Teacher explains why she's removing books such as Paddington Bear and Goldilocks from her classroom
Ali Condon
Featured Image Credit: tiktok/@megi_learn_and_play / Steven May / Alamy
An early years teacher is sharing the children's books that she's dumping from her classroom including classics like Goldilocks and Paddington.
Educator Megi did a full spring clean of her classroom library and showed parents the books she has decided to scrap.
Megi, who has over 39,000 followers on TikTok, believes that some of the stories enforce stereotypes and have controversial messaging hidden between the lines.
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Guiding her viewers through her box of books to bin, she said: "I’m going to show you why I’m getting rid of classic stories.
"For example, The Rainbow Fish. I’m getting rid of that one because it’s actually a story about a fish who has no friends unless she gives away all her shiny scales away.
"It's not a great book for children."
She then moves onto a book called My Mum by Anthony Brown, explaining that it 'has a page [she] really dislike[s]'.
"It’s all about the mum and what she likes to do," she explained.
“But there’s this one [page], ‘she’s a great painter’ - she’s doing her makeup - and then, ‘she’s the strongest woman in the world’ - [showing her carrying lots of shopping bags].
"I don’t want to show that to children. I don’t think that’s a healthy relationship because why is no one helping her?
"She shouldn't be doing that all by herself. The rest of the pages are alright."
Moving onto a classic fairytales, Megi says she's getting rid of Goldilocks and the Three Bears simply because 'it just doesn’t make sense'.
"We use it all the time in early years but why?" she asked her followers.
“I have another one that is much better that I like... It’s Goldilocks [by Nick Sharratt and Stephen Tucker], and I think it’s a funny story based on the traditional one. I’d rather keep this one.
“Everyone knows the Goldilocks story... I have multiple Goldilocks and the Three Bears books. And all the illustrations are not great."
Similarly, Megi decided to get rid of all her Paddington books just because she doesn't 'really like the story,' plus she thinks 'most of the children will read them at home anyway so there’s no point'.
Not everyone agreed with Megi's choices though, and some parents took to the comments to defend the classic stories.
"Rainbow Fish teaches about sharing, kindness and friendship," argued one follower.
"The Mum one is good I think, some children only have a single mum and she does do everything herself."
And a third pointed out: "You keep mentioning you 'don’t like them'... surely it’s about what the children like?"
What do you think? Does this teacher have a point, or is she going too far?