Florida teacher uses young students in TikTok videos with woke messages

Some are calling for a Florida teacher’s resignation after he posted videos mocking the removal of inappropriate books from schools, forcing students to participate. 

In the video, the teacher can be heard asking belligerently, “What you reading? What you reading?” as he pulls the books out of the hands of amused students. 

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1626604173285289984

The teacher confiscates a Harry Potter book, citing “witchcraft,” then a book called “Crossover” because, the teacher says, it has a “black boy” on the cover. Next is “The Hate You Give,” a fictional book about the shooting of an unarmed black man, which features sexual content, drug use, profanity, and offensive language.

It’s unknown if the teacher got parental permission for the students to appear in the videos. 

Under a new Florida law, the target of the teacher’s mocking, schools are responsible for determining whether books are developmentally appropriate for students. Anyone who disseminates prohibited material to students is guilty of a third degree felony. 

Books cannot contain pornography, instruction on sex, or sexual identity for grades K-3, and discrimination “by virtue of … race, color, sex, or national origin [that] is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” 

The teacher’s TikTok account features seven videos, mostly with the same students, that seem to address the new book regulations, but also feature some dance and video numbers with young girls for which TikTok is well known and criticized. 

One video features the teacher at the front of the classroom writing out and then shouting out “I shall not read books” and “Books are bad,” which the students chant in response.

Another video shared on TikTok features the same teacher and students, showing white students kneeling in worshipful poses before black students, apparently in celebration of Black History Month.

Other videos show kids serving time in a make-believe jail for violating the new book rules.