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

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?

guy44 · 03-04-2006, 01:19 PM

Boy, I don't know. I mean, I'm as anti-Bush as you get, but I don't really think teachers should be spouting off like that to students in class. Is it suspension-worthy? Tough to say. I can see arguments on both sides.

On the other hand, if a teacher talks about how great our President is, and how we should respect him, and how honorable he is, blah blah blah, there's never going to be a suspension. How come only someone criticizing the Prez will get in trouble?

But the teacher still shouldn't have spouted off like that.

dlish · 03-04-2006, 01:29 PM

i wonder if the same would have happened if the roles were reversed and a pro bush teacher spoke his mind.

peoples opinions are skewed towards one opinion or another whether we like to think so or not. to lose your job over voicing your interpretation is not reason enough to lose your teaching position.

im getting eery reminders of the SS police and gestapo in hitlers Germany.... maybe he's right after all...

aberkok · 03-04-2006, 01:38 PM

Even those that consider themselves to be on the "left" are gonna go after this guy. None of us wants to admit that the system (capitalism) that keeps our bellies full and our houses warm isn't working for the great majority of the earth's population.

Sometimes I think free speech is only free until the right group of people get pissed off.

Lebell · 03-04-2006, 01:47 PM

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

The guy was preaching his politics in a way that he knew was against district policy.

Some one said what if he was pro bush, but that begs the "what if" question. I can pose alot of "what-if's", but it seems the only real question is a) is the policy fair and b) did he violate it.

Yes and yes.

Willravel · 03-04-2006, 02:04 PM

Not all stories have 'balance', so that requirement of the teaching having balance from the spokeswoman is really unreasonable (read: ABSURD). How many times has a HS teacher taught both sides of the story on Hitler and the final solution? There are two sides, but one side is Nazi propoganda that teaches that there was no holocaust and that the Jews are evil and unworthy of life, and has no place in schools. This is the same thing. "harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq" are truths, and therefore the children should be exposed to them. All they get all day on the idiot media channels is the "other side" of the argument. This teacher is trying to teach, so let him teach.

Shame on a system that forces teachers to filter the truth from students. This is why Bush was elected in the first place.

host · 03-04-2006, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlishsguy

i wonder if the same would have happened if the roles were reversed and a pro bush teacher spoke his mind.

peoples opinions are skewed towards one opinion or another whether we like to think so or not. to lose your job over voicing your interpretation is not reason enough to lose your teaching position.

im getting eery reminders of the SS police and gestapo in hitlers Germany.... maybe he's right after all...

I look forward to posts of articles that report on teachers losing or advancing their careers by promoting Bush, Capitalism, official U.S. Foreign or Domestic policies, the justification for the invasion of Iraq, warrantless searches, justification for a torture "exemption" for Gitmo, justification of a secret CIA network of foreign prisons, making tax cuts permanent, prayer in school, Christian centric agendas, or statements that are anti-democratic party candidates or political issues, anti-choice.....etc.

In the meantime.....a consolation is that teachers who lose their jobs because of the one-sided politically influenced policies in the "heartland", are winning some nice legal settlements:
(The anecdotes about the parents concern me more than the agenda of the dominant political forces.)

Quote:

http://rawstory.com/admin/dbscripts/...php?story=1866
Educators face blowback for protesting Iraq war in schools
02/09/2006 @ 12:25 pm
Filed by Carlos Miller

Just over three years ago, as the nation readied for war with Iraq, elementary school teacher Deb Mayer stood in front of her class and uttered the word that would get her blacklisted from her profession.

It was a word that got her deemed “unpatriotic” by an angry parent. A word that led to her termination from the Bloomington, Indiana school district. A word that got her labeled as a potential sex offender and ruined her chances of finding work elsewhere.

That word was “peace.”

Today, after spending more than $50,000 in legal fees in a lawsuit against the Monroe County Community School Corporation, Mayer awaits a decision from a Reagan-appointed federal judge as to whether or not she will be granted a jury trial.

“If Judge [Sarah E.] Barker doesn’t grant us a jury trial, it would really be criminal,” Mayer said from her son’s home in Wisconsin, where she was forced to live after finding herself unable to support herself. “It means I would have spent all this money for nothing.”

Mayer is one of at least three teachers in the country who have filed lawsuits against their employers since the beginning of the war, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated after they were fired for what they said was an opposition to the war.

So far, one case has been settled out of court in favor of the teacher. In 2004, former New Mexico high school teacher Bill Nevins received a $205,000 settlement from the Rio Rancho School District. A year earlier, one of his students recited a poem over the school’s intercom system that questioned the war in Iraq. Nevins, a 10th-grade Humanities teacher, was also the coach of the Rio Rancho High School poetry team. His contract was terminated within months of the incident.

Professor says he was denied tenure for body count

In November 2005, Alan Temes, an assistant professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the college after he failed to get tenure. Temes said he would post the body count of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians next to a bulletin board filled with pro-military imagery, which included the words “Operation Iraqi Freedom” next to a picture of the burning twin towers.

In the lawsuit, Temes claims he was warned by the department chair that he would not get tenure if he continued posting the body count next to the pro-war bulletin board. His last day at the college is in May and he’s been looking for work for several months with no luck. He has no regrets about what he did.

“If you’re going to push the war, at least be aware that the count of Iraqi civilians is growing at a phenomenal rate,” Temes said. “I figured the American people need to know the facts. I didn’t think the mainstream press was doing enough of a job.”

In Mayer’s case, she says it was an article in Time Magazine for Kids that lead to her termination. In January 2003, she was teaching a Current Events class to fourth, fifth and sixth graders at Clear Creek Elementary School. They had been discussing the articles in the magazine, which dedicated an issue to the situation in Iraq. One student asked Mayer if she had ever participated in a peace march.

“I said that peace marches are going on all over the country and that whenever I pass the courthouse square where the demonstrators were, I honk for peace because they hold up signs that say honk for peace.”

That night, a sixth-grade student girl told her parents that Mayer was encouraging them to protest against the war, igniting a furor that Mayer said she'd never before experienced in her 20-year teaching career.

Three days later, the girl’s father showed up to the school for a meeting with Mayer and principal Victoria Rogers. Mayer explained that she had simply explained to the children that there are two sides to the story. When the father asked if she had any children in the military, she told him her son had recently enlisted. But that only seemed to antagonize him even further.

