Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Was HS Teacher Suspended For Telling Untruths To His Students?

host · 03-04-2006, 11:47 AM

Quote:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...508688,00.html
High school in turmoil over teacher's remarks about Bush
Controversial lecture thrusts Overland into national spotlight

By Kevin Vaughan and Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006
AURORA — Controversy over a high school teacher's comparison of President Bush to Adolf Hitler erupted into a day of turmoil Thursday — with a student protest, a threatened lawsuit and dueling talk shows.

At the center of the storm was Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish, whose lecture in a world geography class last month also included harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq......

........Bennish, who has been a teacher at Overland since 2000, has been suspended and is under investigation for violating a school district policy that requires teachers to present varying viewpoints. He has hired a lawyer and may fight back in court as early as today......

.......He [Bennish's lawyer] called district administrators "scared little rabbits" who bowed to pressure from parents when they suspended Bennish.......

.........The controversy began brewing Feb. 1, the day after Bush's State of the Union address, when a student used his MP3 player to record a portion of Bennish's lecture.

After the student's father complained to school officials, he took the recording to KOA radio talk show host Mike Rosen, who put it on the Internet and played parts of it on his radio program.

The school district promptly suspended Bennish, concluding that, at a minimum, his comments breached a policy requiring teachers to be "as objective as possible and to present fairly the several sides of an issue" when tackling subjects with religious, political, economic or social implications.

School district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said that Bennish would have been within his rights to say everything he did if he also had provided opposing views.

"It appears that they were inappropriate because they didn't contain the balance," Amole said. "For example, he talks at one point about human rights. He didn't say, 'All right, that's my opinion, here's what other people have to say about it.' " .........

Quote:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...508688,00.html
At one point in a 21- minute, 40-second recording of the lecture, Bennish called America "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth.".............

.......Bennish's statements ran the gamut.

He said that in Bush's State of the Union speech, the president was, in effect, "threatening the whole planet."

"Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say — we're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards," Bennish said.

He told students he was "not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same."

"But," he said, "there's some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

He talked extensively about U.S. foreign policy and capitalism. At one point, he questioned Bush's stated belief that democracy is the solution to bloodshed in the Middle East.

"Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?" Bennish asked. "The United States of America, and we're a democracy — quote, unquote."

On capitalism, he questioned whether it did anything to provide "everybody in the world with the basic needs that they need."

"Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity, at odds with caring and compassion?" he asked.

At the end of his talk, Bennish told students he was "not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to do is get you to think about these issues more in-depth." .........

"It's not fair," said Stacy Caruso, a 17-year-old junior. "He spoke his mind. We have Christian groups in school, and they're not censored."

Caruso has taken Bennish's classes for the past two years and praised his approach to teaching. When studying China, his class learned about sweatshop labor. When they read about Japan, students learned about the Japanese imprisoned in American concentration camps, she said.

"We want to know what's going on in the world," she said.

But Derek Belloni, who once had Bennish as a teacher, believes high school students are too impressionable and that the teacher's views are inappropriate.

"He is making interpretation as facts," said Belloni, an 18-year-old senior. "He's preaching politics in geography class. You don't teach math in an English class."

"He wants these kids to become liberals," he said.

Educator talks to students

Excerpts of comments made by Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish in a geography class Feb. 1:

Discussing President Bush's speech the previous night:

"The implication was that the solution to the violence in the Middle East is democratization. And the implication through his language was that democracies don't go to war. Democracies aren't violent. Democracies won't want weapons of mass destruction. This is called blind, naive faith in democracy. Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth? (student answer — "India") The United States of America, and we're a democracy, quote, unquote. Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? (student answer — unintelligible) United States. Who is continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak? (student answer — unintelligible) United States."

•

"Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously they're not. But there's some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very ethnocentric. We're right. You're all wrong. I just keep waiting. I mean, at some point in time I think America and Mexico might go to war again, you know? Any time Mexico plays the USA in a soccer match, what can be heard chanting all game long? (student answer — unintelligible) Pretty close. Pretty close. Now, do all Mexicans dislike the United States? No. Do all Americans dislike Mexico? No. But there's a lot of resentment, not just in Mexico, but all across the whole world, towards America right now."

•

"You need to understand something — that when al-Qaida attacked America on Sept. 11, in their view they're not attacking innocent people. The CIA had an office in the World Trade Center. The Pentagon is a military target. The White House was a military target. Congress is a military target. The World Trade Center is the economic center of our entire economy. The FBI, who tracks down terrorists and so on and so forth around the world, has offices in the World Trade Center. Some of the companies that work in the World Trade Center are these huge, multinational corporations that are directly involved in the military industrial complex, in supporting corrupt dictatorships in the Middle East. And so in the minds of al-Qaida, they're not attacking innocent people. They're attacking legitimate targets, people who have blood on their hands as far as they're concerned. We portray them as innocent because they are our friends and neighbors, family, loved ones. I mean I had one of my best friends from high school, elementary school and birth, lives in lower Manhattan. . . .

Listen to the 20 minute recording of Teacher Bennish's remarks, here:
http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KOA-AM/Geo-Teacher.MP3
Bennish apparently did not have knowledge that his remarks were being recorded.

Local KOA Radio Talkshow host Mike Rosen provided forum for father of student to submit recording of Bennish's remarks for broadcast:
http://2005.koaradio.com/pages/shows_rosen.html

Profile of Mike Rosen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rosen

An "indicator" that Mike Rosen was not airing Bennish's remarks as a "fair and balanced" public service:

Quote:

http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/1347725/posts
Mike Rosen to guest host for Rush Limbaugh this Thursday Feb. 24th and Friday Feb. 25th
KOA 850am radio - Denver, CO ^ | February 21st, 2005 | KOA radio promo

Posted on 02/21/2005 2:56:48 AM PST by ajolympian2004

As advertised here locally on 850 am KOA here in Denver, Mike Rosen will be guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh this coming Thursday February 24th and Friday February 25th. Here is your chance to hear the best debater among radio talk show hosts anywhere in the USA. Mike Rosen is the best prepared most intelligent talk show host in the country. He'll take on anyone in a debate and you better show up with your facts in order.

My "take" is that Bennish does not appear to have said anything to his students that was a lie, especially if the loose standard that Bush supporters allow for remarks by members of the Bush administration, especially when their remarks are related to justification for "pre-emptive" invasion of other sovereign, nations.

Bennish qualified his remarks by telling his students that he was,"not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to do is get you to think about these issues more in-depth."

It seems to me that Bennish's remarks rose to a national level of attention because his student and that student's father who were politically and idealogically opposed to what Bennish was secretly recorded saying, were able to bring the recording to a talkshow host who was sympathetic and chose, for his own perceived gain in ratings and notoriety, to publicly air the remarks by Bennish, accompaied by his own feigned outrage at the ideas that Bennish conveyed.

The question of balance, especially in a predominantly "chistian", mostly white, mostly upper middle class, American heartland community, is amusing to me. Where, in a land that enjoys Foxnews version of "balance", and the "trust me" messages of the Bush-Cheney dominated corporate media, would the students be exposed to what Bennish told them, with qualifications at the end of his remarks. The "balance" is already all around these students, to offset the influence of the ideas that Bennish introduced.

Should the student and his father kept the recording "in house", submitted to the high school's administraion. Did Bennish offer an "unbalanced" set of ideas to his students, as if in a vacuum? Did Bennish mislead his students?