When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball is a book about the childhood of Wilma Rudolph, a legendary sprinter who won three gold medals at the 1960 Olympic games in Rome. The book, which is 32 pages long, is geared toward readers in elementary school. The story focuses on Rudolph's childhood and the obstacles she had to overcome to achieve success. Rudolph, for example, had polio as a child and was forced to wear a leg brace. She was told by a doctor that she would never be able to walk without the brace. But Rudolph was determined.
At what point do the rest of the people get to push back against this nonsense? I find it hard to believe that this woman represents even a significant minority of the parents in the district, let alone in the state? Is it that librarians and school boards have been intimidated by implied or explicit threats? Is it because that radicals have taken over the school board? Or is it that people are just too tired to fight off every one of these attacks on critical thinking? Frankly it seems to me that she needs to be challenged to prove her allegations before any book is removed from the shelf. Claim that Wilma Rudolph leads to white shaming? Prove it. Document the cases. Then maybe we'll talk.
It's apparent that Gandy Baggett is a DANDY BIGOT!! How the H*** does one pathetic confederate worshiping cracker get to make the rules for Florida libraries??? This has got to stop. A minority fringe is vomiting all over the rights of the rest of us! Florida and DeSantis are poster children for book burning, bigotry, racism, and all the other evils that X45 hatched, and they're all thriving in the SOUTH. SHAME ON ALL OF THEM!
Has this anti-book person gotten around to putting the Bible on her pornography list? It has quite a lot of narratives and poetry that would not pass her test.
I’d love to hear from the poor HS students who have her for a teacher. How could such an ignorant person possibly understand how to teach English with any kind of critical thought?
I grew up I post WWII Germany and reading this is truly shocking. By the standards of this law and this so called teacher no book about the holocaust would be deemed to be ok for use in schools … yet even after more or less sitting through three years on history classes about the third reich in high school I think more was needed. Kids can be pretty resilient and can and need to learn the truth about the past. What shocks me most here is the silence of the various Jewish groups in the US. What stops anyone from adding any books about the holocaust to these lists … and even if no one will do that book banning was one of the early acts by the Nazis and it creates a very slippery slope to banning more than books.
This woman and others like her are suffering from a form of mental illness that arises from being in a cult. There is no other conclusion I can draw. She should have her teaching license pulled. She isn't fit to be a teacher.
None of these mentally ill book banners, harping on parental rights, seem ever to think that OTHER parents have rights, too: to allow and encourage THEIR kids to think, explore, and see the world through other people's eyes.
One wonders how she has time to put food on the table and make her kids lunches when she's apparently devoting every waking hour to pouring over every sentence in hundreds of books, looking for "issues". Have all the floods in Florida from the hurricanes contaminated the drinking water to the point the state is becoming full of, well, loony tunes? (Apologies to sane Floridians.)
Gandy Baggett is a Confederate ready to fight the Civil War again. She is another example of a bigot who needs attention, a cause, and a platform to scream on. She is disgraceful. As a former English teacher, I am grateful that I never had to work with an ignorant teacher like her.
Just read an article from 2000 where this same teacher (who was teaching JOURNALISM 🤦🏼) was busted for “selling grades” by requiring her students to sell meat products made by her own family business as a “fundraiser” — sell more meat, get a better grade. 😒
This is just too much! Yes thanks for this coverage. But I have to start reading these articles later in the day. This is a difficult way to start thinking about our year end. But thank you nonetheless.
I could feel sorry for this deluded and controlling woman but I don't. Instead of wallowing in her own unhappiness, she wants to drag the whole world down with her. Unfortunately, she and those like her seem to have an outsized influence these days and that should not be!!!
That people like this still exist is unbelievable, but that they are teachers? It’s galling. That book about Wilma Rudolph, is exactly the type of book kids should be reading. She had bravery and perseverance. She was an inspiration to all, but especially women and girls, and this woman gets absolutely none of this out of Wilma’s story? How is she a teacher, and why in the name of all that is holy do some white women act like this?