“He kept getting angrier and angrier,” she said. “He stood up and started pointing his finger in my face. I felt very threatened.”

The father turned to Rogers with a request.

“I want her to promise never the mention the word peace in her class again,” Mayer remembered him saying.

Rogers assured him that could be done, and Mayer reluctantly agreed never to mention the word “peace” in her class again.

“I wanted to calm the parent down,” she said. “I didn’t want to be insubordinate.”

Later that afternoon in a faculty meeting, Rogers circulated a memo announcing the cancellation of “Peace Month,” a traditional month-long series of activities beginning on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that taught children how to settle differences through mediation.

“She said that we can talk about war, but not about peace,” Mayer said. “That for now on, nobody is allowed to have a stance on the war.”

Rogers, who declined to go into specifics about Mayer’s case, said that Peace Month was never cancelled but that it “died a natural death.”

“We felt we were working on it all year round,” said Rogers, who has since retired as principal of the school. “We were already working on life skills throughout the year so it became incorporated into what we were doing every day.”

But Peace Month was scheduled to begin less than two weeks before she sent out the original memo on Jan. 13, 2003 announcing the cancellation of the five-year tradition. Over the next few months, as President Bush declared Mission Accomplished and the country became increasingly divided, the angry father rallied other parents against the teacher.

Complaint filed on sexual harrassment form

At least two parent complaints against Mayer were typed up on Title IX Sexual Discrimination and Harassment grievance documents and placed in her personnel file.

“There was no substance to it,” Mayer said. “This complaint was very mysterious. I never saw it until I was disposed (in September 2005).”

That likely explains why she had been unable to find work since losing her teaching job on the Gulf Coast of Florida in 2005, where she had been hired as a teacher in Boca Grande, an upscale community and long-time retreat for the Bush family.

Mayer, who is certified to be an administrator, applied to be a principal when a position came open within the Boca Grande school district. But when they checked on her references, the sexual harassment complaint came to light.

“I did not get the principal’s job. I got fired again,” she said.

Even though it was typed on an official sexual harassment document, the actual complaint against Mayer accused her of “harassing” children because she would put up her hand to silence a child if the child had interrupted a conversation between herself and another student.

“The parent had signed it, but nobody on the school administration has signed it,” she said. “When we tried to find out who did it, nobody admitted to it.”

She then found another complaint against her on the same sexual harassment form, this one accusing her of announcing to the class about a student’s medication. Mayer denies the allegation.

When Mayer’s attorney looked into why the complaints were typed up on Title IX forms, they told him they had been writing all complaints against teachers on the federal forms for a decade.

Mayer contacted the ACLU about her case three years ago, but was told to hire an attorney if she could afford it.

“At the time I could afford it, but now I’m out of money,” she said. And when Indiana author Kurt Vonnegut heard of her case, he contacted the Indiana chapter of the ACLU on her behalf, but they refused to intervene. If anything, history is on her side. Not only did the teacher in New Mexico receive a $205,000 settlement in 2004, but a Wisconsin teacher had a similar victory in 1991.

During the first war in Iraq, high school teacher and wrestling coach Jim Low, opposed plans for a ceremony supporting the war in Iraq to be held before a wrestling match. When the ceremony continued as planned, Low walked out of the building, delegating his coaching duties to an assistant. When his contract was terminated two months later, Low sued the Lakeland Union High School District in Minocqua, claiming his First Amendment free speech rights had been violated. He subsequently received a settlement of $140,000 from the northern Wisconsin school district.

If Judge Barker grants Mayer a trial by jury, it would begin on Mar. 6. “Usually they give you at least a month’s notice as a courtesy, but February 6th already passed and I haven’t heard anything,” she said. “So I’m still waiting to hear from her.”

Mayer said her case is such a clear cut example of a First Amendment violation that she can not comprehend why it has not already been settled. “At first, the contention of the school was that my speech wasn’t protected because the war in Iraq wasn’t a matter of public concern,” she said. “Then they changed their contention and said that my speech wasn’t protected because the classroom wasn’t a public forum.”

She believes small-town politics may play a role. The teacher’s union refused to help her; Mayer notes that the principal comes from an “old family” and that she was married to the former president of the union.

But others have kept her spirits up. Mayer says Howard Dean, whom she had volunteered for in 2004, has taken an interest in her case and checks up on it periodically. And the local Air America affiliate in Wisconsin has set up a legal fund to help Mayer raise money for her court battle.

“If the judge rules against me, she will be saying that a teacher doesn’t have a right to free speech at school,” Mayer said. “If the classroom is not a public forum, then a teacher has no right to free speech.”

Correction: The first edition of this article incorrectly described the bulletin board at Temes' school. It contained imagery of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' not Saddam Hussein.

docbungle · 03-04-2006, 03:59 PM

A teacher spouting personal political beliefs at the students is not acceptable. Not in a geography class. If you won't accept religious tirades in the classroom, then how can you accept this?

Elphaba · 03-04-2006, 04:15 PM

I haven't listened to the recording, but I would like to ask those that have whether the lecture was within the context of a geography class?

Seaver · 03-04-2006, 08:59 PM

Geography =! Politics class.

It had no relevancy to what he was SUPPOSED to be teaching.

He was preaching in a manner that made no positive traction. You wont be able to have a debate with someone who says Bush = Hitler as proven here until said statement is ignored or retracted (notice it's never retracted?).

Good he's fired. If he had said Hilery = Hitler would you honestly be so against this?

Elphaba · 03-05-2006, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Geography =! Politics class.

It had no relevancy to what he was SUPPOSED to be teaching.

He was preaching in a manner that made no positive traction. You wont be able to have a debate with someone who says Bush = Hitler as proven here until said statement is ignored or retracted (notice it's never retracted?).

Good he's fired. If he had said Hilery = Hitler would you honestly be so against this?

Seaver, I am not following your line of thinking. Would you be so kind as to clarify your meaning?

Da Munk · 03-05-2006, 01:12 AM

It seems that the topic wasn't appropriate for the class, and even if it was that was a rant and not a lecture. He didn't encourage discussion, and the only questions he asked were answered by himself in a way that fit into his rant's agenda. He says that all he wanted to do was encourage them to think about the topics, but this was a poor way to do it and no matter how he qualified it he was most certainly taking a position.

