Connecticut teacher who resigned over racially charged curriculum sits down with The Lion

Jennifer Tafuto, a Connecticut elementary school teacher who hails from a long line of educators, resigned her position this summer over concerns about the racially charged curriculum she was required to teach and beliefs she felt pressured to adopt. She recently sat down with The Lion to talk about what happened and why it’s important that teachers and parents voice their concerns.

Tafuto spoke with us about her love for teaching, her enjoyment of diverse classrooms in both schools in which she has spent her career, as well as her desire that children are taught to empathize with others regardless of race or ethnicity:

Talking about race is important, but it doesn’t need to be done in a divisive way. It can be done from a lens of kindness and acceptance and respect… As a teacher I had always seen equity in the form of academic success, so giving my students what they need to enter my classroom each day and help them prepare for what lies ahead with their education—giving them the tools they need to be successful and to learn rather than this focus on division.

But when it came to the curriculum changes she was seeing which seemed to divisively focus on race, she became concerned that the children—second graders in her classroom—could be harmed. As an example, she said that teachers were given ‘read alouds’ or stories with highly racialized characters along with scripted questions that focused on the races of characters. She told us,

My students were 7 and 8 years old… I felt that there was such a focus on skin color rather than kindness and acceptance. It goes back to what Martin Luther King said about judging a person by the color of their skin where we should be judging them by the content of their character.

Tafuto spoke of one parent who expressed concern when her child began labelling people by the color of their skin in a public setting as a result of what she had been taught in the classroom.

When asked about her decision to resign, Tafuto said the racially charged curriculum began getting too intense to the point that she could no longer take part.

…I knew that the work was definitely progressing in its intensity, and I can only anticipate that it will continue to do so. I don’t feel comfortable with it, so I don’t want to be part of something I’m not comfortable with.

To other teachers who have similar concerns about critical race theory or other sorts of curriculum changes in their schools, she says that their concerns are valid and they need to voice their beliefs. She has received messages of support from teachers, both in her district and around the country. Some of them, she said, are afraid to voice disagreement because they feel they will be labelled or lose their jobs. She said it’s not fair for teachers to push beliefs on students that they disagree with. 

Tafuto also said that parents deserve to know what their children are being taught, and if they disagree with something, they should absolutely raise their concerns.