida fifth-grade teacher Jenna Barbee is under investigation after a parent associated with Moms For Liberty reported her to the state's Department of Education for showing a Disney movie in her classroom. Why? Because the movie, Strange World , features a gay character, whose crush on another character is a minor plot point. Barbee said she put the movie on for the students, who had been doing standardized testing all morning, because it was related to Earth Science, which they had been studying, not because she was hoping that it would result in all of her students immediately deciding they are gay.
She also said she thought the movie would be a good choice for the kids because it teaches about “overcoming differences, spreading kindness, communication and chasing your dreams" — although at least three-fourths of those can now likely be considered radical left-wing ideas.
Sharon Rodriguez, who is also on the Hernando County School Board, claimed that Barbee was trying to "indoctrinate" the students with liberal propaganda like gay people exist.
Barbee explained the situation in several TikTok videos, and it's just exactly as stupid as you would expect.
“The Florida teacher that's being investigated by the State for "Indoctrination" of 5th graders for showing the Disney movie "Strange World," tells her side of the story.”
— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) 1684080602
In the videos, Barbee, a first-year teacher, explains that the fifh-grade students had standardized testing all morning, but some students finished earlier than others. The students who hadn't finished went to a different classroom to finish and then students from other classes who had finished were taken to her classroom to watch the movie. It was rated PG, but all of the students' parents had signed waivers earlier in the year saying they were okay with their kids watching PG movies in school.
Rodriguez's daughter was one of the students from another classroom who came to Barbee's classroom for the movie — not one of her students, as has been reported in other outlets.
Barbee says that Rodriguez has been "on a rampage to get every form of representation out of our schools. She even spent days this week going to all the high schools to get rid of anything that had to do with representation whatsoever. She even had admin escort her to a teacher's classroom that had a sticker of a Black hand and a white hand holding hands."
We're just gonna guess that Rodriguez probably would not have complained about a teacher showing Song of the South .
Rodriguez has also been trying to exorcise the school libraries of things she considers "smut" or "porn." Since we can probably assume that the school library does not loan out copies of Penthouse or have a viewing room where children can watch Deep Throat , it seems likely that the things she wants to ban are not actually "smut" or "porn."
Balzac www.youtube.com
"It is not a teacher's job to impose their beliefs upon a child: religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, any of the above. But allowing movies such as this assist teachers in opening a door, and please hear me, they assist teachers in opening the door for conversations that have no place in our classrooms," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez also said she has called DOE about other issues in the district and believes children should not be "a pawn in the crossfire" of liberal political agendas.
"As a leader in this community, I'm not going to stand by and allow this minority to infiltrate our schools," she said.
What conversations would those be, Sharon? And why is it okay for you to make children a pawn in the crossfire of conservative political agendas?
Because let's be real here — Sharon Rodriguez wants to impose her beliefs upon all the children in Florida schools. So does Ron DeSantis. Simply by making it verboten to acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people, they are implying that there is something wrong with people who are not heterosexual and cisgender. The goal is to make these things seem foreign and unusual to children so that when they do "find out" that LGBTQ+ people exist, they are likely to see them as aberrant. Or, if they happen to be gay or trans themselves, to be afraid to come out.
This is Shannon Rodriguez. She is very concerned about 'grooming.'
Barbee says that she's already had a few students come to her and say they are gay or trans. This means that at some point, Shannon Rodriguez's daughter is going to find out that LGBTQ+ people exist and are quite possibly her friends, regardless of what Disney movies she sees.
The investigation into Barbee has involved not only DOE investigators interrogating her, but interrogating every one of her students to look for signs of "indoctrination." In the third video she posted, Barbee noted, fairly, that this was a far more traumatizing thing to put children through than a movie with a character who happens to be gay.
“Do you know the trauma that is going to cause to some of my students?” Barbee said. “Some of them can barely come and have a conversation with me, and are just getting comfortable with me, and now an investigator is allowed to come and interrogate them. Are you kidding me? What is that showing them?”
Because I am a curious person, I was interested in knowing how right-wing media was reporting on this incident. The only article I could find, however, was on Newsmax. The Newsmax article, titled "Disney's 'Strange World' Gets Fla. Teacher Probed for Activism" put more focus, interestingly, on the movie's supposed "green energy ideology" than on the gay character Rodriguez was upset about.
It does, however, note that Disney "refrains from showing the movie in the Middle East, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, Uganda, and other countries because of those countries' prohibition on sex and gender ideology in media" — as if to suggest that this should mean it is also too spicy for Florida school children. Or even to suggest that the anti-LGBTQ policies that exist in these countries are what Ron DeSantis and friends are going for in Florida.
Uganda, by the way, finally made it a capital crime to be gay earlier this month. The "promotion of homosexual activity" — for instance, literally just saying "I am gay" — is punishable with a 20-year prison sentence. This law, by the way, was inspired and partly engineered by US right-wing evangelicals such as Scott Lively, the author of a book literally called Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child: A Parent's Guide to Protecting Children from Homosexuality and the "Gay" Movement.
Sounds like something one might find on Sharon Rodriguez's bookshelf.
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"It is not a teacher's job to impose their beliefs upon a child" That is literally the job of every adult in contact with any child (or other adult for that matter). That is called creating a society. You know, that thing with shared language(s), assumptions, morals, and other thought patterns.
How the hell can you have a society if you can't shape each other's beliefs? There is literally only one way not to shape another's beliefs and that is by never interacting in any way. If that is what you want for your kid then lock them in a closet now and never let them out again.
Yes, yes, democracy is the worst system ever except for all the others. We all know this. It is a terrible idea to elect people to control the dictators of the world, but all other methods are worse on account of an even greater lack of accountability.