Secret Education

In Christiansen's piece they discuss "secret education" in children's story books and movies. I absolutely agree with this. Even if it was unintentional by the author almost every disney book and movie have stereotypes in the entire thing. These stereotypes influence kids to believe that everything in the books is true. So when an author makes all the black kids in the cafeteria sit together it gives kids the idea that when they are in school and go to lunch that if they are white they shouldn't sit with the black kids. Teachers and parents would suggest the kid is racist, when he or she isn't racist at all, at least not yet. The kid is just living by the examples in the stories they read. In most disney movies there is a naive, girly, helpless princess who gets rescued by a big, strong, handsome prince. Also until recently there was no black disney princess. That does not mean that in real life black girls aren't princesses, but when little girls read and see things like that they live by example. Maybe children's authors should think more about the values they are teaching children.