He taught "Animal Farm" to get his students thinking—and the pigs attacked him for it

Under COVID, teachers must not EVER teach the slaves to read

See what happened to this brave and conscientious teacher when he urged his seventh-graders to think critically about the mask mandates, through the lens of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

Professor Miller,

Thank you for this brilliant piece [“Those slandering the truckers as a horde of Nazis are a horde of Nazis”], and for all that you have done to expose the ongoing crimes of these bio-fascist monsters. I'm inspired by your knowledge and dissection of propaganda, its history, and its ongoing use by those in power.

I've just recently taught a lesson to my seventh grade students - a precocious bunch of kids - about Covid propaganda through George Orwell's Animal Farm. I'm now on the chopping block: My principal has threatened to discontinue my contract. The primary reason for this is that a parent complained that I'm spreading "misinformation," and the fact that I've been fighting against my school's mask mandate for months. I'll link my story here for anyone who may be interested in reading about my experience attempting to teach kids to think critically about institutional/government narratives, and how it may just cost me my job.

(Scroll down for his detailed account of how he taught his class, and what they did to him because of it.)

As many of you know, the Monk’s experience in that junior high school is uncannily like mine at NYU: In September of 2020, a student in my propaganda course became enraged by my suggestion that the class read through the scientific literature on masking—including all the randomized, controlled trials finding that masks don’t prevent transmission of respiratory viruses, as well as the more recent studies finding otherwise—then make up their own minds about the issue. Although she didn’t say a word in that offending class, she went on Twitter to demand that NYU fire me for “putting the students at risk”; and NYU immediately took her side.

That began a long ordeal, as a majority of my department colleagues sent the dean a letter, charging me with a broad range of crimes as both a teacher and a public intellectual (none of which crimes I ever had committed), arguing that those offenses ought to nullify my academic freedom, and demanding that the dean conduct an “expedited review” of my “conduct,” with an eye toward an appropriate punishment (i.e., that I be fired, as that student wanted).

The dean went right ahead and ordered that review, without consulting me, and notwithstanding my immediate protests (telling me that he ordered it because NYU’s lawyers told him that he must). It was supposed to end in December, 2020. Meanwhile, I crafted a detailed rebuttal to my colleagues’ letter, asking them for a retraction and apology. They ignored that request. I asked again, and they ignored that, too. So I sued 19 of them (not the junior faculty who joined the signatories) for libel.

That case is ongoing. Meanwhile, the dean’s “review” eventually determined—not in December, 2020, but just two months ago, in December, 2021—that I had violated no NYU policy; and so the dean informed me that his office had now dropped the matter.

So my professorial position is secure (although my relationship with my department is in tatters), whereas the Monk may well be fired for heresy—and at a school that prides itself on fostering “courageous conversations” in the classroom! What that really means, of course, is sanctimoniously yammering about “race” and “gender,” which, in fact, is not courageous in the least—on the contrary.

What our shared experience makes clear (and we are not the only ones who’ve suffered it) is that, under COVID, teachers, at every level, are allowed—indeed, required—to teach their students how to take immediate and loud offense at any “racist” or “misogynistic” or “transphobic” statement, whether anyone really made it, or someone else imagined it; but they must never, ever teach the slaves to read.

Teaching My Students About Covid Propaganda Through George Orwell's Animal Farm

My principal has now threatened to discontinue my contract

All-American Warrior Monk

Feb 7

3413

My seventh grade class is currently reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I have taught this novel for five years, and with great success. Students always enjoy this book, especially since it allows for deeper conversations around historical events and how they connect to the present. Additionally, reading Orwell’s work leads to great conversations around language and how language can be manipulated by those in positions of authority. A recent lesson discussed propaganda, a major theme of the novel. I asked students to think critically about the text, and how the message Orwell conveys through his fiction may help us better understand how powerful people and institutions use propagandistic language to manipulate others. 

The students read excerpts from the novel, analyzing what characters said “between the lines.” Here is the excerpt from the end of chapter three that prompted the initial class conversation: “Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contains substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We Pigs are brainworkers.” 

I asked the students to connect the line, said by Squealer, the propagandist of the novel, “this has been proved by Science” to the lingering mantra, often uttered by Dr. Fauci and media pundits, “follow the science.” The question I posed concerned appeals to authority - like Fauci - and to the science, which the media has used as a way to shut down debate around masks and the Covid vaccines.

Click on the title of this piece.