Parents of students in a Florida charter school are upset that their fourth graders were shown a”Winnie the Pooh”-themed horror movie in class and that the teacher allegedly refused to turn it off even as the students were begging him to.
Michelle Diaz said her twins were deeply affected by seeing the horror film “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” at their school, The Academy of Innovative Education in Miami Springs. She said their math teacher put on the movie during class time.
The film is unrated and contains graphic depictions of violence, murder, torture, nudity, and profanity.
Diaz said the students’ pleas for the teacher to turn it off went unanswered. “He didn’t stop the movie, even though there were kids saying, ‘Hey, stop the movie, we don’t want to watch this,’” the mom told CBS News of the incident.
While she says some students picked the movie, she didn’t see that as a valid reason for showing it in school. “It’s not for them to decide what they want to. It’s up to the professor to look at the content,” Diaz told the outlet.
“Blood and Honey” is a British indie film and features the children’s book characters Pooh and Piglet going on a murderous rampage, which includes smashing a victim’s head with a sledgehammer, decapitating a person, and feeding a woman into a woodchipper, among other horrific scenes.
The school issued a statement regarding the incident, saying some students had met with a counselor after viewing a portion of the film.
“The Academy for Innovative Education has become aware that a segment of a horror movie was shown to fourth graders, Monday, October 2, 2023, that was not suitable for the age group,” the statement said.
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“Our administration promptly addressed this issue directly with the teacher and has taken appropriate action to ensure the safety and well-being of students.”
Head of School Vera Hirsh told Miami New Times that “as soon as the teacher realized what was being shown, the movie was turned off.”
She also said only twenty to thirty minutes of the film was seen and that, “Most of the film’s grisly murder scenes take place later in the movie.”
Hirsch said the incident had been “thoroughly addressed with teachers, students, and parents” and that the students who saw the horror movie were “in school and doing fine.”
This incident is reminiscent of a Tennessee teacher who was suspended in 2016 for showing his high school class the graphic and violent horror film “Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” during class.