Last week, a middle school teacher in Texas was fired for assigning “the graphic adaptation” of Anne Frank’s diary. Judging from most headlines, this seems to be an instance of intolerant and anti-intellectual parents targeting a teacher for trying to engage her class with a text that denounces hate.
Newsweek’s title was typical, “Anne Frank Book Gets Teacher Fired,” placing the blame on the book rather than the teacher, and purposely de-contextualizing the issue so that it’s about the presence of this book, not what was done with it. Understandably, Randi Weingarten, the infamous president of the American Federation of Teachers union, tweeted to her 124,000 followers about the incident to complain about a wrongful termination but had all the details wrong.
All this is to say that there’s more to this story that deserves further examination.
I’ll admit, as an English teacher myself, I sympathized with this woman at first, thinking she must’ve been caught in the crosshairs of some vindictive parents or administrators who disagreed with her politics or lifestyle. I’ve witnessed this and can attest the attacks can be from both sides, and it gets ugly.
However, once I made it past the headline, it became apparent why this teacher was removed from the classroom. First, the book wasn’t included in the class’s approved curriculum. Second, the book included sexually explicit content that was wildly inappropriate for a middle school English class.
At best, the teacher was incompetent and thought using this book would help her
