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."
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.
These idiots can not get a real job in the real world.
They hide behind their union bosses and union contracts.
Prove it, d-ckhead. The student did what he did because he had been exposed, for weeks or months, to the teacher's diatribes. He didn't just happen to have a tape recorder, turn it on, and catch the "rare" inflammatory statements.
Of course, only Matt Lauer and perky Katie would believe the S-O-B anyway.
He's a recent product of our Communist universities . I went back to college after 22 years . I couldn't BELIEVE the utter crap I was being told on a daily basis , regardless of the course. Most professors were idiots with little real academic background. A few old timers were there , learned men . they were the exception and a dying breed.
I remember being in a science class and watching a movie that was blantly 'pro-abortion'. I didn't really take it too personal, because I was use to be in classes where teachers would rant their politics, when it had nothing to do with the coarse. That was public school in the bay area. The devil's a##hole.
I would hope there's some direct policy to deal with this sort of issue ie stick to your subject or your out of here.
Without public schools, there is no leftists platform. I dream of two things...a secure border, and private schooling throughout the nation.
I'm stuned!
Check out this site. VERY important wotk they do to keep colleges neutral . http://www.noindoctrination.org/
They keep asking for more money. The answer is always...NO.
As Theodore Roosevelt once said:
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Roosevelt also said:
"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (1894)
Mr. Bennish and Liberals in general emphasize the "critical" portion of "critical thinking" at the expense of objectivity. Reflexive criticism is just as biased as uncritical thinking.
he's a little wuss who got caught.
I contacted the International Institute in Golden, CO and suggested to the director, who is a friend of mine, that they start a website for students across the country and at any grade level to post reports and recordings of teacherws or professors who use their classrooms for propaganda.
Such a site would put educators on notice that their actions are being monitored.
Call it the Educators Accountability Project or something like that.
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