Posted on 03/07/2006 2:43:02 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
A high school social studies teacher who was put on leave after comparing President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler defended his lecture on Tuesday, saying he was trying to encourage students to think.
"My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society," Jay Bennish said on NBC's "Today Show."
Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora, Colo., while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints be presented in classes.
A student recorded at least part of the lecture in Bennish's world geography class and took it to a Denver radio station, which played parts of it on a talk show.
Bennish told "Today" the excerpts broadcast weren't representative of the full lecture.
"This is 20 minutes out of a 50-minute class. The rest of the class provides the balance," he said.
On the recording, Bennish told the students that some of Bush's speech "sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and our job is to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to."
Later in the recording, Bennish said he was not claiming Bush and Hitler were the same, "but there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."
Bennish said no parents - including the family of the student who recorded the lecture - have complained to him. He said all the students' parents had seen his syllabus and that school officials had approved it.
"My job as a social studies teacher is to argue alternative perspectives and viewpoints so that students are aware of those point of views. They do not necessarily reflect my own views. They are simply thrown out there to encourage critical thought," he told "Today."
How about if the students discuss the actions of Benedict Arnold and decide who in America is guilty of treason.
Mr. Bennish, your job is to teach Geography.
Contrasting Bush and Hitler IS NOT geography.
If you want to poursue this angle, see to it that you are transferred so you can teach a Current Events class.
The little boy teacher needs to be spanked, fired, and sent back to first grade to learn how to live with civilized people.
Perhaps he can teach how the fallacy of the Holocaust in Austria. /sarc
You may be a social studies teacher, but this was a high school World Geography class.
Wait... Air America is actually making enough money to hire more employees? O_o
Sean Allen's father was on Rosen's show, and said a number of older students who took Bennish's class in the past, are coming forward and volunteering to testify that Bennish did the same thing in their classes.
Anyone who wants to witness Marxism in action should look closely at the federally funded "Close Up" program which is a substitute for civics, history, and social studies, in some public schools.
This is an odd reading of the SOTU. I do not recall W speaking even those concepts let alone using those words. Apparently Bennish is lacking in the ability to comprehend the meaning of the spoken word. Perhaps he should stop teaching critical thinking until he has mastered the behavior of understanding English.
Surprise! Surprise! He defended his actions. I would love to see him when he tries to defend it to the School Board, he broke the District's policy.
I happen to make my own current events questions because the internet company we use has very bias questions. Take a look at a few of them.
Data analysis by the NYT's showed that the Bush administration worked at fostering a more cooperative relationship with WHAT industry and has decreased fines for safety violations?
Mining.
After all the security concerns surrounding President Bush's visit to Pakistan on Saturday, he was first hit by a bouncer then fooled by a googly. Explain.
President tried his hand at cricket.
In 1994 OJ Simpson was at 18% approval rating as WHAT politician today???
VP Cheney
The latest CBS News poll had WHAT percent of Americans now approving of the job President Bush is doing??? a) 34% b) 39% c) 44%
a, 34%
At 56% a year ago, what western governor is now at 37% and voters are not inclined to re-elect him?
Gov. Schwarznegger
Whose note to Dr James Dobson, the influential Christian conservative, thanking him for his support in his appointment and confirmation to his new job was passed off by his spokesperson as one of score written in response to letter of congratulations received?
Justice Alito
What West Coast city's Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 to ask their Democratic Congressional to pursue the impeachment of President Bush?
San Francisco, CA
The US and Britain are planning to pull all their troops out of Iraq by the Sping of what year , two British newspapers reported in their Sunday editions?? a) 2007 b) 2010 c) 2015
2007
see, i don't agree with you on the discussion of current events in a classroom. i think that kids are simply too uninformed nowadays about current events, and it's okay to talk current events in any class, AS LONG AS it is a DISCUSSION, rather than a diatribe or indoctrination such as this.
i would hope there would be no current events class, but rather that daily events would be something that people feel comfortable just discussing.
but the problem is, really, that so many teachers are not trustworthy, i am sad to observe. they use the classroom as a pulpit to impose their ideological preferences on their students.
heck, i don't even care if a teacher talks about ideological and political preferences to my kid, as long as it is qualified that there is an open mind about such discussions and NO ONE is made to feel inadequate/unworthy/stupid for taking an oppositional point of view. NO GRADE should be faulted for having a differing point of view than the teacher.
just my two cents.
