Posted on 03/04/2006 1:39:56 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Sean Allen is a 16-year-old in Aurora, Colo., who couldn't take it anymore. Sitting day after day in Jay Bennish's 10th-grade geography class had become too much.
Though Bennish teaches students to identify which continent Tokyo appears on, and what the climate of India is like compared to Tibet, Bennish had taken it upon himself as the geography teacher to begin teaching his view of political science (a course not presently offered at Allen's Overland High School).
Following the president's State Of The Union address, Bennish boiled up a bit, until he could no longer take it. Marching into his classroom – preceding what was supposed to be a lecture on geography, Bennish opened his remarks thusly:
He [Bush] started off his speech talkin' about how America should be the country that dominates the world! That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, the most advanced, best system, and that its our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and to make the world like us.
Sounds a lot like the things Adolph Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And its our job to conquer the world and make sure they all live just like we want them to ... There are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very – ethnocentric.
Deciding he had had enough of Bennish's rubbish, he taped him on his IPod, played the tape – for his parents – who took the matter to the school administration who then put Bennish on paid leave. Yesterday, ignorant students walked out of Overland protesting the teacher's paid leave.
But what did Bush say in the beginning of his State Of The Union addresss? Indulge me ...
Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal – we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it. On September the 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country. Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer – so we will act boldly in freedom's cause.
Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122. And we're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government – with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half – in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran – because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom, as well.
No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it.
And, according to Bennish, this kind of language is directly comparable to Adolph Hitler:
If at the beginning of the War and during the War 12 or 15,000 of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.
These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human weakness and must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be.
We should all applaud Sean Allen for standing up to a lying liberal teacher. Oh that more young people are steeled with the courage to charge headlong into the battle for all that is true, just and good!
And as for the ignorant kids who pulled the "walk out"?
Come on, its a public school – what they miss can't corrupt them!
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Kevin McCullough is heard daily in New York City, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Jersey on WMCA 570/970 from 2-5 p.m. He blogs at muscleheadrevolution.com.
[Professor Harvey Mansfield] "What you see today at Harvard and elsewhere are a lot of liberal males who are trying to make women happy by trying to treat them as if they weren't women." "And that," says the man who never misses the chance to open a door for a woman or help her put on her coat, "doesn't work very well." So why didn't he simply write a book on gentlemanliness? "Because before you're a gentleman, you have to be a man. Gentlemanliness is a refinement. It presupposes that you have a certain superiority over women, but teaches you how to exercise it. It also teaches you that women are superior in their ways."
Nine years ago, when Mr. Mansfield offered his first seminar on manliness, I barely managed to score a seat in the small classroom. So many campus feminists had crowded in that students were forced to sit on the floor. These women saw their opportunity, finally, to have it out with the conservative bogeyman. But Mr. Mansfield got the best of them. He proceeded to talk for much of the next two hours about the ancient Greek notion of thumos, or spiritedness, an idea he believes is the precursor of modern-day manliness. The feminists were bored silly--almost none returned the following week.
Despite his statements outside the classroom, Mr. Mansfield sees his role of professor very differently from that of provocateur. His classes rarely descend into debates over current affairs. Arguments from Plato may not convince these "educated women" that he is right, but unlike Larry Summers, Mr. Mansfield has tenure.
Reminding us why we have tenure laws. It is to keep some yahoo from defaming a teacher for scholarly opinions, NOT to allow him to burden students with political diatribes.
What do you think would happen if he just stuck to the material to be taught?
So I sent him an E-Mail: ............... Here's his answer:
"And finally, as I prefer to take personal emails in my personal email account -- please email . . . if you have any further questions or concerns."
It seems that, since e-mails in a public Government insitution may be monitored, your Bush-hating public school history teacher is getting a little nervous that a taxpayer is challenging his inappropriate use of a public school class room.
A "private" e-mail deals with family, friends, personal matters, etc. Your e-mail dealt strictly with the inappropriate conduct by a public employee on his public job and was sent, appropriately, to his e-mail account at his place of public employment.
If I were you, I would point that out to that public school teacher in an e-mail reply to his public school e-mail address with cc's to the Principal of the public school, every member of the School District Board, the Editor of you local paper and every one of your State representatives.
Libs are aother boards are calling him a hate-filled Hitler Jugend...
Yet I have no one that will explain to me how ideology applies to MAP READING!
Is there a Stalinist Ideological way to look at Driving Directions? Do Maoists look at Mountain ranges in a different light than Capitalists?
And I've read the Colorado State Teaching Standards for Geography. No where in it does it state that "Bush Is Hitler!!" is part of the approved standard...
Can someone help me with this??
The lying lies a liberal teacher tells
More fitting headline: THE LYING LIES LIBERAL TEACHERS TELL!!!
Fantastic catch.
By Henry Wallace?
Very good advice.
I've done that on a number of occasions. They're really getting to hate the internet ; ) , deciding it was much better to discuss issues 'in person'. I usually said I didn't have the time.
And .. as someone on FOX noted .. it was a chance to get out of school .. what kid wouldn't want to do that ..?? The media is trying to make the public believe ALL THOSE KIDS supported the teacher. It was actually only a handful who supported him.
Which classrooms?
I recorded my lectures during college, and nobody ever said anything, and I didn't ask for "permission". I had tendonitis, and couldn't write.
"And I've read the Colorado State Teaching Standards for Geography. No where in it does it state that "Bush Is Hitler!!" is part of the approved standard..."
Allow me to help. You must go to the addendums approved and provided by the NEA and DNC.
"Level playing field with the understanding of what game you're currently playing."
Now, THAT is a quote to remember.
He wasn't hired to teach his "opinion".
Nice work.
I didn't know he included Israel in his rant. That's interesting...
I usually say that my blood-sucking lawyers like it better when I document everything. ;-)
I don't tell them THAT! That takes all the intrigue out of it! LOL!
I think his profile was just a joke. I think the teacher responded to you fairly and fairly nicely.
The other side of the political aisle is terminally humorless. Let's not become that way!
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