'Afraid of knowledge': Teachers union president takes on book bans - Velshi - MSNBC
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, was once called “the most dangerous person in the world” by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Teachers unions, Pompeo claimed, were also the most likely to take the republic down.
“I do not understand why they are afraid of knowledge or why they are afraid of kids critically thinking,” Weingarten tells Ali Velshi. “If you don’t have knowledge, fear becomes much more inviting.” That’s why Weingarten and AFT have been helping children gain access to books. To date, they’ve given away more than 10 million brand new books to children who want them. “We don’t want to determine what our kids think but we really want our kids to know how to think.” - Aired on 05/12/2024.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And that included in the summer. My mother used to take my brother and me to the local library every week in the summer where we belonged to their kids' summer reading club and got a star or a feather, whatever it was that summer, for every book we read. What's going to happen to this generation if they are prevented from learning to read and comprehend?? 
When I was in the earliest grades, we said "the school prayer" along with the Pledge every day. All I remember was the end "our parents, our teachers and our country," not particularly religious. However, when I was still in elementary school, that was ended. We kids were given "a moment of silence" where we were encouraged to pray if we wanted. Soon after, that was ended, too, and nobody missed it. And I lived in a fairly diverse community so I know that my classmates weren't all Christian. I also went to a private school where religion classes were required - but that was the choice of parents, certainly not the government. This country was founded on "religious freedom." 
