School board member wants Muppets book banned

Having been elected to the school board earlier this year, Carney recently attempted to table a vote (see the video below) necessitating greater public discussion of what kindergarten children are being taught saying: “This proposed curriculum teaches what to think, not how to think”.

However, Jim Henson’s creations have this week provoked the ire of one mother and school board member in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Carney feels the book’s images of children in bleak situations are not age-appropriate for kindergarten students.

Carney hopes the school board will remove the title from the 2016 curriculum. “But the reality is, in our classrooms every year, we have more and more kids who are homeless, and more and more kids who are hungry, and more and more kids who are victims of abuse in their households”.

Each year the school board must review and approve the curriculum, according to Amber Leifheit, vice president of the school board and chair of Curriculum and Instruction Committee. The other two books – “It’s Not My Fault” by Nancy Carlson and “Being Trustworthy: A Book About Trustworthiness” by Mary Small – were not the topic of scrutiny Wednesday but were reviewed because they were planned for the same week in the curriculum as the Henson book.

“Looking at it, I do not have concerns”, Leifheit told the Marshfield News Herald.

For Every Child, A Better World has mostly positive reviews online. Several committee members did describe the illustrations as “graphic” and “disturbing”, but approved the continued use of the book anyway, noting that the book is presented to students under the supervision of a teacher and teaches children how to deal with adversity.

She’s also a School Board member. The book is dedicated to the memory of Audrey Hepburn due to her untiring support for children in need as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and the fact that she was in need of food as a child.

Carney was critical of the change in the school’s social studies curriculum this past summer because she thought it downplayed “American exceptionalism” and focused too much on global issues. She wants it out of the curriculum. “The illustrations left me traumatized”, says Amazon commenter Jeremiah Moberly.