Free Republic

DENVER -- The case of the Aurora teacher who made comparisons between President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler has now hit the state Legislature. State senators are considering whether to give school districts greater protection to fire teachers who present biased views in the classroom. It wouldn't apply to teacher Jay Bennish, only future cases. The Cherry Creek School District is investigating Bennish's comments. A recording of 20 minutes of his lecture has been made public but he has said the rest of the 50-minute class balanced out those comments. State Sen. Doug Lamborn saif school districts may fear...

Sean Allen fails Teen Politics 101 By Jim Spencer Denver Post Staff Columnist DenverPost.com If anyone has tried to hurt Sean Allen's body, Allen needs to file a criminal complaint with the Aurora police. If, instead, some of his classmates have tried to hurt his feelings, well, welcome to high school. For those just returning from a parallel universe, Allen is the 16-year-old Overland High student who recorded a rant by geography teacher Jay Bennish that mentioned "eerie similarities" between George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler. Allen is now the darling of right-wing talk show hosts and a hero to...

When it comes to preaching multiculturalism and politically correct social engineering in public schools, the Left are certainly the most vocal of free speech purists. On the other hand, the same people react with horror to the mere mention of religion or Conservative views in the same schools. Are there limits to free speech in schools, or not -- and who gets to set those limits? Can teachers use public schools as soapboxes from which to preach their personal philosophy, whatever it may be? Should any religious or political views be banned from public schools -- or only Christian and...

One of the biggest problems confronting higher education is the fact that most students entering colleges and universities lack basic social science skills and knowledge. In a recent survey of college students in Buffalo, for example, almost half did not know who George Pataki is. Eighty percent had no idea, correct or incorrect, as to what communism is. Nearly the same number of students couldn’t define capitalism. For whatever reason, social science education in America has collapsed at the high school level. For a democracy that relies on an informed electorate, such ignorance is toxic.

See for example this thread first. Jay Bennish Geography Class: Where liberal rants got a pass; 'Till one student tape-- Now there's no escape for the teacher who talks out his ass!

Jay Bennish is a teacher who collects paychecks for teaching Colorado high school students about geography. Here is a sample from one of Bennish’s classes: “Do you see how this economic system [capitalism] is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It is at odds with human rights. Anytime you have a system that’s designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive, money, that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etcetera.” According to Tustin Amole, Public Information Officer for the Cherry Creek School District, the above statement...

No one familiar with our nation’s increasingly dysfunctional public schools should have found it surprising that a Colorado High School teacher named Jay Bennish delivered a 20 minute, anti-American rant to his 10th grade geography class taken straight out of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore. True enough, Mr. Bennish was somewhat cruder than your average leftist teacher. Apparently, he was also too stupid to realize that political indoctrination in the classroom goes over much more smoothly and is less likely to cause a public uproar if the teacher observes a few minor pedagogical constraints. In fact, Bennish might have been...

DENVER -- The father of a teacher who compared President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler said he and his family have received at least 12 death threats. Jay Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints be presented in classes. Bennish's father, John Bennish of Beverly Hills, Mich., told The Detroit News in Wednesday's editions that people have called his house threatening to kill him or his family. He said he did not report...

The Associated Press reached a new level of incompetence, and the "news" industry they serve doesn’t seem to care. If you want political opinion, you’ll find it in Associated Press dispatches. If you want news, you might have to read conservative opinion columns. On February 22nd, Walter Williams, a Townhall.com columnist, scooped the mainstream media. Williams reported that high school teacher Jay Bennish lectured his geography class stating: 1) "[President Bush’s State of the Union Speech] sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." 2) "Bush is threatening the whole planet." 3) "[The] U.S. wants to keep...

COLORADO high-school sophomore Sean Allen couldn't convince his father that his geography teacher was as over-the-top as he contended. So Allen taped one of his teacher's rants on his MP3 player. Too bad for Jay Bennish: His 20 minute lecture ended up on talk radio. As aired on Mike Rosen's show, Bennish said President Bush talks like Hitler: "I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same," but that the two share "eerie similarities." Peruvians and Iranians arguably have "a right to bomb North Carolina" because the state grows tobacco. On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda operatives were...

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...

by Mark Finkelstein March 7, 2006 Turns out the real culprit in the Colorado kerfluffle over the teacher who compared Pres. Bush to Hitler is . . . the student who complained about it. Just ask Matt Lauer. Interviewing teacher Jay Bennish this morning, Lauer laid out this sympathetic scenario: Lauer: "The family here, the student's family, didn't go to the school board with this tape." Bennish: "They never contacted me." Lauer: "They shopped it around to conservative media outlets and finally released it to one and created an uproar. On the tape you can hear Sean Allen [the student...

Student 'starting to get crucified,' his dad says By Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News March 4, 2006 Sean Allen's dad says he isn't handling this week's media attention and threats as well as his son. "Sean has handled this way better than his father," Jeff Allen, Sean's dad, said in an interview with Sean Hannity, syndicated talk show host with Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes. "To read some of these e-mails that are attacking Sean is just devastating," he said. "It looks like the tactic is to turn it around, to make it about Sean and not about the...

ACCELERATED WORLD GEOGRAPHYInstructor: Mr. Jay Bennish Office: 1001A Room: 111A Phone: 720-747-3780 Office Hours: 2nd & 7th Email: jbennish@mail.ccsd.k12.co.us Course Description This is an exciting time to be studying global and regional geography! In this course you will take a penetrating look into the geographical - or spatial - relationships between human societies and cultures, the natural environment, and historical changes that have shaped the contemporary world. More than answering the question "what is where," this course adopts a conceptual approach to understanding and explaining the dynamic human and natural features of the earth’s surface. Particular geographic themes will e...