Posted on 03/02/2006 3:38:43 AM PST by Glacier Honey
The Overland High educator is on administrative leave. Cherry Creek's superintendent said a balanced viewpoint will be given to students.
An Overland High School teacher who criticized President Bush, capitalism and U.S. foreign policy during his geography class was placed on administrative leave Wednesday afternoon after a student who recorded the session went public with the tape.
In the 20-minute recording, made on an MP3 player, teacher Jay Bennish described capitalism as a system "at odds with human rights." He also said there were "eerie similarities" between what Bush said during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and "things that Adolf Hitler used to say."
The United States was "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth," Bennish also said on the tape.
Bennish, who has been part of Overland's social studies faculty since 2000, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. Cherry Creek School District officials are investigating the incident, but no disciplinary action has been taken, district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said.
Bennish was placed on leave "to take some of the pressure off of him" during the investigation, which could wrap up in a week, Amole said.
Superintendent Monte Moses, who received a copy of the recording on Monday from 850 KOA-AM radio show host Mike Rosen, said it appears "a breach of district policy" occurred.
"Our policy calls for both sides to be present ... in the interest of intellectual discourse," Moses said. Bennish's presentation appeared to be unbalanced, he said.
The district is looking into whether the incident was an isolated one and will ensure that a balanced viewpoint of the president's State of the Union address is provided to students, Moses said.
Moses also said the district will be fair to Bennish. "People in life make mistakes occasionally," he said. "We address them. We learn from them."
The 20-minute recording of only a portion of the class was made by 16-year-old sophomore Sean Allen the day after the president's speech. The recording has raised questions about what level of academic freedom is acceptable for high school teachers. It also has generated discussions about Bennish on dozens of websites.
Sean, who appeared on Rosen's show Wednesday morning, said in an interview he had been disturbed by the "political rants" he heard in Bennish's class. He added that he wanted to tape the session for his father, who later shared it with the media.
Sean, who described himself as a political independent, said the comments seemed inappropriate for a geography class.
"If he wants to give an opinion in class, I'm perfectly OK with that," he said. "But he has to give both sides of the story."
James McGrath Morris, an author who has written about academic freedom issues, said Bennish's comments are acceptable for an adult audience, but they are hard to defend in a high school classroom.
In a number of legal cases, courts have ruled that "up until the age of majority, children are easily influenced ... in a way that they don't have the faculties to sort out rights from wrongs," Morris said.
Well said.
Raising objections to what is taught, or how, or by whom, typically brings a "circle the wagons" response by the education establishment and accusations of bigotry, censorship, etc. against those raising them.
I would caution those who urge firing this teacher to "set an example" that the numbers just aren't very balanced; if it comes to a showdown, there are many, many more left-leaning teachers in public schools than clones of G. W. Bush. And the school boards are controlled in many places by --guess who? -- the teachers' unions. Right-wing teachers, where they exist, don't dare make waves or they pay a dire price.
Home schooling and private schools are the way to fix the problem.
Educational vouchers, on the other hand, only prolong the agony.
Separate school and state and get politics out of education.
Not trying to be insulting or condescending toward you by ANY means. However I would disagree with your premise I am generalizing based on one case. Stories abound of teachers giving their "talking points" & indoctrinating our future generations with useless tripe both political & otherwise. Books "normalizing" homosexuality are being introduced, as well as the important lesson of "condomizing a cucumber or banana," group discussions of "fisting" and a cornucopia of useless garbage being levied on a captive audience. Non-compliance equals discipline. Schools arrange out of state abortions without parental notification etc. the list goes on & on. Some teachers have found it quite acceptable to sleep with their students EVEN at the elementary level. Schools are turning out knuckle-heads with little or no education, to start their youthful adult life absolutely unprepared. If test scores are low (as in California) just lower the passing grade. Our public school system is a liberals dream, and a national disgrace.
......but forgot to mention it is always capitalist welfare that has to prop up collectivist nations.
Preducators?
Oh pleeeeeease...there is not enough room in this forum to cover the failures of the PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM....
I can simply begin with the FACT that most kids do not have the "family discussions" you site.. Therefore, their trust in the instructor is the basis for misinformation.
Ahh! I see someone was first with that one.
Good for the student.
Another reason to 'home school'.
A teacher/professor would be hard presssed to prove that they didn't want their lessons heard or recorded by their students.
It's not a conversation when a teacher stands at the front of a classroom and goes off on a diatribe about the evils of Bush. It's a lesson in hate speech.
A liberal teacher who presents intellectually honest arguments and fairly presents alternative viewpoints is fine.
But a liberal who tosses out blatant lies and hyperbole designed to shape negative, hateful attitudes toward this country and its president is no different than a Wahabist who teaches exactly the same thing to young Muslim children in madrassahs.
Twenty years ago, the parents in this school would have demanded this guy be terminated INSTANTLY. Forty years ago, he would have been lynched.
Thanks for the link!
He said he took the definition of Capitalism "right out of the dictionary". He must have the Merriam-Marxist dictionary.
"Democracies are violent"
"the US is the most violent country in the world"
"Illegally invading another country"
Some of the younge skulls full of mush in the class are just following him. Fortuanately, none of them are going as nuts as this jack-ass.
A lot probably depends on what part of the country you live in. Fortunately I live in Texas but I still am on guard for this sort of thing and my children are very politically aware.
It's funny how teachers opinions change over time. When I was in high school back in the sixties, I had teachers who would talk about the threat of creeping socialism...but only briefly...not as a rant. I did go to a Catholic school, but I'll bet there were plenty of teachers in the public schools who had the same sentiments as my teachers. What happened?
And what if the teacher had been a Bush fan and ranted about Dems? All of you would be cheering.
My kids have had crazy libs and conservative repubs. as teachers. You seem to have the notion that teacher=liberal. Guess what? I come from teaching family and my experience is quite different. We are ALL republicans and most of my parents teaching friends were also.
I listened to about ten minutes of this propaganda spiel. Finally, I was flooded with unpleasant memories of my own public school experience.
Hey, kids - boycott public schools - they are the engines of totalitarianism.
If you learn nothing else from 20th Century history, learn that.
"It's not a conversation when a teacher stands at the front of a classroom and goes off on a diatribe about the evils of Bush. "
You missed my point. I was only addressing the legal aspect of recording.
Or did I miss your point? Are you saying that it's completely legal to record these classroom lectures?
When my son needed the lecture recorded which would have helped him study with his auditory processing disability, they said no.
It was against the district policy.
The way the teacher acted, I really thought it was in the union contract.
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