I don't know that a suspension was an appropriate punishment, but he definitely should have been talked to and encouraged to make his lessons more constructive.

scout · 03-05-2006, 04:01 AM

Amazingly, I live very near and go to work daily in Bloomington and I've never heard of the Mayer situation. Undoubtedly, there is more to the story than is being told because traditionally Bloomington and Monroe County in general are very liberal and a given to vote Democratic in every election. With a major liberal arts college [Indiana University] in town you could expect nothing less. Nevertheless, politics aren't why we send our children to school, particularly grade school. No wonder our schools are trailing the rest of the world in the core subjects, it seems our teachers are more worried about spewing political bullshit than teaching.

scout · 03-05-2006, 04:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

I haven't listened to the recording, but I would like to ask those that have whether the lecture was within the context of a geography class?

It was 20 minutes of how terrible we Americans are because of our capitalistic way of life and how justified they was to fly the planes into the WTC. You didn't miss a whole lot. The lecture, if you choose to call it that, would have been more suited towards a current affairs class rather than geography.

ratbastid · 03-05-2006, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

The guy was preaching his politics in a way that he knew was against district policy.

Some one said what if he was pro bush, but that begs the "what if" question. I can pose alot of "what-if's", but it seems the only real question is a) is the policy fair and b) did he violate it.

Yes and yes.

Actually, I'm not so sure the policy is fair. But he violated the policy, and that's enough for me. And I largely agree with the guy.

Now: the furor over this is absolutely ridiculous. It's a Bill O'Reilley war-on-Christmas-style manufactured right-wing news event. He didn't say Bush IS Hitler. He compared the content and tone of the two mens' speeches. He qualified his remarks He was careful not to speak as though his opinion was the absolute truth. This is getting turned into something it's not.

roachboy · 03-05-2006, 08:08 AM

actually, you could make a serious analytic argument about the similarities between the discourse of the american petit bourgeois right and its fascist antecedents...if i were going to do this myself, however, i would prefer to do it in an upper-level university undergraduate seminar so i could assign some texts along side it so as to provide maximum intepretative latitude for the students.

the standard text for discourse analysis of fascism is jean-pierre faye's "le discours totalitaire"--which i think is in english, but i am not sure---it is a word count-base statistical modelling experiment geared toward outlining the constants in fascist speech.

another, shorter work that repeats the same operations, but which relies on faye to define/weight terms is pierre bourdieu's "the political ontology of martin heidegger"--which is a very interesting book that tries to argue for a correlation between the conceptual development in being and tmie and heidegger's attraction to--and recycling of---elements drawn from national socialist discourse. the argument=that rehearsing the discourse has effects that are recapitulated (unwittingly?) in heidegger's philosophical work.

i think that contemporary america nconservative discourse--the stuff you run into on right media--is a variant of fascism.
period.
this does not include all positions that would identify as conservative, nor does it mean that everyone who uses that discourse is necessarily a fascist---rather, the discourse itself--its mode of staging signifiers, its choices regarding central questions that are used to define all others, etc. is squarely within a fascist tradition. most political discourses that try to elevate the notion of nation/community/"us" to a transcendent register and then to operationalize a continuous process of reinforcing a sense of belonging by defining and excluding an enemy that is within and without, etc. would fall under that rubric. fascism is simply a variant of nationalism that elevates the notion of nation to a transcendent status. bushspeech is all about that. so it all contemporary convservative media discourse.

but this is why i find the bush=hitler thing to be simpleminded.
superficial and hyperbolic, all it does is enable the folk who really SHOULD worry about the degree to which their politics are shaped by an avatar of fascism to dismiss the entire question.

on the other hand, it is sometimes clear that what the extreme right in the states hates is the word fascism, not the fact of it.

as for the topic raised in the op--i am ambivalent on this. for the most part, i deplore the action of the population of this town. on the other hand, i think you need to be much more careful than this guy was in framing the questions he wanted to address.
the question only gets worse if you are careful about how to set it up.
and it is always better to present information to students, let them fight with it and work out interpretations for themselvs based on actual information than it is to simply tell them stuff from the lect-urn.

filtherton · 03-05-2006, 08:35 AM

Eh, i don't think he lied, except for maybe being unclear as to how america is the most violent nation on the earth. I don't know if politics is outside the scope of a geography class; clearly the two subjects are inherently connected.

Seaver · 03-05-2006, 10:18 AM

What dont you follow?

The fact you cant have a discussion with someone who views the WTC as a legitimate military target? That these rants would create a hostile learning environment in the same way as attempting to legitimize slavery in a music class... topics that have nothing to do with each other like his geography class.

The fact that he openly and willingly broke the school code. The fact that kids dont just record their teachers, which says this was a daily occurance.

What dont you get?

Elphaba · 03-05-2006, 11:20 AM

I don't get this:

Quote:

Good he's fired. If he had said Hilery = Hitler would you honestly be so against this?

Seaver · 03-05-2006, 12:09 PM

If a teacher broke the rules by creating a hostile learning environment by arguing Hillery = Hitler would you be so against her being fired? He's not teaching anything to these children, he's sure as hell not teaching Geography which is what he's paid for.

Willravel · 03-05-2006, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The fact you cant have a discussion with someone who views the WTC as a legitimate military target? That these rants would create a hostile learning environment in the same way as attempting to legitimize slavery in a music class... topics that have nothing to do with each other like his geography class.

Quote:

ge·og·ra·phy (jē-ŏg'rə-fē)
The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity.

Read: the effects of human activity. Capitolism, terrorism, politics...all are effects of human activity.

The most hostile learning environment of all is one of limited information and maximum control. Learing is about the whole story...about full truth and the exploration of said truth. My little brothers text book states that the war in Iraq was over weapons that WE FOUND. There must be a counter point to this absurdity. This teacher is one such counterpoint. Is it an extreme counterpoint? That depends on your perspective. I don't think so. You do. Why not let the kids decide for themselves? BTW, of course the WTC was a legitimate target for terrorists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The fact that he openly and willingly broke the school code. The fact that kids dont just record their teachers, which says this was a daily occurance.

What dont you get?

The fact is that the school code is dangerous. There are two sides to every story, and this teacher was covering one side. I would have killed for a teacher like this back in HS. I only had one teacher willing to level with us about political and social reality, and he was my AP physics teacher. I don't know crap about physics today, but what he taught has helped me immensly in my development.

