Written by Diane Roberts
The Florida Department of Education is ecstatic as the state enters a new school year.
Energized! I’m excited! I’m excited!
We are pleased to present to these beloved boys and girls (notice the legally required unambiguous sex designations) the best curriculum in the United States, lovingly crafted by your Florida Legislature, Commissioner of Education Anastasios Stasi Kamoutsas (J.D. Regent), and Governor Ron DeSantis (J.D. Harvard), all of whom most likely completed high school.
Here’s a little peek at what your student might expect!
Teaching children to identify Reds and reject their diseased worldview is something that can never be too early.
Teachers will use the teddy bears (NB: Teachers will have to pay for these herself) to demonstrate the evils Karl Marx committed. She will give half of the bears to traditional American (white) young boys, one-third to traditional American (white) young girls, and any leftovers to other children.
Some people won’t get any bears.
Then, to show how utterly unjust Communism is, she will take the bears from the traditional Americans and give one to every child.
The liberals have attempted to use addition and subtraction to brainwash our kids.
The state has selected textbooks that are specifically tailored to Florida’s particular needs in order to counteract this and ensure that they don’t go against trickle-down economics in the future.
No social-emotional learning cloaked in subtraction, no sneaking in of Critical Race Theory under the garb of simple fractions, no How many apples does Bobby have left after giving Maria one of his three?
Given that Maria is currently in ICE jail, Bobby clearly still has three apples, which is the right response.
America is good, which is why it is great.
Bible-good, that is.
Children will learn that early American colonists were Christians who did Christian things like making friends with primitive tribes, except when they got in the way of Manifest Destiny, despite the absurdity historians have claimed.
Although there were a few haphazard Jews and some Muslim and idol-worshiping African guest laborers who assisted in picking cotton and tobacco, we won’t bother about them.
With wholesome works like Uncle Remus Stories, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, and the Little House on the Prairie series, teachers may encourage a lifelong love of reading.
We will not use Reading Rainbow in the classroom, even if some states do.
PBS is not broadcast in Florida. It’s socialist.
Rainbows don’t exist in Florida.
The program’s host ought to stay with Star Trek.
Through the study of how we won nearly every war—from King Philip’s War (we killed Wampanoag butt!) to the Revolution, the Mexican War (we won California and Nevada!), World Wars I and II (thanks to us, no one speaks German!), Iraq, and Afghanistan—this course fosters respect for our country and its military.
While conceding that the South had a point, discussions about the War Between the States will highlight that there were good people on both sides.
We won’t linger on the Vietnam War; if it weren’t for those damn hippies, America would have prevailed.
Florida would prefer that this subject be avoided. In the event that a school decides to provide this lesson, parents may choose to send their kids to a gun show or church instead.
Regardless, the state provides these crucial rules.
It’s all about abstinence first and foremost. Don’t touch. Until you get married, no.
Bananas without condoms.Girls spread horrible infections, and boys should be warned of this.
The fundamental biology of the industry, including stern cautions to females about the repercussions of having sex, will be explained by instructors.
No talk of birth control. Don’t even consider getting an abortion if you become pregnant.
Missy, you’re not getting one. Not in Florida.
The Laws of Gravity, which are demonstrated by dropping footballs off second-story balconies, inelastic collisions, which occur when a defensive back tackles a ball-carrier at the line of scrimmage, and elastic collisions, which occur when a quarterback tosses a ball that bounces off the receiver’s helmet and lands in the hands of a running back who takes it 50 yards for a touchdown, are just a few of the scientific concepts that students will learn.
In order to give Adam and Eve something to breathe when they were created, the chemistry unit will concentrate on how the Periodic Table of Elements corresponds with the Genesis creation story: hydrogen and helium create the stars, followed by hydrogen and oxygen create water, and nitrogen, hydrogen, argon, and carbon dioxide create the air.
Despite what the global warming alarmists claim, carbon dioxide is a positive thing rather than a bad thing.
Parents should not fear, as the state has compelled textbook publishers to make adjustments on climate change.
The teacher will ensure that the students never doubt that our Founders were divinely inspired to establish the greatest nation in history.
We look at the amazing awesomeness of George Washington, who overcame awful dental issues, the difficulty of transforming the run-down little cottage of Mount Vernon into an 11,000-square-foot estate, and the smallpox he acquired when visiting the Caribbean in 1751.
Washington did not have wooden teeth, unlike what you may have heard. In reality, they were constructed from metal springs and levers, ivory from elephants and walruses, and a few real human teeth that he purchased from his slaves.
Insidious tales about Ben Franklin and French ladies, as well as the falsehood spread by Broadway that Alexander Hamilton was Hispanic, will be dispelled in our course.
Furthermore, despite the claims of many historians that he had sex with a teenager and created his own cut-and-paste Jefferson Bible that omits all mention of Jesus’ divine abilities, Thomas Jefferson was a devoted Christian.
Academics have been the focus of education for far too long, which is foolish considering how much money a skilled roofer can earn.
Not any more. Young people will become proficient in bricklaying, drywall installation, and nail gun use.
Children over 16 are now permitted to work 30 hours a week, six days a week, eight hours on weekends and holidays, and whether or not they attend school.
This could be a way for schools to increase their earnings.
Employers are only required to pay the children $4.25 per hour for the first ninety days (a great deal!).
That’s almost $127.50 a week for each child! After putting, say, fifty children on someone else’s payroll and deducting a fifty percent apprenticeship fee, the school soon makes enough money to buy those new band uniforms.
It’s better than selling chocolate bars.
Although China and India have a long history and have constructed some spectacular temples, fortifications, and other structures, they are not as brilliant as our European forebears.
This course introduces students to the renowned and not at all strange American writer Edgar Allan Poe, who described the grandeur of Rome and the glory of Greece. Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, colonization, aqueducts, togas.
The state Department of Education is following Florida s own Marco Rubio, who has ditched the State Department s whole human rights thing and created an office dedicated toWestern Values.
Our kids will study those values which include empire-building, unfettered capitalism, and freedom of expression unless it s about sex or race to learn how the West is the best.
Students who insist on going into higher ed instead of getting perfectly good jobs at Chick-Fil-A or Disney will develop skills in reading complicated literature such as the plays of William Shakespeare and some of the few books not yet challenged byMoms for Liberty.
No black books. No gay books.
Texts to be studied include The Scarlet Letter (see sex ed above), The Iliad (lots of good, clean war), and Romeo and Juliet.
(Teachers: Take out your Sharpies and redact the parts where Juliet starts talking about amorous rites and wishing love-performing night would hurry up so she can go to bed with Romeo. Horrible.)
Sex stuff aside, the play teaches that if you disobey your parents, you ll die.
College will challenge young people s morals and values as professors try to indoctrinate them, forcing them to read novels by Toni Morrison, look at naked people in Art History, and acknowledge slavery was terrible, despite the slaves learning all thosevaluable skills.
But don t worry: Kids educated in Florida have been trained to resist inappropriate thought.
And they can always report professors pushing DEI or CRT or BLM.
After all, Florida s education commissioner is namedStasi.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times back when that was the Tampa Bay Times s name and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
