This is my American History teacher.

[WannaBePassingFair]

no.freaking.joke.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Make fun of him in class.

Serious.

[PassingFair]

9. She is in the 10th grade.

She is butting heads with him on a daily basis and this is
only the first month of class.

He is freshly back from 2 tours in Iraq.

[ceile]

2. Put a warning on that thing!

MY eyes!!!!!

[johnnie]

3. Does he know that dude in the tie?

:shrug:

[PassingFair]

8. LOL

This is SERIES!!!

My daughter is having trouble in this class!
He is using William Bennett as CURRICULUM materials!

HELP!

[sakabatou]

10. My American History Teacher

BEST.TEACHER.EVER.

[haele]

12. How can he be using Bennett as curriculum?

Isn't he a bit modern for what should be taught this time of year? In CA, right now they'd be covering the rise of the Industrial age and the Enlightenment. Locke, Smith, Payne, Adams, Thoreau, Rousseau, et all. Rights of Man, rise of Middle Class/Banking/Capitalism - that sort of thing.

Bennett's contemporary viewpoints come from the John Birch types - he's not a "source" for any viewpoint earlier than the New Deal. I'd suggest you complain that that teacher should be using contemporary to the time period being covered in the curriculum instead of modern "revisionists".
Especially if you can show Bennett does not have the proper due diligence making his "assessments" of history using contemporary writings and opinions. Since I don't know what Bennett wrote for professional/academic opining that could be used in High School - other than perhaps his "Tome o' Simplistic Propaganda" he called a "Book of Virtues", I can't figure out why the instructor might be using him.

Your daughter might have to take things in her own hands - using the original philosophers and contemporary political commentators in her assignments rather than Bennett's rather sloppy revisions of his personal view of American History.

Haele

[WannaBePassingFair]

13. our curriculum is screwed up...

for the entire first semester we cover all the "wars" america has been involved in, second semester we cover domestic history.

he gave us the bennett piece to teach us about the civil war battles of antietam, and shiloh.

yesterday i asked him how he could give us this reading and call it "history" when it soap-opera-fies the civil war. He couldn't answer it. I asked how he could give us a propaganda piece in a public school. he couldn't answer it. I asked him how he could give us an assignment where it states that "the Almighty" gave the soldiers the courage to fight. he couldn't answer that either. all he could say was that 85% of the country was christian, and that Abraham Lincoln was one of the most christian presidents we have ever had. bullshit.

today I brought in some quotes where Lincoln states that he isn't a christian, and family members say how non religious he was. He discredited my proof because the quotes were compiled on the Positive atheist, and so it would be biased (according to him). He only read the first page before he threw them back at me.

only 78% of the US described themselves as christians (2002 est. cia.gov)

My question is.....how can he give us frickin' WILLIAM BENNETT to do an assignment on, and not even look at what I have to say?

[haele]

14. I just looked up Bennett's little scam...

He's involved with the "K12" homeschooling curriculum. As an advisor.

Your "teacher" is probably using a version of K12 homeschooling lesson plan. Which is totally inappropriate, in my view. You might want to see if he's using the K12 plan without the district buying the licence to use it...

On edit - if one of the "authors" of his history handouts/teacher guides is Joy Hakim, he is definatly using the K12 series. She's not necessarily wingnut - no more or less than most editors of "History Textbooks" but she's very simplistic and even her advanced history presentations written for Middle/High School are written down to what would have been in my day 4th grade level. She tends to the "put yourself in the shoes of" style of writing.
She at least provides some halfway legitimate links (PBS, Discovery Channel)in her online stuff. No Library of Congress though, and her study guides are not set up for out of classroom research - no trips to a real library to check primary sources for her students.

You might want to check with the principle and the schoolboard and see if this is something that they've agreed to. There could be legal and copyright implications - not that legal implications have ever bothered a wingnut.

Haele

[LiberalHeart]

29. About Bennett's K12

Bennett and Michael Milken were the folks who got the grand idea for K12. Bennett ran it until he made the remark about blacks in prisons; he stepped down when the manure hit the fan, but didn't leave the company. He was just trying to keep the company viable by not being the out-front target.

Milken's brother is or was also involved in the company. I think Murdoch was also involved in K12. I'd have to check that.