Charlatan · 03-05-2006, 12:52 PM

My issue is more this: OK, he may have broke school board policy. Was this the first time?

If the board felt so strongly that he was out of line they should have addressed the issue of balance. Suspending him is the equivalent of sticking their heads in the sand. Have him reassess his lesson and make a lesson of the whole incident. Why did this reaction occur compared to that reaction? Why do some feel it was supporting the "liberal" stance vs. a "conservative" stance. What are the bias at play in any discussion. How does the media effect the public discourse. Hopefully you can see where this is going...

Instead of just trying to "hush it up" address it head on. We want classrooms full of critical thinkers. Students that can look at all the many colours of the political spectrum and appreciate it like the colour wheel (able to mix colours to make new ones) --- have I stretched this analogy too far?

Having listened to what he said, it wasn't that far off. Bush, and many other politicians have used the kind of rhetoric and PR manipulation that Hitler and his cronies used to win and hold power in Wiemar Germany.

He clearly made the point that he was not saying Hitler=Bush. That would be a facile comparison by any stretch. He also makes some valid criticisms of capitolism and democracy. Pure capitolism is heartless. Democratic nations can and are violent.

His only fault was in the assumption of the counter argument or context. Capitolism is not so heartless when tempered with laws, regulation and a good dose of democracy. Democaratic nations can also be quite peaceful.

It was a poorly taught lesson at worst. No need to suspend.

host · 03-05-2006, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

My issue is more this: OK, he may have broke school board policy. Was this the first time?

Earlier, I solicited feedback here:

Quote:

..I look forward to posts of articles that report on teachers losing or advancing their careers by promoting Bush, Capitalism, official U.S. Foreign or Domestic policies, the justification for the invasion of Iraq, warrantless searches, justification for a torture "exemption" for Gitmo, justification of a secret CIA network of foreign prisons, making tax cuts permanent, prayer in school, Christian centric agendas, or statements that are anti-democratic party candidates or political issues, anti-choice.....etc.

I've seen nothing posted yet, but it's still possible......

Sorry, Charlatan, on edit, I now see that I misread your question. Now I realize that your asking specifically about Jay Bennish's "record".

We discussed David Horowitz driven legislative intended to control the
ideas that college professors discuss with students here, just over a
year ago, at this link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=83340

After my posts related to Horowitz's "resume", no one posted any
counter arguments on that thread, in support of Horowitz.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=21
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=32

Horowitz has renewed his PR campaign for his efforts to discredit tenured professors
by portraying them as "un-American" "terrorist sympathizers".

Quote:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200603030013
.......On the March 2 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, right-wing activist David Horowitz claimed that "[t]here are 50,000 professors" who are "anti-American" and "identify with the terrorists." Horowitz, the president of Students for Academic Freedom and a proponent of an "Academic Bill of Rights" for American universities, is the author of The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery, January 2006).

According to statistics from the Department of Education, there are just over 400,000 tenured and tenure-track full-time university professors* in the United States. If Horowitz's numbers are accurate, that means approximately one out of every eight tenured or tenure-track college and university professors is a terrorist sympathizer.........

Horowitz is just one cog in a larger effort to control dissenting free speech in the entire country,
conducted as "official policy" by our highest elected and appointed federal officials, compared to the state
of official interference before Jan. 20, 2001, in the process of Americans routinely speaking their minds without government retribution.

Quote:

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/app...603040305/1014
U.S. mustn't forget about openness and honesty

......If there are any doubts about the administration's hard-line stance on government-employee speech, its brief in a case before the Supreme Court should dispel them. The case, Garcetti vs. Ceballos, presents the question of whether the First Amendment protects job-related speech, even when it is a matter of public concern. The solicitor general, on behalf of the United States, argues that it does not.

Ironically, while government officials suppress speech and punish criticism by others, they are greatly expanding the boundaries of their own speech.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flayed the U.S. press for getting in the way of such Pentagon initiatives as planting articles in the Iraqi press, hiring private contractors to influence information in Iraq and elsewhere and engaging in disinformation operations.

Noting how "our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age," Rumsfeld called for even more aggressive information dissemination operations in the form of a "strategic communications framework."

And while the Pentagon targets foreign audiences, other federal agencies target American citizens.

The Government Accountability Office reported last week that in two and a half years, seven agencies spent $1.6 billion on media and advertising, including government-produced video news releases that both the GAO and Congress labeled "covert propaganda."

These developments, combined with aggressive tactics for withholding information from Congress, the courts, scholars, historians, the press and the people, represent a sea change in the information policies that have sustained and vitalized our democracy for more than two centuries.

This new climate of fear and intimidation is discouraging the very words that drive democratic decision-making in the right direction.

The authors of these policies appear to have thought neither long nor hard about the long-term consequences of such policies. The implications for good government and democracy, as well as the First Amendment, are profound.

A strategy of withholding, manipulating and distorting information to control and defeat our enemies works also to mislead and control allies and citizens alike.

Moreover, we are careening dangerously toward an information environment that not only punishes dissenters and critics but those who are insufficiently laudatory......

Paul K. McMasters is First Amendment ombudsman at the First Amendment Center, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va., 22209. He can be reached via e-mail at pmcmasters@fac.org.

Originally published March 4, 2006

The signifigance of the following opinion piece is that it is authored by an instructor at
a conservative, private Christian University located in the POTUS "home" state. The piece is
published in the campus newspaper of that University. Is this an inappropriate communication for
the instructor to students at the university? Is the wave of anger and frustration growing too big
for "counter-measures" like those on display from Horowitz, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, to contain it?

Quote:

http://www.smudailycampus.com/vnews/.../4407c90dc82c2
No time for jokes

By George Henson, ghenson@smu.edu
March 03, 2006

Someone who reads my columns regularly told me this week that I needed to re-inject humor into my writing. He argued that in past columns I had occasionally used levity to make my columns more entertaining and approachable.

Someone else this week asked me why I was so angry. “Because there’s a lot to be angry about, or haven’t you been paying attention?” I responded.

Try as I might, I can’t think of anything funny to say about what’s happening to our country. And, honestly, I am angry — very angry. Our country is being ripped apart and raped by a criminal enterprise that makes Jesse James look like Barney Fife. (Does that qualify as a joke?)

