Colorado teacher Jay Bennish suspended after anti-Bush/anti-capitalism rant

[EEMan]

@Stephe96

Nash also believed he was the King of Antarctica and that aliens were sending him messages via the newspaper

Bah he thought it was the Nazi’s and Communists… geez

BUT as crazy as he was… his theory works pretty darn well

[EEMan]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Again, I posit that the validity of his opinions do not matter: what matters is whether it’s good pedagogy.

Claiming that it is a fact that capitalism is not anti-human is foolish: such a claim is an opinion, not a falsifiable statement. You can claim that it’s a silly opinion, sure, but it’s not as if he’s teaching incorrect facts to the students.

We’re not exactly experiencing a glut of teachers in this country, much less high school teachers, much less high school teachers who can force students to think. The relevant question is not, are his opinions kosher, but rather, will his pedagogical technique force students to examine their world critically and think about the issues that affect them?

If so, he’s a good teacher. If not, he’s a bad teacher.

It sounds to me as if he’s getting most students to think. Unfortunately, some conservatives don’t like that, don’t appreciate having their world view challenged, and so they want to silence any voice in the classroom that disagrees with their approved pedagogical method. That’s base and awful.

Again, I’d support this guy even if he was claiming that capitalism was a wholly benevolent system that never hurt anyone, if he was claiming that private property rights ought to be the highest good, if he was claiming that we should live in a world in which people could sell their vital organs to feed their family and in which the minimum wage should be abolished, as long as he was allowing and encouraging students to challenge him. To do otherwise would be to stifle thought in the schools.

Daniel

Political science class, social sciences, heck history… i’ll buy it… but geography?

There is already so little time to instruct students in the fields they are supposed to be learning… esp when you have to teach to the slowest learner… if he wanted to have such a debate after the class… or after school… or teach a different class… maybe, but it was fully inappropriate in this class

[John_Mace]

@BrainGlutton

That’s Ayn Rand’s political philosophy, but nobody else’s, AFAIK. I don’t think even most Libertarians would go so far as to make a “virtue of selfishness.”

I don’t think you know Libertarians very well.

But, I’ll offer you and anyone else here a challenge: Without appealing to religion, convinve me to put other people’s needs above my own.

The reason I say you can’t appeal to religion is because I want to address the issue logically, and when you invoke religion you can just say “God wants you to put other people’s needs above your own”.

[Bricker]

@Fear Itself

Altruism (caring for one another without regard to profit) is more human than capitalism. Pure capitalism avoids altruism, by avoiding any expenditure that diminishes the bottom line without providing a return. Is it your opinion that being selfish is more human than being selfless?

Actually, I contend that both are equally human. Neither can fairly be called “at odds” with humanity.

[Bricker]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

We’re not exactly experiencing a glut of teachers in this country, much less high school teachers, much less high school teachers who can force students to think. The relevant question is not, are his opinions kosher, but rather, will his pedagogical technique force students to examine their world critically and think about the issues that affect them?

If so, he’s a good teacher. If not, he’s a bad teacher.

But such pedagogical technique can never extend to religious opinion, right?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bricker

But such pedagogical technique can never extend to religious opinion, right?

Why not respond to the post in which I addressed this? To reiterate:

@me

If a teacher in a religion class said, “As a fundamentalist Christian, I believe that Jews are going to hell–but I don’t have all the answers,” I’d be pretty forgiving of it. Conversely, if this teacher said, “If your parents are capitalists, I hope they’re reincarnated as slaves so they can experience oppression firsthand,” then I’d not be forgiving of it.

Daniel

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@EEMan

Political science class, social sciences, heck history… i’ll buy it… but geography?

Did you read my earlier exerpts from Colorado’s standards for geography? Geography is a helluva lot more than memorizing states and capitals: in the ninth grade, students are supposed to develop an understanding of economic systems as part of their study of geography. Economic systems affect geography, nein?

Daniel

[Gadarene]

Give it up, Daniel…you know you’re just privately cheering the guy for comparing Bush to Hitler.

[Bricker]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Why not respond to the post in which I addressed this? To reiterate:

If a teacher in a religion class said, “As a fundamentalist Christian, I believe that Jews are going to hell–but I don’t have all the answers,” I’d be pretty forgiving of it. Conversely, if this teacher said, “If your parents are capitalists, I hope they’re reincarnated as slaves so they can experience oppression firsthand,” then I’d not be forgiving of it.

All I can say, Daniel, is that, as usual, your approach is more reasonable than many of your fellow travellers. I believe that many folks on the left would work towards some kind of sanctions for a teacher that told his public school class, “As a fundamentalist Christian, I believe that Jews are going to hell–but I don’t have all the answers.”

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bricker

All I can say, Daniel, is that, as usual, your approach is more reasonable than many of your fellow travellers. I believe that many folks on the left would work towards some kind of sanctions for a teacher that told his public school class, “As a fundamentalist Christian, I believe that Jews are going to hell–but I don’t have all the answers.”

If he did it in a class on comparative religion and he encouraged students to argue and dispute with him? You might be right; I’d frankly be surprised if it’s ever happened. The proselytizing fundamentalist Christians whom I’ve known haven’t been willing to admit that they don’t have all the answers or that they could be wrong.

Daniel

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@John Mace

I don’t think you know Libertarians very well.

But, I’ll offer you and anyone else here a challenge: Without appealing to religion, convinve me to put other people’s needs above my own.

The reason I say you can’t appeal to religion is because I want to address the issue logically, and when you invoke religion you can just say “God wants you to put other people’s needs above your own”.

I went and grabbed a link to a description of [urlhttp://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm]Kohlberg’s moral reasoning, but upon composing this, I notice that you specified that putting other people’s needs “above” your own.

