If you’re like me, and you grew up in the time before smartphones, you probably don’t remember having a “woke” teacher in elementary or high school. It’s possible you had a teacher or two that you thought was a little kooky, but you, more than likely, didn’t know much about their lives, nor did you care. Because when you got home from school you could just flip on some cartoons and not think about them until you saw them the next day in class. However, nowadays, not only do kids and teens have to deal with woke teachers in their classrooms, they also can’t avoid them on their social media apps, where the wokeness of some teachers seems to know no bounds.
If you scroll through TikTok, the most popular social media app for kids and teens, you’ll see plenty of woke teachers discussing what they feel are the important educational topics right now, such as; their own personal pronouns and “gender journey’s’”, their opinions on white supremacy, their students parents being “dumber” than them, and of course, everyone’s favorite topic, “gender and genitals”. You know, the usual.
In Episode 17 of The Written Revolution podcast we played clips of various woke teachers who espoused all the topics I mentioned above. One teacher was so upset that their pronouns were not being used properly (they had transitioned from female to male) that they had to walk away from an award program to go cry in the bathroom. As one YouTube commenter rightly pointed out, “I don’t think a man would be upset about that.”
A different teacher decided to virtue signal as hard as possible in her videos when she shared that she isn’t political at all with her students! You see, she doesn’t have to tell them who she voted for because when the kids look around her room and see the pride flag and the, “No human is illegal” sign they know that she votes for “whoever is on the side of human rights”. Uh huh, sure lady. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Another clip we played of a teacher in a Utah who told her students that, “most of y’all parents are dumber than you” went viral. This teacher proclaimed, “You don’t have to do everything your parents say and you don’t have to believe everything your parents believe, because most likely you’re smarter than them”. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t smarter than the student who recorded her because she was fired after the video of her saying those asinine things was made public. A small vindication for all those parents out there who believe that their kids should have to do what we tell them. It’s kind of one of the perks of parenting; we get to mold our children the way that we see fit, not how the woke mob sees fit.
I think the most egregious clip that we found from TikTok was the preschool teacher, who identifies as a “queer neurodivergent educator”, that actually said that, “the topic of gender and genitals came up” at the lunch table. She goes on to say that a child at the table says that they are a “girl today” but their teacher is “NB”, which I can only assume means non-binary. We are talking about a 3 or 4 year old!!! In what universe does the topic of gender and genitals come up at a lunch table with 3 and 4 year olds?!? I don’t even know when it comes up as a topic with grownups either, to be honest. I’m also curious about how a 3 or 4 year old even knows what NB is? I was under the impression that preschool was supposed to be the place for learning your ABC’s, and figuring out how to use scissors; not a place to take “gender and genitals” studies. How in the world is this an appropriate conversation to be having with a child unless they are your child??
All of this nonsense goes beyond woke TikTok’s into what emerges as a truly disturbing pattern: these teachers believe that YOUR kids are THEIR kids. So, of course, they don’t feel like they are doing anything inappropriate by sharing their political views or even views about gender and genitals, because they believe that your children don’t belong to you; they belong to the state. Therefore the state empowers them to be responsible for your child. Recent news stories in states like Ohio and Iowa, show that teachers are being given the power to keep things about their students a secret from their parents. In my home state of Ohio a nearby school district’s superintendent sent out an email to teachers, letting them know that they didn’t have to tell parents if a student (as young as 11!) wanted to use a different pronoun. I have an 11 year old and I teach him that ANY adult who tells you to keep something a secret from me or his dad is not a good person and should not be trusted. Is that who these teachers want to become? Untrustworthy creeps? After all, they think parents are “DUUUUUMMB!” So maybe they are hoping we won’t notice?
I guess the question that we (those of us who are awake, not woke) have to ask is; what can we do about it? The best advice I can give you is to be involved with your child’s education, in whatever capacity that you can manage. I’m not saying yank your kids out of school and homeschool, although do that if you can and it’s best for you and your family. I don’t agree with it being the right answer for everyone though. The bottom line is you MUST be involved in your child’s education. Don’t forget that you, as their parent, are their first and best teacher. Go to school board meetings, push back against teachers like the ones mentioned in this article, and TALK to your kids about what they are learning! The one and only good thing that came out of the pandemic was the awareness that many parents now have about what their kids are being taught in school because of remote learning. It was very eye opening for me to hear what my children were being taught and definitely spurred me into action to counteract what was being said!
If all else fails we can handle these things with the calm grace (albeit with some smart ass thrown in) that my son showed when asked at school about his pronouns and how he identifies. His answer: “I identify as a Pokémon.” (Very proud parenting moment for me!) As with many ridiculous trends in this world, ridicule is sometimes the best medicine. If enough of us ridicule these types of things, I think eventually we can win in the battle of the woke vs the awake. At the very least we can have some fun trying!