In the meantime, diehard Bush supporters (who would eat crap on a cracker if Bush told them it was caviar) ignore the $8 billion dollar elephant in the room: The Dubai Ports World deal is being pushed through because it’s good for the Bush family and everyone associated with it.

Maybe the handful of Americans who still trust Bush (the most recent poll has his overall approval rating at a record-low 34 percent) haven’t read that the UAE invested billions of dollars in the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment firm from whom Bush Sr. earns millions of dollars in consulting fees.

They also ignore the fact that our own intelligence suggests the UAE may be infiltrated by al-Qaeda, just as they ignore the dangerous irony that the UAE is incapable of stopping nuclear components from being smuggled through their own ports to Iran.

I could go on, but I’m not sure how much anyone cares.

I suppose that’s another reason I’m angry: I just can’t understand how so many Americans allowed themselves to be duped into voting against their own interest — not once, but twice.........

.....Do I sound angry? I hope so. It’s time for more people to get angry. It’s time for everyone who thinks our economy is being bankrupted, that our future is being mortgaged and that our national interests are being betrayed, to get angry.

It’s time to stop letting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity — and the rest of the bloviating idiots who pollute our airwaves with toxic rhetoric — define public debate and characterize anyone who disagrees with this administration as unpatriotic.

It’s time for those who have been lulled to sleep or into a false sense of security by this administration’s propaganda arm or lapsed into a coma of political indifference to wake up and take part in the democracy that is eroding under their noses.

The 18th-century Anglo-Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke is attributed with having said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” That aphorism should serve as a trumpet call for everyone who’s worried about the direction in which our country is headed.

Burke also said, “They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.” If you’re worried about the country your children will inherit, don’t you think it’s time to stop defending Bush’s errors?

Yes, I’m angry. And there’s not anything funny I can think of to say about it.

George Henson is a lecturer of Spanish. He may be reached at ghenson@smu.edu.

host · 03-05-2006, 01:28 PM

Here are Poll resutls on the local Denver CBS TV website, as to the question of whether Jay Bennish Should be fired because of his controversial remarks "about President Bush", to his class:

http://cbs4denver.com/local/polls_poll_061105430

The results are currently 72% to 20%. I'll leave it to you to check out/vote...... the poll for yourselves.

smooth · 03-06-2006, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Geography =! Politics class.

It had no relevancy to what he was SUPPOSED to be teaching.

He was preaching in a manner that made no positive traction. You wont be able to have a debate with someone who says Bush = Hitler as proven here until said statement is ignored or retracted (notice it's never retracted?).

Good he's fired. If he had said Hilery = Hitler would you honestly be so against this?

I'm glad this question has been brought up a few times.
The truth of the matter is this was not a "geography" class.
It's a world geography class, or human geography class.
The syllabus explains this is a political-geography class. It's about how to situation our notions of place within the human context. This class is not the kind of geography class many of you seem to be thinking of when you write these comments and questions. It's not about learning the capitols of places. It's an AP (advanced placement, college credit) geography/politics class. Many other courses are becoming what are called "synthesis" courses, and hopefully people begin to understand this before they get upset about these new biology/law, chemistry/ethics, geography/politics and etc. courses.

nezmot · 03-06-2006, 10:08 AM

America sounds like a scary place to live in at the moment.

djtestudo · 03-06-2006, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nezmot

America sounds like a scary place to live in at the moment.

Because people who break the rules are punished?

Willravel · 03-06-2006, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djtestudo

Because people who break the rules are punished?

I suspect it has more to do with the response than the rule brreaking. As Charlatan mentioned before, the best response to this was not to suspend the teacher. The better response was to allow the children to think for themselves.

Seaver · 03-06-2006, 07:11 PM

Quote:

The better response was to allow the children to think for themselves.

The kid did think for himself. He decided that his teacher was creating a hostile learning environment and did the correct thing, he reported it to the principal. That's what you do with teachers who are out of line.

matthew330 · 03-06-2006, 09:31 PM

For me this is a very comforting thread. When the most critical the left can get over this particular situation is a few paragraphs of neoconservative thought from a book written in french, but perhaps english, follwed by..

"i think you need to be much more careful than this guy was in framing the questions he wanted to address"

Or "Hey it's an AP class, not your typical geography class." (Sad to think your comfortable with this character having the responsibility of guiding our "advanced" students)

...the politics board here makes quite a bit of sense. The predominant view of the world on this board is clearly not reflective of this country in general. Perhaps the reason this mentality finds it's home here. What i find comfort in is the fact that the only people who will ever take yourselves seriously, are yourselves. You guys put alot of effort into it though, I'll give you that.

Willravel · 03-06-2006, 09:35 PM

The predominant stance on many subjects in Tilted Politics may not acurately reflect the average stance of the US, but it does go along well enough with world view...and that fact shoudl carry at least some weight whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or authoritarian.

I'd really like to hear all the students thoughts on what happnened, both what the teacher said, and how the situation was dealt with.

matthew330 · 03-06-2006, 09:45 PM

"The predominant stance on many subjects in Tilted Politics may not acurately reflect the average stance of the US, but it does go along well enough with world view...and that fact shoudl carry at least some weight whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or authoritarian. "

Touche, I have some thoughts on this, but I'll defer the threadjack - and the additional 2 day vaction.

host · 03-06-2006, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

For me this is a very comforting thread. When the most critical the left can get over this particular situation is a few paragraphs of neoconservative thought from a book written in french, but perhaps english, follwed by..

"i think you need to be much more careful than this guy was in framing the questions he wanted to address"........

...the politics board here makes quite a bit of sense. The predominant view of the world on this board is clearly not reflective of this country in general. Perhaps the reason this mentality finds it's home here. What i find comfort in is the fact that the only people who will ever take yourselves seriously, are yourselves. You guys put alot of effort into it though, I'll give you that.

What a coincidence, matthew330, because I read something just 24 hours ago that left me with the exact opposite opinion than you posted. I know that you are wrong, because it is easy to see that the high water mark of the tide of sentiment and an ideology that tolerated no dissent of "official policy", the tide that bestowed on Bush a <a href="http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/pollkatzmainGRAPHICS_8911_image001.gif">70 percent approval rating</a>, and was stong enough to boot off Phil Donahue and intimidate the Dixie Chicks by attempting to destroy demand for their music CD's and concert tickets because they dare to speak out against Bush....that tide is now at a low ebb, and all that is left is the stench that comes with low tide...the rotten things that are revealed, the things that Jay Bennish exposed his students to. The balance that was concealed by the deliberate intimidation of the corporatists in charge. Adjust to the shift in the tide. Hollywood producers saw that it was beginning...three years ago, and they bet money on it.