K12 provides, in return for a bunch of dough, the curriculum and management for charter schools all over the country. So here's how it works: someone decides to start a charter school. The state sends the charter school the state money (taken from the public school system) for every student the charter school enrolls. The charter school then pays K12 for the teaching materials and so-called management services. K12 is not required to account for how they spend the money they receive (but a public school system would be required to do so). K12 is a massive money magnet and taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for this private enterprise.

In Ohio there's an online charter school called Ohio Virtual Academy. Bernadette Noe, wife of Tom Noe (convicted of illegally funneling money to the Bush/Cheney campaign) was the attorney of record (I think that's the term) on their filing with the Secretary of State, and remained in that role for months after Noe's Coingate scandal hit the news. Perhaps she still is listed on those documents; I haven't checked in several months. Bernadette often bragged about being Bill Bennett's lawyer. She's now a lawyer with the state of Florida (Jeb's administration), while she and her hubby await the October Coingate trial.

I saw a state auditor's report re Ohio Virtual Academy from a few years ago that showed K12 getting millions from them per year. Meanwhile, Ohio's public schools are broke.

[LiberalHeart]

38. More on K12

I looked it up. Bernadett bowed out as statutory agent in July of this year. The person who took over is the owner of the law firm where she worked when she still lived in Ohio:

http://www1.sos.state.oh.us/reports/rwservlet?imgc&Din=200619902766

Also here's an article about the beginnings of K12:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010108S0006

[haele]

42. I looked over their training guide examples at their site...

Mind you, I'm not a teacher, but I'm the daughter of a retired History teacher and a retired Assistant Administrator/Graduate advisor to the Dean of Anthropology at UW, and have had what might be called "a classical education".

Simplistic beyond belief. Everything is individually modular and seems rote based - skim through the module, do the project, answer the questions. Then go onto the next module with very little review, "look back" or proof that one has actually figured out what had gone on in a previous module. Overall package reviews require memorization of the review section bullet points, not an actual understanding of the subject at hand.

I've picked up more understanding of a subject using google or a help file.

I weep for the kids that use this program. They'll have great grades right now, but when they hit advanced education in the real world - something that requires actual logic and communication skills, they'll be totally lost.
Logic? Research? Doesn't look like they teach that at all.

Haele

[Zomby Woof]

16. Tell him to read William Herndon's "Life of Lincoln"

Herndon was his law partner for many years, and his small biography of Lincoln is the best primary source biography of the president available. Herndon recounts the time that Lincoln wrote a pamphlet excoriating Christianity, but Herndon urged him to burn it, because if word got out, his political career would be over.

As president, Lincoln used his considerable gifts for writing to craft some of the greatest speeches in American history. He had a gift for using biblical metaphors and allusions, because they were poetic, and yes, because it played to the mass of Americans who believed in such piffle - especially in such a time of crisis as the war. But when he invoked "God", his tongue was always planted firmly in cheek.

I am sorry you have to endure this Nazi creep as your teacher.

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. This is why WannaBeGrumpy goes to a private school...

:hide:

Not really, but I'm glad she does. :hi:

[Zomby Woof]

22. Many moons ago

I was a high school history and government teacher. Because I did not coach sports, I inadvertently sent the signal that I was not ready to conform - and I would only go so far. For 6 years, I slogged through the system teaching part-time during the day, teaching "at-risk" students at night, and substituting long-term when staffs and programs were cut. It was an interesting, occasionally rewarding, and often all too frustrating time. I left it all without regret.

I could see it coming before I even started. When I was student teaching (which was during the 1992 primaries), I caught hell from my university student teaching advisor, who observed me the day I discussed the Harding administration and its many scandals, and drew parallels between his regime's oil profiteering, and Bush Sr.'s. I found out later she was a conservative born-againer, and I must have blasphemed her idol. Oops.

I kept my personal politics out of it - the parallels spoke for themselves, and I always listed the accomplishments and successes alongside the failures of each regime - even if I could only draw lopsided conclusions, which is sometimes all the evidence allows. The right-wing is ever vigilant, looking for any way possible to control the curriculum and content at all costs (Kansas and evolution, anyone?).

Enough reminiscing, for now. :hug:

[speedoo]

19. You're doing great... keep challenging him.

But you might want to see if you can get out of his class, since he's likely to give you less of a grade than you deserve. Freepers are like that.