This is the new teacher product of the liberal organization. This is what our children are being taught all over the country. This is what the Libs want our students to believe....hate our Country, hate our Government, be friends with terrorists, and live in freedom by voting to let our Military fight in wars to give them the freedom of 'having their cake and eating to' and as long as we let them do this, then it will go on..
What we need to do, is take back our schools, take back our Government and take back our Country and support our Military by NOT voting in any Liberals (dems); and taking people like crazy cindy, algore, jimmy carter, bill clinton, hilliary clinton, polski, reid, kennedy, kerry and the like and put them up for treason AFTER we have gotten them OUT OF OFFICE...
Sure they do. The coward just won't admit it. He'll say that stuff in front of a bunch of sixteen year olds, though.
These people have no shame.
At one point when Sean Allen challenged him, the teachers response was, "That is what they tell you."
tar + feathers + rail = justice
"They do not necessarily reflect my own views. They are simply thrown out there to encourage critical thought," he told "Today.""
All those who believe this raise your hands. LOL I didn't think so.
I understand the dirtbag got his hippie hair cut off. No doubt for all his media visits.
I guess he's going to play the hilldabeast card and become the victim in all this.
What a puke!!!
You've got to be kidding me..
"Human Geography"? I guess as opposed to animal geography?
Michael I am not kidding you. Every week the current events questions are like that. I don't have copies of them right now but will submit a few more of them tomorrow. It is just outrageous. Of course as I told you, I make up my own questions it takes a few extra hours but at least the questions are more balanced.
They make money?
2 words: George Soros.
Oh, yeah... so Err America is sucking cash out of George Soros's pockets while providing him minimum, if any, impact for his dollar? Hooray Err America! Run Soros straight into bankruptcy!
LOL. Googling the course title will demonstrate that this geography isn't the same kind of geography that most people would assume it to be. The course title is apparently interchangeable with "cultural geography".
Lesson is:
All kids should bring recorders to school, and expose bad teachers.
Works for me!
Maybe video cams, too. But the article said no parents had complained. I don't know anything about that area of Colorado. Liberal?
Bennish's lawyer was on Hannity the other day saying that the kid only taped 20 minutes of one class and this was not the norm for his classes.
The kids mom was on and said yes it was, the school had received numerous complaints about the guy and refused to do anything about him.
All schools at all levels (K-12, college, grad schools) should be private. Government should have no involvement in education. This would eliminate a huge tax burden, local, county, state and federal - perhaps 50% or more of State and local taxes in some areas. A new education industry would be created, allowing parents and students the freedom to pick schools based on convenience, price, needs, and quality. Schools of low quality, with poor teachers and facilities, would lose business to better schools. Teachers who teach idiocy would not be protected.
Wonder if any of the older students happen to recall what Bennish's opinion of the CLINTON administration might have been?
"The comments he made were very very damaging and very hurtful," Giuliani told a crowd of about 2,000 at the Coors Events Center.
"I think the remarks were extremely cruel," he told reporters "He inflicted a tremendous amount of pain on these families."
Giuliani compared Churchill being on CU's faculty to having a geography teacher who believed the world is flat.
"He's entitled to that opinion, but you don't want him to be teaching geography, do you," Giuliani said.
He wanted to teach his students to think so he lies to them? Is he claiming that he hoped his students would notice what he said Bush said in the SOTU address was factually incorrect.
The students also said that the class spent 20 percent of the time on geography.
The rest was generally ranting.
You sure this guy is a teacher? Seems to me he is a complete idiot and they should check his credentials a little closer.Too many of these a$$es are allowed to teach our children, and the schools don't, or won't, do anything about it.
He also supported Communist China or Peru bombing North Carolina... because they grew tobacco.
I believe the per capita number of minority people is higher in that area besides Denver central but I don't think that matters.
Personally, I went to Cherry Creek HS which is a sister school of Overland and I can't recall ever experiencing this type of indoctrination.
This teacher is a jerk off kid himself . what the hell does he know about the world or politics or history ? He needs a smack in his arrogant face and to be fired . Love to know what he even knows about his subject matter.
Let him talk. He's doing Republicans far more good than Democrats as America sees first hand the hatred and ignorance of the left.
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