A guy that I've come to admire for the clarity of his writing much of the time, wrote about the climate in the USA around the time of the Oscar awards, <a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2003_03_23_digbysblog_archive.html#91308807">three years ago...</a>

Quote:

.....So, when I watched the Oscars last night, something I normally enjoy and go out of my way to see, I was just hoping for someone to say something heartfelt about peace. I was actually hoping that a lot of them would say something about peace --- not necessarily in the political sense, but in the universal value sense. Instead, sadly, most of them just pretended that nothing was happening.

But a few -- foreigners mostly -- did say some words about peace. Almodovar said, “I also want to dedicate this award to all the people that are raising their voices in favor of peace, respect of human rights, democracy and international legality....

....But then Adrian Brody, the guy nobody expected to win, came up and let himself be human and emotional --- for his win, naturally, but also because of the the nature of the role he was being rewarded for playing. He said:

“My experiences of making <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/">this film</a> made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people at times of war,” he said. “Whatever you believe in, if it’s God or Allah, may he watch over you and let’s pray for a peaceful and swift resolution.”

....and he wrote the following at Oscar awards time, this year:

Quote:

<a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114161044297679460">Three Years Later by Digby<a/>

Three years ago. And I am now desensitized to the images I wrote about in the beginning of that post, the war images and the pictures of death. And new awful images have come and gone since then. I now argue with people about whether it is acceptable to torture -- a concept that would have been completely foreign to me three years ago. I would just as easily have believed we would be arguing about whether it is acceptable to molest children. I now accept that the president and his administration truly and deeply believe they are above the law, something I would have scoffed at not five years ago after the endless bellowing from the right during the Great Clinton Panty raid.

On the other hand, a lot has changed. Bush was a colossus, then. His approval rating was <a href="http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/pollkatzmainGRAPHICS_8911_image001.gif">around 70%</a>. The Dixie Chick boycott had just hit the news. It was a difficult time for dissent as I'm sure you all recall. The pressure on the media was perhaps exemplified most starkly by this:

<a href="http://www.allyourtv.com/0203season/news/02252003donahue.html">A leaked in-house report</a> said Phil Donahue's show would present a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." The problem: "He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The danger --- quickly averted by NBC --- was that the show could become "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

The good old days. How nice then to realize that this year's crop of socially conscious and politically themed movies must have been green-lighted right around that time. It usually takes between 18 months and forever to get a movie done. Therefore, while I was fretting about the movies losing their political voice because nobody spoke out at the Oscars, Hollywood was quietly setting about speaking out in a much more powerful way: through its art.

People can't stop talking about how "unsuccessful" all the movies were this year and that everybody wants to watch nothing but re-makes of "the Sound of Music." (<a href="http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/03/hix_nix_crix_pi.php">See Wolcott</a> for a quick dispatch of that braindead trope.) But the truth is that all these movies succeeded as art, as politics and as popular works on their own terms. Hollywood made these films that are nominated this year because the artists involved had something to say, but they also made them for money. All of them were profitable, which is more than we can say for overpriced behemoths like that piece of shit "The Alamo" which lost 113 million or "Sahara" which lost 75 million and counting.

Perhaps it sounds silly to say that it took courage to make these movies, but I think it did. <h3>That night three years ago when I was watching the Oscars, I wondered if the new Republican reality would be with us forever. The shallow, fatcat, money grubbing studios made a bet that three years later this country would come to its senses and reject that awful craziness.</h3> Damned if they weren't right. Bush and the Republicans are in deep, deep shit today, Iraq is a mess, race is once again a hot topic and the cause of civil rights marches on. Maybe those guys and gals are worth the ridiculous sums of money they are paid to predict the zeitgeist after all.

nezmot · 03-07-2006, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Because people who break the rules are punished?

No, I find it scary that a man can potentially loose his job because of his political views.

nezmot · 03-07-2006, 06:42 AM

What's even scaryer is that the stuff he was saying sounds like a well rationed, non biased critique on the current situation. No rules broken at all.

And still the mob got its way.

nezmot · 03-07-2006, 06:45 AM

And all because one man tried to get his class to "think about these issues more in-depth."

Isn't that what education is?

Or perhaps we should rename the American Education System to the American Indoctrination System?

Charlatan · 03-07-2006, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The kid did think for himself. He decided that his teacher was creating a hostile learning environment and did the correct thing, he reported it to the principal. That's what you do with teachers who are out of line.

As we now know, the kid didn't take it to the principal. He took it home and his father arranged for him to take it to a talk radio station.

There never was a complaint to the school or the school board.

Also left out was the part of the lesson where the teacher turn it back on the students and asked them to refute his position.

The school board buckled under unfavourable criticism from a talk radio station.

Nothing like taking out of context comments and then fucking with a man's career. If the kid had a problem the appropriate venue for his complaint, I agree, should be the principal.

Seaver · 03-07-2006, 07:45 AM

Quote:

No, I find it scary that a man can potentially loose his job because of his political views.

No he potentially lost his job not because of the way he voted, but by doing something other than what he is paid to do.

Quote:

And all because one man tried to get his class to "think about these issues more in-depth."

Isn't that what education is?

Or perhaps we should rename the American Education System to the American Indoctrination System?

Thinking about issues more in depth is one thing. There are MANY topics in the geopolitical world in which would be a better solution to talk about.

Talking about how the WTC was a legitimate military target and implying that everyone in the class who supports Bush are brown shirt nazi's is NOT a good way to begin conversations. That is what he was doing when he was so "innocently" making kids think in depth.

Look you can argue what you want to believe. The fact of the matter is starting a political conversation does not begin with attacks on the other person. The fact is in a geography AP class (I took them just a couple years ago) there are MANY more legitimate and useful discussions one can use.

I.E. talk about the geo-political split in the country between conservative and liberal. Discuss stronghold regions and why they are so. Arguing that the WTC deserved to be bombed does. Now... one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong. Can you guess which?