[Radical Activist]

24. Ask him if he wants a theocracy like the Taliban

Then suggest he use the teacher's edition of A People's History of the United States as a text. :)

[WannaBePassingFair]

44. only if its guided by "the Almighty"

as he would say

[Radical Activist]

25. BTW

Lincoln rarely went to church. He also had an opponent in one of his races in Illinois who was a preacher. Lincoln had some things to say about him that apply nicely to the Christian Right of today.

[ScreamingMeemie]

31. Psst...WannaBePF's mama is a HUGH!!11! Lincoln fan...

She can bore you...er...enthrall you for hours with the bits and pieces that made up the man.


***Actually I rather enjoy discussing him with her. :hi:

[mzteris]

47. Maybe he'll take *this* site better

http://www.christianitytoday.com/holidays/memorial/features/33h010.html

". . .Confusion about Lincoln's religion arises from the multiple ambiguities of his life. On the one hand, Lincoln was, in the words of biographers James Randall and Richard Current, "a man of more intense religiosity than any other President the United States has ever had." On the other hand, Lincoln's faith was not conventional.
As a young man in Illinois, he eagerly read free thinkers like Tom Paine. At the same time, he was a kind of "frontier spiritualist" who believed that signs, dreams, and portents foretold the future. He had no use for Christian creeds or statements of faith, and little use for formal theology. At least early on, Lincoln was probably also a Universalist who believed in the eventual salvation of all people.

He spoke of God often and in many different ways—William J. Wolf counted thirty-three different expressions, like "Almighty Being" or "Father of Mercies," in Lincoln's Collected Works. Yet Lincoln rarely referred to Jesus.

After the death of his 4-year-old son, Edward, in 1850, he regularly attended Presbyterian churches in Springfield and Washington, pastored by doctrinal conservatives. Yet he never became a member of any congregation. . ."

[Elidor]

49. Low hanging fruit

She can rip on Bennett daily for gambling and having a bondage mistress.

Bennett in the curriculum? That's just sick. I hope she gets the better of him every day.

[bigwillq]

21. I just laughed out loud.

:rofl:

[trof]

4. Which one?

[matcom]

5. The one with the Adam's Apple?

:shrug:

[WannaBePassingFair]

7. yeah..

lol

[rug]

6. Ask him to explain habeas corpus.

[Maine-ah]

11. wow, she really never changes that dress, does she?

ick.

[Zomby Woof]

15. Fascists have been invading the teaching profession

For years, this has been their way of countering what they see as domination of teaching by liberals (I wish! I had lots of wingnut teachers in the 70's and 80's). Now that they have achieved dominance in the profession, they still bawl and cry about liberals - just like they do in the media.

I have no doubt he is an ignorant twit, who buys into a fascist wet-dream interpretation of our history.

I'd like to take Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and fit him for a suppository with it.

Hardcover edition, of course. ;-)

[Bucky]

26. There are a few Republican teachers in my building, but all seem to be

...pretty sincere and dedicated teachers. Oddly, they mostly tend to congregate into the science department. There's a couple of conservative history teachers (maybe three), but even our misanthropic ex-Marine football-coach-slash-history-teacher is a conservative Democrat. If they were really just about the money, then people with science degrees would be working in industry for boodles more than a teacher makes. If they were in it to warp young minds, they'd go in for teaching government, history, or English.

I fucking hate to sound noble (so let me just interject here that the only place a cute furry kitten belongs is in a blender) but all the conservative Republican teachers I've met are decent dedicated public servents who really just like helping kids learn.

Flame away if you like, but you know I'm right about the kittens too.

[Zomby Woof]

45. My experience was mostly different

I went to public school in Pat Robertson-land, literally (he lived one mile from my house, and my second junior high). My second junior high principal, and the two civics teachers I had (I moved to another school within the district during the year) were openly pro-Reagan, anti-ACLU, pro-Xtian nutjobs. They even had the greasy weasel hair to match. And over all, it was a good district, other than these few cases. I don't doubt my nutcase teachers meant well, but fuck them for their attempts to brainwash us as Reagan drones.

