Teacher who compared Bush to Hitler put on Leave

[doxieone]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/08/teacher.bush.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Teacher who compared Bush and Hitler put on leave

Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Posted: 10:17 a.m. EST (15:17 GMT)


DENVER (AP) -- 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."

snip

[wakeme2008]

1. Not sure this is LBN he has been on leave for some time

now. :shrug:

[Brilligator]

2. I have mixed feelings on this guy

On the one hand, what he trul said has been exagerated in the press.

Otoh, it seems like he did step over the line a couple times.

Otooh, should we really protecting our kids from any and all opinions at school? Especially when they are explicitly qualified as such and explicitly noted as points for starting discussion?

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Which line? Did you hear the tape? What did he say that was untrue?

[AverageJoe]

4. What line did he step over?

I've not followed this as closely as I might have. I thought the teacher just pointed out the obvious.

[Bubba Zanetti]

5. He was dogmatic....

I agree. I do not think he should be fire or put on leave. That is total overkill.

He should, however, not be teaching Geography. His energy and calling seems to be in political science and current events.

Do you think he talks about Geography with that kind of energy? I have had macro economics professors like that and you walk out thinking macro theory rules the universe.

[Lochloosa]

10. Geography does not just deal with the physical

Political Geography

Course Descriptions, Subject Matter, and Requirements
This course is designed to discuss geographical bases of political conflict and international relations. Emphasis will be on power and conflict in the regional framework. Upon successful completion of the course, students are expected to understand such topics as:

The geographical bases of national states and nationalism and the processes of political nation-building and devolution.
The rise of ethnic conflict as a major development in global political disputes.
Changes and patterns in the world political map and contemporary geopolitical questions.
International organizations, international law, and other relevant issues in international relations.
Environmental issues and politics in global environmental politics.

http://www.ou.edu/faculty/T/Gary.L.Thompson/3513syl.html

(snip)

Political geography is the scientific study of power relations in space and space implications on them. Most information on this topic is currently at the geopolitics entry.

Maps are always instruments of conquest; once projected, they are then implemented. Geography is therefore the art of war.

(The Politics of Dispossession, Edward W. Said, 1995)

Studies in political geography at the international level have been concerned with the organization of the world into states; with their larger political groupings into regional alliances on the one scale and their subordinate division into political-administrative units on another; with the functions, delimitation, and demarcation of boundaries; with the selection of capital sites; with the relation of core areas and peripheral areas; with metropolitan powers and colonies; with the bases of political power in terms of population, production, organization, and policy; with the relations among states, including international trade and aid; with international organizations; and with territorial waters, maritime boundaries, and the law of the sea. At the national scale, studies have been concerned with regionalism, including separatist movements and their bases, and increasingly with the areal analysis of voting patterns as they reflect regional interests. At the metropolitan level studies have been devoted to the political fragmentation of metropolitan areas into hundreds and even thousands of separate political bodies and to the rise of new organizational forms of metropolitan-wide bodies with taxing powers, such as water districts, transportation authorities, and voluntary planning associations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography

[ColonelTom]

13. Geography and politics are inextricably linked.

He should, however, not be teaching Geography.

If you're teaching the geography of the Middle East, you're also going to talk about natural resources, borders, populations in those countries, etc. And if you look at those issues, current events are clearly part of the discussion. I'm glad to hear he's not just teaching "country X is here, country Y is there, memorize it. There's a quiz on Monday." Geography is much, much more than that.

[Art_from_Ark]

14. Geography is more than just learning countries and capitals

In fact, geography is probably the most encompassing discipline there is. It is made up of two subdisciplines (human and physical geography) each of which in turn is composed of several overlapping branches. Human geography, for example, includes, but is not limited to, urban geography, economic geography, and, believe it or not, POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. Politics is very relevant to the study of geography, especially as it pertains to the effects that political actions have had and will have on the world.

[MrPrax]

15. Why not?

Geopolitics analyses politics, history and social science with reference to geography.

In other words, it studies the political and strategic significance of geography; where geography is defined in terms of the location, size, and resources of places. Wikipedia

There is a substantial body of political theory that uses 'geography' as basis for political theory and even social policy.