Reminds me of when we had a teacher move down from Mass. and started out a discussion about slavery by first pointing to all the white kids in class and saying "your great grandparents did this, your wealth only exists off the backs of these poor slaves". And people wonder why the south tends to be hostile to Yanks.

nezmot · 03-07-2006, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Talking about how the WTC was a legitimate military target and implying that everyone in the class who supports Bush are brown shirt nazi's is NOT a good way to begin conversations. That is what he was doing when he was so "innocently" making kids think in depth.

But that's not what he said - please go back and re-read the transcript and come back once you've comprehended it.

If you're not able to do that, I'll help. It's quite simple. I'll bold in the parts that show that he was putting over a different point of view. It's quite a subtle distinction, let's see if you're able to understand what that means...

Here's the WTC text (copied from above - my emphasis)

Quote:

"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. . . ."

Does that make things a bit easier?

reconmike · 03-07-2006, 08:26 AM

What if this teacher just happened to spout off how bad abortion is? How wrong it is to take a fetus while in the womb?
Or how about how violent the muslim religion is?
Would the same results occur? And if so how up in arms would the left stringers be? Would the ACLU jump right in? Think they would be fighting for this man's job?
I think not, he got what was coming to him just like if he was to spout off about any other subject that was frowned upon in school policy.

03-04-2006, 01:19 PM	#2 (permalink)
guy44 Somnabulist Location: corner of No and Where	Boy, I don't know. I mean, I'm as anti-Bush as you get, but I don't really think teachers should be spouting off like that to students in class. Is it suspension-worthy? Tough to say. I can see arguments on both sides. On the other hand, if a teacher talks about how great our President is, and how we should respect him, and how honorable he is, blah blah blah, there's never going to be a suspension. How come only someone criticizing the Prez will get in trouble? But the teacher still shouldn't have spouted off like that. __________________ "You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

03-04-2006, 01:29 PM	#3 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	i wonder if the same would have happened if the roles were reversed and a pro bush teacher spoke his mind. peoples opinions are skewed towards one opinion or another whether we like to think so or not. to lose your job over voicing your interpretation is not reason enough to lose your teaching position. im getting eery reminders of the SS police and gestapo in hitlers Germany.... maybe he's right after all... __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

03-04-2006, 01:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
aberkok “Wrong is right.” Location: toronto	Even those that consider themselves to be on the "left" are gonna go after this guy. None of us wants to admit that the system (capitalism) that keeps our bellies full and our houses warm isn't working for the great majority of the earth's population. Sometimes I think free speech is only free until the right group of people get pissed off. __________________ !check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

03-04-2006, 01:47 PM	#5 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	Seems pretty clear cut to me. The guy was preaching his politics in a way that he knew was against district policy. Some one said what if he was pro bush, but that begs the "what if" question. I can pose alot of "what-if's", but it seems the only real question is a) is the policy fair and b) did he violate it. Yes and yes. __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

03-04-2006, 03:59 PM	#8 (permalink)
docbungle It's all downhill from here Location: Denver	A teacher spouting personal political beliefs at the students is not acceptable. Not in a geography class. If you won't accept religious tirades in the classroom, then how can you accept this? __________________ Bad Luck City

03-04-2006, 02:04 PM	#6 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Not all stories have 'balance', so that requirement of the teaching having balance from the spokeswoman is really unreasonable (read: ABSURD). How many times has a HS teacher taught both sides of the story on Hitler and the final solution? There are two sides, but one side is Nazi propoganda that teaches that there was no holocaust and that the Jews are evil and unworthy of life, and has no place in schools. This is the same thing. "harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq" are truths, and therefore the children should be exposed to them. All they get all day on the idiot media channels is the "other side" of the argument. This teacher is trying to teach, so let him teach. Shame on a system that forces teachers to filter the truth from students. This is why Bush was elected in the first place.

03-04-2006, 04:15 PM	#9 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	I haven't listened to the recording, but I would like to ask those that have whether the lecture was within the context of a geography class?

03-04-2006, 08:59 PM	#10 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Geography =! Politics class. It had no relevancy to what he was SUPPOSED to be teaching. He was preaching in a manner that made no positive traction. You wont be able to have a debate with someone who says Bush = Hitler as proven here until said statement is ignored or retracted (notice it's never retracted?). Good he's fired. If he had said Hilery = Hitler would you honestly be so against this?

03-05-2006, 01:12 AM	#12 (permalink)
Da Munk Crazy	It seems that the topic wasn't appropriate for the class, and even if it was that was a rant and not a lecture. He didn't encourage discussion, and the only questions he asked were answered by himself in a way that fit into his rant's agenda. He says that all he wanted to do was encourage them to think about the topics, but this was a poor way to do it and no matter how he qualified it he was most certainly taking a position. I don't know that a suspension was an appropriate punishment, but he definitely should have been talked to and encouraged to make his lessons more constructive.

03-05-2006, 04:01 AM	#13 (permalink)
scout Psycho	Amazingly, I live very near and go to work daily in Bloomington and I've never heard of the Mayer situation. Undoubtedly, there is more to the story than is being told because traditionally Bloomington and Monroe County in general are very liberal and a given to vote Democratic in every election. With a major liberal arts college [Indiana University] in town you could expect nothing less. Nevertheless, politics aren't why we send our children to school, particularly grade school. No wonder our schools are trailing the rest of the world in the core subjects, it seems our teachers are more worried about spewing political bullshit than teaching.

