Please note it’s not just the Left. You lost them when you deployed Jabotinsky’s sadistic stepchild, Ariel Sharon. You’ll get them back once you erase his memory.
As for regaining the rest of us, well, you’ll know.
Funny, I listened to the tape, and the teacher had no problem with being asked questions that disagreed with his position (and from the sound quality, it seemed that the questions were coming from the student who taped the “lecture”. The (only?) student who raised the complaint about the teacher!)
CMC fnord
Which goes more to the fact that only a particularly strong-willed young student would respond to the teacher.
It stlill seems fairly evident that he was inserting his own political agenda into the class and that students were either apathetic (most likely) or intimidated by him which is why they did not respond.
Just doestn’t seem right for a geography class and it seems a fairly shallow and weak means of conveying the tenants of “critical thinking”.
Y’know, once we get past the “suspend him for this rant” proposed in the OP, and with further information that Bennish has engaged in this rhetoric on previous occasions, I am quite willing to agree that his principal should take him to the woodshed and make sure that he stops inserting this sort of personal (and frequently erroneous) opinion into his lectures. However, your persistent refusal to acknowledge that the Colorado rubrics for “geography” are much broader than the narrow definition upon which you insist, based on the title of the course, are liable to bring me back into this thread simply to oppose your persistent distortion.
Bennish should not include attacks upon the current administration and personal value judgments in his lectures.
The topic of U.S. participation in the world and the perceptions of the U.S. based on remarks by the U.S. president are very much in keeping with curriculum as defined by the state of Colorado.
I’d like to see Ben Stein read a transcript of this whackjob teacher’s comments in his **Ferris Bueller ** voice…
“How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?
… After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Anyone? Anyone? Terrorist acts. They assassinated…anyone, anyone?.. the British prime minster in…anyone, anyone?.. Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it.”
Just wanted to point out that this…
…is a generalization fallacy. By his own logic, anytime you have a system that is designed to procure education, when education is the bottom motive — knowledge — that means knowledge is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc. Clearly, the teacher has no interest in our children’s safety, and is killing them.
Stephe96:
This is really funny. 
Yeah! You remember when all that education leaked out and killed all those people in Bhopal, India? Or that great movie about Erin Brokovich and her efforts to bring justice on behalf of the community of people who suffered because of the education being dumped into their water?
I think his expression of the idea was inartfully worded, but I would agree that capitalism is itself independent of practices focused on the welfare of others. One may operate a capitalist enterprise and yet be highly concerned about safety and the welfare of others. On the other hand, such a capitalist may also be expressly unconcerned about the safety and welfare of others. For whatever reasons, it often happens that decisions that threaten the welfare of others are made to save money, or more coldly based on a calculation that the costs in damages to others will be outweighed by the profits or cost savings for the company.
The guidelines for the class do seem to be very broad but that does not mean that he should focus all of his time discussing various economic systems. Put another way, it is alleged that the teacher spent more than 20% of each classroom day on these issues which indicates he ignored a significant portion of the proposed syllabus.
Are economic systems part of the syllabus? Evidently they are, should a teacher spend a disproportionate amount of time on them? I don’t think so. Are there other means to teach about economic systems other than “challenging” students through rhetoric? I believe there are.
Looking at all six standards a discussion of modern economic policies would only be a facet of one standard (Four) and would not even constitute a majority of material for that standard.
If his polemics were as regular as has been alleged then I think the teacher has failed in his remit to teach geography.
The only thing focused on the welfare of others is the welfare of others. People do kill for the sake of money, but they also kill for the sake of pride, for the sake of jealousy, and yes, for the sake of safety and security.
No. That is not correct. For example, I might buy a Prius primarily for reasons of economic benefit for myself, but it is an act that cannot be disentangled from the benefits to the welfare of others through lessened negative environmental impact. Likewise, I might donate my old car to charity primarily for a tax break and also to get rid of it, but the benefits to those benefitting from the charity accrue nevertheless.
I don’t disagree, but I fail to see the relevance.
I don’t see the word “evil” or anything like it in the statement you quoted.
And just because you say it’s “NOT at odds with humanity” hardly make’s your statement accurate.
If education/knowledge has trading value then your example does not contradict his. But, let’s skip that and try to figure out where we agree and where we disagree.
Would you agree that different economic systems produce different results when compared on various metrics?
Let’s assume the following:
“everyone” and “humanity” means some substantial portion of the world’s population, and for the sake of debate, let’s say 90%.
Also, “basic needs” means food, clothing, shelter and some reasonable access to medical attention. I realize we could nitpick all of these terms and to what degree they are met, so let’s just assume it’s to the level we would want for ourself or a person close to us.
So with those assumptions, using an economic system of capitalism, how well do you think “everyone’s basic needs” would be met?
I personally think there would be large groups of people whose basic needs do not get met.
But there are economic systems that do attempt to take into account the welfare of the group as a whole as opposed to capitalism which is by definition neutral on that problem, and in practice, IMHO at odds with solving that problem.
I don’t know what fallacy you are engaging in here, but I know bad reasoning when I see it. In education, the system is not only designed to educate people, but is designed to do so in a safe manner. In a chemistry lab, as with all learning enviroments, safety is the top concern, not the education of the students. On the other hand it is true that capitalism is concerned only with profit. Individual actors in capitalism might value other things, but the system values and rewards profit only.