Currently Jeffrey Sach's Earth Institute is one of the leading proponents of the theory and forms a big part of the UN Millenium Project.

Besides children shouldn't be immune from political ideas and while parents might have 'carte blanche' to protect their children, I don't believe that that parential right is absolute and it is IMPORTANT for these young peoples' future citizenship that they are exposed to a wide range of political and social and cultural ideals.

[CottonBear]

6. The teacher was teaching and trying to get students to think critically

and consider the lessons of history.

The idiot boy and his idiot RW wingnut parents and Faux news are purely to blame for ruining this man's career and causing an uproar over nothing in the first place.

BTW, welcome to DU.

[zann725]

8. I agree. Teaching students "to think critically" SHOULD be a priority

OF "teaching." The teachers I remember the most, admire (and respected) the most, were those who "spoke out" on opinions. Granted those same teachers (even years ago) were at times, called in to the principal's office...YET they DID have a way of effecting and "reaching" even those students that most others teachers could NOT.

While a "sanction" of NOT voicing his "opinions" again MIGHT be argued, putting the teacher on leave is "excessive force." They're doing this on College level too, nationwide...extensively. Censorship of thought among "forming" minds.

Hello "1984."

[Sparkman]

7. Can the federal funding pre-requisite demanding mil. recruiter access to..

ALL high school students' records and access to recruit students, on campus, justify ONE class, in four years of the H.S. curriculum?
Where are the young minds getting their political balance, and the TRUTH? Do you agree the propaganda that comes from the RW is 99% of the radio & TV content.

[Strong Atheist]

11. Welcome to D.U. nt.

[Sparkman]

12. the u.s. is on a major shift to the RIGHT...liberties, freedoms attacked.

Where does the tolerance for the voter registration dificulty come from? propaganda.
Where does the indifferance to blocking dissent at BUSH's stump speech venues come from? propaganda.
Where does the raiding of our treasury surplus get it's supporters? Fear of Iraqi Terrorists, a joke
How did Bush get re-elected in 04, where was the outrage against him? Corporate media propaganda.
Why do Democrats get labeled un-patriotic for telling the truth about scandal, fraud, lies? MEDIA.
So why in the world do Dems, calling themselves PROGRESSIVE or UNDERGROUND, not support TRUTH, when it comes from our EDUCATORS in the high schools?
Is it OK to RECRUIT 17 & 18 year olds for war, but keep them in the RW world of dillusion fantasy?
Wake up time yet?

[newyawker99]

20. Hi Brilligator!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[still_one]

9. In the course of time people will realize how prophetic the teacher was

[sarcasmo]

16. This has to be nominated for the sure stupidity of putting him on leave

for his thoughts. We now live under a Dictator.

[Stockholm]

17. I would like to send him a card showing my support

Could someone with his adress pm me?

[fknobbit]

18. Bush youth (it begins)

"Sean Bell, the student who played the audio tape on the radio, told CBS News station KCNC-TV that he still thought Bennish was wrong.

"I think he's a good geography teacher, if he would just teach geography, if he wouldn't teach personal politics," Bell said."

The press is kissing this condescending little rats a$$ is what is sickening about the whole thing. Let the students pick the curriculum and it will be all sex ed. what a darling little "Hitler youth", He make the teachers point for him.

Next he will rat his father out for not being Conservative enough

[Shadder]

19. I think I understand all this now

This morning I was checking all of my reuglar websites and one of them had an article on this teacher and what him and his family are going through. I was interested to learn that not only did he graduated from the same High School as I did (Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Michigan), but that his mother is currently a teacher in the elementary school that I attended. Now what makes this interesting is that al during this situtation I've been reminded of a class that I took as a senior in High School, Economic Geography. The class was taught by a Mr. Petrakis who was without any doubt the single best teacher that I ever had in my life. He had the abality to take a class that by all rights should have been the most dull and boring class in the world and turn it into the high point of the day for all those that took it. One of the things that made made this class so memorable is that he was able to teach us that there were other people in the world - both our little world and the world itself - that had differing viewpoints that what we might have and that it was ok for us to try to understand those viewpoints. Not that we had to accept them but just realize that they were there. Sound somewhat simmilar? I'm wondering if perhaps this teacher might have also had a class or two with Mr. Petrakis?