Wall Street Journal columnist and children's book critic Meghan Cox Gurdon discusses the effort on ‘Fox & Friends.’
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rachel, thank you. Griff.
Well, cancel culture comes to
the classroom in a new op ed,
our next guest says progressive
activists are looking to perge
classic works of literature from
school curriculums under the
slogan of disrupt text.
Here, with more Wall Street
Journal columnist, Megan Cox, Cur
Dan
welcome
ive heard of american classics
also being banned so whats
driving this
is it all critical race theory
well, yeah thats, a good
summation of whats going on
yeah. These people are
interested in displacing
discrediting and if they can
sort of banishing works from
what they call the white canon-
and this is where I mean there
are so many points at which we
have to dispute their assertions
here.
The idea of the Canon of
Literature, which is the great
production of art and
imagination that belongs to all
of humanity, the idea that it
belongs to any single racial
group. So what they want to do if
possible, is to get both taken
out of the curriculum and, if not
successful with that, then the
idea is in the classroom to
subvert them.
Rachel in your piece, you wrote
about a teacher at Lawrence
Public School in Massachusetts,
who was actually online bragging
about getting the odyssey
removed from her class or her
school. But we reach out to the
school
theyre saying its, not true,
im going to read the statement
from the school they gave that
to us last night
they are saying: okay, the odyssey
has not been banned or removed
from the curriculum which would
fly in the face of the great
work. Our educators do every day
to give students an essential,
broad based literary foundation,
and this means teaching both the
Classic Canon and
contemporary works.
Your response.
Well, I mean thats,
wonderful, but thats kind of
incredible, because I reached out
to the school repeatedly to the
schools, to the media, guys at
the school to the teacher
herself to the english
department. For various reasons
I know they received my
communicatin.
I received nothing except a snip
py response from the
teacher saying my request
for more information was
invasive,
so thats nice, but they were
not exactly forthcoming
its great. They are expressing
some interest in the odyssey now
and also I would like to
say you know: why would
somebody post something like
that? Some? Why would a teacher
groan publicly, which is what
twitter is a public forum that
proud to say we managed to get
the odyssey off the
curriculum?
I dont know you tell me
Lawrence School system
Rachel well sure
the public school can require it
and the teacher can do whatever
she wants in the classroom.
Ultimately,
let me get to what are children
losing when they dont read
these beautiful classics
right? Well, I think one of
the things that is happening
with this presentation of books
again with this sub version of
books is that they go from being
essentially an artform into
being a kind of crude
demonstration of political. You
know kind of ugly political
character, so a child whose
exposed I mean you could teach
the odyssey lets say as one
of the foundational stories one
of the great adventure stories
of all human history on which
there is you know, theres art
and metaphor, and you know
stories of other kinds that are
all based on the odyssey or
draw from the odyssey, and you
can teach that to children and
then they walk around and they
are equipped with some
understanding of this culture.
That has that theyre in or
you can teach it as a story of
you know, Massogeny, which is
just a horrible, Miss reading, in
my opinion,
Rachel right, they lose that
frame of reference for really
who we are.
I encourage parents, as I parent
myself, to fight back against
this kind of book. Banning
our children need to be exposed
to the classic, and I also
encourage people to read your
book right behind you, the en
handted hour. I have that book
and I love it and its very good
for parents and thanks for
joining us, Megan Cox, Gurdon,
and we appreciate your insight
into this very important topic.
Transcript generated on 2021-01-04.