I had an econ teacher in high school who praised Reaganomics, and did moronic LBJ imitations. :eyes:

My senior year gov't teacher was fair. His politics were hard to discern, which means he was doing his job right. My junior year history teacher skirted on right-wing indoctrination, but nowhere near to the extent WannaBePF's teacher is. In fact, she was open to any well-defended thesis. My 11th grade English teacher was openly Republican, but she was fair, and my grades never suffered for differing with her. I had a few liberal teachers, and their quality varied too. But the wingnuts mentioned above stand out as among the worst teachers I had.

It isn't always about the money with these pinheads - it's about control. They are authoritarians, and what better authority to have influence than a teacher?

[Guy Fawkes]

18. I've had worse...

had one teacher who kept a bible in his front pocket. He called me out, in front of the class, for disagreeing with him. What was I disagreeing about? He said that homosexuals should all be "gotten rid of" because they "cause all of the world's problems."

(This was... two years ago.)

[graywarrior]

20. Is that two holes I see in his neck?

[Bucky]

23. Is he the one who gave her a black eye? If so, thank him

If not, give him a black eye.

[BreweryYardRat]

27. Is he a dick about the difference of opinion, or does he not mind?

Some of your comments make it sound like he's a jackass.

[WannaBePassingFair]

30. he is definitely a jackass because of my dissenting opinions.

and the fact that he is incapable of answering any of my questions.

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. Young Lady!!!

Watch your language...

If you type it it's as bad as saying it...!


:rofl: :hi:

[Kutjara]

33. Jackass is ok.

It's simply an animal. The comparison is to someone stubborn and intransigent. Now, if WannaBe were to call her teacher a ... but perhaps I've said enough.

[ScreamingMeemie]

34. Not in my house it's not....

:rofl:

***WBPF is the daughter of my best friend. I'm doing my part to kick her thread along

[Kutjara]

36. You reminded me of...

...the brief fad in my high school for shouting "Martha Farquhar" and "Funking Barstewards" across the classroom. When censured by the teacher for foul language, we'd point out the 'innocent' thing we'd said. This was, of course, screamingly funny. I'm proud to say 'Funking Barsteward' was my own invention, and I had a wonderfully elaborate explanation involving shipboard beverage vendors with a penchant for jive. My, I thought I was so very clever.

I mistook the rolling eyes of my teachers for frustration at being so cunningly outfoxed rather than suppression of the urge to strangle me.

[WannaBePassingFair]

35. not only is he a right wing wacko...

but i'm pretty sure he is a racist.

during the first week of school he called me out in the middle of class and asked me if I was arabic. I (stupidly) told him yes (which is a lie I just wanted to see what he would do) and that it was none of his business. The next day he had made a new seating chart, in which me and the other two arabic kids in my class all sat in a group in the back. this is kind of weird seeing that its in alphabetical order for everyone but us. strange, right?

so.... i did a little research on him. He is a marine who just served 2 tours in Iraq, grew up in dearborn (hmmm.....), and volunteers for numerous republican candidates.

[mzteris]

37. You should make a beeline

to the Principal's office. That's totally inappropriate behavior from a teacher. If the Principal doesn't do anything, tell her/him you're going to the school board AND the media.

The guy shouldn't be allowed in a classroom.

Does he have all the blacks in the back of the room, too? :sarcasm:

[WannaBePassingFair]

39. no...

they're normal.

[Dukkha]

28. Does he teach Mein Kampf as required reading?

as a feel good book with lots of great ideas.

[PassingFair]

40. No. Just BENNETT'S ...

BOOKIE OF VIRTUES!

Should be an interesting course!

[WannaBePassingFair]

41. actually mom...

he teaches us from "america: the last best blah blah blah" ....he just reads us his "philosophies" from the bookie of virtues

[PassingFair]

43. It was

...a pun, dear.

[mzteris]

46. You should get a copy of

Howard Zinn's: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

and bring it with you to class every day. Be sure and reference it every chance you get.

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-1492-Present/dp/0060528370


ooo- and THIS one (I just saw it when I looked up the Zinn link at Amazon. Don't know as much about it - but it should piss him off. LOL......)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by James W. Loewen

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Teacher-Told-Everything-Textbook/dp/0684818868/ref=pd_sim_b_1/103-3942962-8171831?ie=UTF8

[PassingFair]

48. Thanks Mzteris....

I'm gonna order it for her.
The cover alone should send him into a tizzy.

The Zinn book is on our radar as a used book target for the
next few weeks....