At what point do the rest of the people get to push back against this nonsense? I find it hard to believe that this woman represents even a significant minority of the parents in the district, let alone in the state? Is it that librarians and school boards have been intimidated by implied or explicit threats? Is it because that radicals have taken over the school board? Or is it that people are just too tired to fight off every one of these attacks on critical thinking? Frankly it seems to me that she needs to be challenged to prove her allegations before any book is removed from the shelf. Claim that Wilma Rudolph leads to white shaming? Prove it. Document the cases. Then maybe we'll talk.
It's apparent that Gandy Baggett is a DANDY BIGOT!! How the H*** does one pathetic confederate worshiping cracker get to make the rules for Florida libraries??? This has got to stop. A minority fringe is vomiting all over the rights of the rest of us! Florida and DeSantis are poster children for book burning, bigotry, racism, and all the other evils that X45 hatched, and they're all thriving in the SOUTH. SHAME ON ALL OF THEM!
The best way to get kids to want to read a book is to ban it.
Has this anti-book person gotten around to putting the Bible on her pornography list? It has quite a lot of narratives and poetry that would not pass her test.
I’d love to hear from the poor HS students who have her for a teacher. How could such an ignorant person possibly understand how to teach English with any kind of critical thought?
I grew up I post WWII Germany and reading this is truly shocking. By the standards of this law and this so called teacher no book about the holocaust would be deemed to be ok for use in schools … yet even after more or less sitting through three years on history classes about the third reich in high school I think more was needed. Kids can be pretty resilient and can and need to learn the truth about the past. What shocks me most here is the silence of the various Jewish groups in the US. What stops anyone from adding any books about the holocaust to these lists … and even if no one will do that book banning was one of the early acts by the Nazis and it creates a very slippery slope to banning more than books.
A couple misspellings to point out Bigot is not spelled Bagget and clan for her is actually Klan. Thank you Judd and team Popular! Happy Holidays 😁
Happy holidays Judd! Thanks for all the work you do. Ugh to this trend.
This woman and others like her are suffering from a form of mental illness that arises from being in a cult. There is no other conclusion I can draw. She should have her teaching license pulled. She isn't fit to be a teacher.
None of these mentally ill book banners, harping on parental rights, seem ever to think that OTHER parents have rights, too: to allow and encourage THEIR kids to think, explore, and see the world through other people's eyes.
One wonders how she has time to put food on the table and make her kids lunches when she's apparently devoting every waking hour to pouring over every sentence in hundreds of books, looking for "issues". Have all the floods in Florida from the hurricanes contaminated the drinking water to the point the state is becoming full of, well, loony tunes? (Apologies to sane Floridians.)
Gandy Baggett is a Confederate ready to fight the Civil War again. She is another example of a bigot who needs attention, a cause, and a platform to scream on. She is disgraceful. As a former English teacher, I am grateful that I never had to work with an ignorant teacher like her.
Just read an article from 2000 where this same teacher (who was teaching JOURNALISM 🤦🏼) was busted for “selling grades” by requiring her students to sell meat products made by her own family business as a “fundraiser” — sell more meat, get a better grade. 😒
This is just too much! Yes thanks for this coverage. But I have to start reading these articles later in the day. This is a difficult way to start thinking about our year end. But thank you nonetheless.
This is sick. How does anyone have these views and work this hard to make them a reality? I feel so sorry for her. She lives a sad and miserable life.
The English teacher pines for a romanticized confederate past that gave her and her family a status that she cannot afford today.
Florida kids pay the price.
I could feel sorry for this deluded and controlling woman but I don't. Instead of wallowing in her own unhappiness, she wants to drag the whole world down with her. Unfortunately, she and those like her seem to have an outsized influence these days and that should not be!!!
That people like this still exist is unbelievable, but that they are teachers? It’s galling. That book about Wilma Rudolph, is exactly the type of book kids should be reading. She had bravery and perseverance. She was an inspiration to all, but especially women and girls, and this woman gets absolutely none of this out of Wilma’s story? How is she a teacher, and why in the name of all that is holy do some white women act like this?