03-05-2006, 08:08 AM	#16 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	actually, you could make a serious analytic argument about the similarities between the discourse of the american petit bourgeois right and its fascist antecedents...if i were going to do this myself, however, i would prefer to do it in an upper-level university undergraduate seminar so i could assign some texts along side it so as to provide maximum intepretative latitude for the students. the standard text for discourse analysis of fascism is jean-pierre faye's "le discours totalitaire"--which i think is in english, but i am not sure---it is a word count-base statistical modelling experiment geared toward outlining the constants in fascist speech. another, shorter work that repeats the same operations, but which relies on faye to define/weight terms is pierre bourdieu's "the political ontology of martin heidegger"--which is a very interesting book that tries to argue for a correlation between the conceptual development in being and tmie and heidegger's attraction to--and recycling of---elements drawn from national socialist discourse. the argument=that rehearsing the discourse has effects that are recapitulated (unwittingly?) in heidegger's philosophical work. i think that contemporary america nconservative discourse--the stuff you run into on right media--is a variant of fascism. period. this does not include all positions that would identify as conservative, nor does it mean that everyone who uses that discourse is necessarily a fascist---rather, the discourse itself--its mode of staging signifiers, its choices regarding central questions that are used to define all others, etc. is squarely within a fascist tradition. most political discourses that try to elevate the notion of nation/community/"us" to a transcendent register and then to operationalize a continuous process of reinforcing a sense of belonging by defining and excluding an enemy that is within and without, etc. would fall under that rubric. fascism is simply a variant of nationalism that elevates the notion of nation to a transcendent status. bushspeech is all about that. so it all contemporary convservative media discourse. but this is why i find the bush=hitler thing to be simpleminded. superficial and hyperbolic, all it does is enable the folk who really SHOULD worry about the degree to which their politics are shaped by an avatar of fascism to dismiss the entire question. on the other hand, it is sometimes clear that what the extreme right in the states hates is the word fascism, not the fact of it. as for the topic raised in the op--i am ambivalent on this. for the most part, i deplore the action of the population of this town. on the other hand, i think you need to be much more careful than this guy was in framing the questions he wanted to address. the question only gets worse if you are careful about how to set it up. and it is always better to present information to students, let them fight with it and work out interpretations for themselvs based on actual information than it is to simply tell them stuff from the lect-urn. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-05-2006, 08:35 AM	#17 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Eh, i don't think he lied, except for maybe being unclear as to how america is the most violent nation on the earth. I don't know if politics is outside the scope of a geography class; clearly the two subjects are inherently connected.

03-05-2006, 10:18 AM	#18 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	What dont you follow? The fact you cant have a discussion with someone who views the WTC as a legitimate military target? That these rants would create a hostile learning environment in the same way as attempting to legitimize slavery in a music class... topics that have nothing to do with each other like his geography class. The fact that he openly and willingly broke the school code. The fact that kids dont just record their teachers, which says this was a daily occurance. What dont you get?

03-05-2006, 12:09 PM	#20 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	If a teacher broke the rules by creating a hostile learning environment by arguing Hillery = Hitler would you be so against her being fired? He's not teaching anything to these children, he's sure as hell not teaching Geography which is what he's paid for.

03-05-2006, 12:52 PM	#22 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	My issue is more this: OK, he may have broke school board policy. Was this the first time? If the board felt so strongly that he was out of line they should have addressed the issue of balance. Suspending him is the equivalent of sticking their heads in the sand. Have him reassess his lesson and make a lesson of the whole incident. Why did this reaction occur compared to that reaction? Why do some feel it was supporting the "liberal" stance vs. a "conservative" stance. What are the bias at play in any discussion. How does the media effect the public discourse. Hopefully you can see where this is going... Instead of just trying to "hush it up" address it head on. We want classrooms full of critical thinkers. Students that can look at all the many colours of the political spectrum and appreciate it like the colour wheel (able to mix colours to make new ones) --- have I stretched this analogy too far? Having listened to what he said, it wasn't that far off. Bush, and many other politicians have used the kind of rhetoric and PR manipulation that Hitler and his cronies used to win and hold power in Wiemar Germany. He clearly made the point that he was not saying Hitler=Bush. That would be a facile comparison by any stretch. He also makes some valid criticisms of capitolism and democracy. Pure capitolism is heartless. Democratic nations can and are violent. His only fault was in the assumption of the counter argument or context. Capitolism is not so heartless when tempered with laws, regulation and a good dose of democracy. Democaratic nations can also be quite peaceful. It was a poorly taught lesson at worst. No need to suspend. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-05-2006, 01:28 PM	#24 (permalink)
host Banned	Here are Poll resutls on the local Denver CBS TV website, as to the question of whether Jay Bennish Should be fired because of his controversial remarks "about President Bush", to his class: http://cbs4denver.com/local/polls_poll_061105430 The results are currently 72% to 20%. I'll leave it to you to check out/vote...... the poll for yourselves.

03-06-2006, 10:08 AM	#26 (permalink)
nezmot Registered User	America sounds like a scary place to live in at the moment.

03-06-2006, 09:31 PM	#30 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	For me this is a very comforting thread. When the most critical the left can get over this particular situation is a few paragraphs of neoconservative thought from a book written in french, but perhaps english, follwed by.. "i think you need to be much more careful than this guy was in framing the questions he wanted to address" Or "Hey it's an AP class, not your typical geography class." (Sad to think your comfortable with this character having the responsibility of guiding our "advanced" students) ...the politics board here makes quite a bit of sense. The predominant view of the world on this board is clearly not reflective of this country in general. Perhaps the reason this mentality finds it's home here. What i find comfort in is the fact that the only people who will ever take yourselves seriously, are yourselves. You guys put alot of effort into it though, I'll give you that.

03-06-2006, 09:35 PM	#31 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	The predominant stance on many subjects in Tilted Politics may not acurately reflect the average stance of the US, but it does go along well enough with world view...and that fact shoudl carry at least some weight whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or authoritarian. I'd really like to hear all the students thoughts on what happnened, both what the teacher said, and how the situation was dealt with.

03-06-2006, 09:45 PM	#32 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	"The predominant stance on many subjects in Tilted Politics may not acurately reflect the average stance of the US, but it does go along well enough with world view...and that fact shoudl carry at least some weight whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or authoritarian. " Touche, I have some thoughts on this, but I'll defer the threadjack - and the additional 2 day vaction.

03-07-2006, 06:42 AM	#35 (permalink)
nezmot Registered User	What's even scaryer is that the stuff he was saying sounds like a well rationed, non biased critique on the current situation. No rules broken at all. And still the mob got its way.

03-07-2006, 06:45 AM	#36 (permalink)
nezmot Registered User	And all because one man tried to get his class to "think about these issues more in-depth." Isn't that what education is? Or perhaps we should rename the American Education System to the American Indoctrination System?

03-07-2006, 08:26 AM	#40 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	What if this teacher just happened to spout off how bad abortion is? How wrong it is to take a fetus while in the womb? Or how about how violent the muslim religion is? Would the same results occur? And if so how up in arms would the left stringers be? Would the ACLU jump right in? Think they would be fighting for this man's job? I think not, he got what was coming to him just like if he was to spout off about any other subject that was frowned upon in school policy. __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?