As a result, I’m not sure that this will satisfy you. However, there is no appeal to religious beliefs within Kohlberg’s system. It is also a descriptive model regarding the nature of moral reasoning shown by individuals. It may thus not be convincing for you, but does describe the reasoning that many people use to justify valuing other people’s needs at least equally to your own. (Note that I grabbed one of the first reasonable descriptions of Kohlberg’s moral reasoning that I came across via Google, just to give some description. Better, more comprehensive discussions do exist.) I apologize if this is ultimately not responsive to your request.

[Gadarene]

I believe that many folks on the left would work towards some kind of sanctions for a teacher that told his public school class, “As a fundamentalist Christian, I believe that Jews are going to hell–but I don’t have all the answers.”

Fantastic. Such a shame we can’t debate your unprovable beliefs. Short of asking that question of “many folks on the left,” of course. Count me in as someone who shares Daniel’s position.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Gadarene

Fantastic. Such a shame we can’t debate your unprovable beliefs.

Indeed. I get pretty tired of having conservatives tell leftists what their actions would be in hypothetical situations and then condemning leftists for not, in their imaginations, doing the right thing. It’s like getting mad at someone for the mean thing they did to you in your dream last night: how can they defend themselves?

Daniel

[EEMan]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Did you read my earlier exerpts from Colorado’s standards for geography? Geography is a helluva lot more than memorizing states and capitals: in the ninth grade, students are supposed to develop an understanding of economic systems as part of their study of geography. Economic systems affect geography, nein?

Daniel

Understanding countries/states/counties/cities/etc and how they are governed and how they approach economics… sure…

Discussing how these items came to exist is covered under the standards of Economics and/or history…

Their ‘right’ to exist is covered under civics and/or social studies…

economic systems are effected by geography… political systems affect geography… none of which seems to be what he was trying to ‘get the students to think about’… and would be better suited to other arenas of study… (as covered by the standards of education of CO)

[tomndebb]

@Bricker

Boy, you sure wriggle a lot when it’s leftist propaganda at issue, don’t you?

What wriggling? I have crtiticized his presentation but said it was not worthy of suspension. You tried to inject an Establishment Clause red herring which I have rejected. I am not the one who’s post wriggle.

@Bricker

I did?

I don;t see it that way. I suggested that suspension of the teacher was appropriate, and offered as one piece of evidence this recorded rant. Nowhere did I say that this was the sole piece of evidence. It was merely the only piece of evidence from which I could extensively quote.

You offered as the ONLY piece of evidence the teacher’s rant and did not make any reference to his teaching outside this one incident. I do see some wriggling, here, but it is not mine. I would be curious as to which phrase in the OP you think conveyed the idea that you were challenging (or mentioning) the body of his work?

@Bricker

Thus spake Mr. Jay Bennish, an Overland High School geography teacher, to his 10th grade class in 20-minute lesson captured on tape by one of his students and available here. Other gems included:

And of course there’s the obligatory:

Naturally, I expect the usual crowd here to cheer this teacher for his cogent analysis of Bush’s similarity to Hitler, and agree with him that capitalism is at odds with human rights.

Fortunately, the school district’s administrators were not drawn from the ranks of the SDMB. They have suspended Mr. Bennish, and pointed out that their district requires a balanced political viewpoint be presented in the school’s lessons.

I agree with their action, and I’d say that unless it develops that this was an elaborate lesson plan, designed to challenge student’s assumptions and create lively debate, Mr. Bennish should look for other work.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

Interestingly, 150 students joined a walkout to protest his removal from the school. This doesn’t sound to me like a teacher who discourages students from participating in democracy or from challenging authority; it doesn’t sound to me like a teacher who silences dissent in his classroom.

Daniel

[EEMan]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Indeed. I get pretty tired of having conservatives tell leftists what their actions would be in hypothetical situations and then condemning leftists for not, in their imaginations, doing the right thing. It’s like getting mad at someone for the mean thing they did to you in your dream last night: how can they defend themselves?

to be fair, I don’t think ‘conservatives’ (nor ‘leftists’) have the corner of that market

[Stephe96]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Interestingly, 150 students joined a walkout to protest his removal from the school. This doesn’t sound to me like a teacher who discourages students from participating in democracy or from challenging authority; it doesn’t sound to me like a teacher who silences dissent in his classroom.

Daniel

Please. High-school students will stage a “walkout” for reasons totally unconnected to the issue at hand. I remember joining some walkout to show support for some teacher that was maybe gonna be fired or something. I didn’t have a clue. I just realized that a bunch of us could just walk away from school in the middle of the day and chalk it up to support for a “cause.”

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@EEMan

Understanding countries/states/counties/cities/etc and how they are governed and how they approach economics… sure…

Discussing how these items came to exist is covered under the standards of Economics and/or history…

Again, did you follow my previous link? Here’s the bit I quoted and highlighted before:

As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes
• comparing and contrasting the characteristics and distribution of economic systems;

I told you before that this was just a start; may I assume that, prior to criticizing him, you didn’t dig further? From the sixth standard:

As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes
• evaluating a contemporary issue using geography knowledge, skills, and perspectives; and
• comparing and contrasting how different viewpoints influence the development of policies designed to use and manage Earth’s resources.

It may not fall under what you understand to be covered by geography, but that’s something you need to take up with the state of Colorado. Before you do so, however, you might want to look into what professional geographers say about it.

@EEMan

to be fair, I don’t think ‘conservatives’ (nor ‘leftists’) have the corner of that market

Have you actually seen that happening in reverse, or are you condemning leftists for doing this in your imagination?

Daniel

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Stephe96

Please. High-school students will stage a “walkout” for reasons totally unconnected to the issue at hand. I remember joining some walkout to show support for some teacher that was maybe gonna be fired or something. I didn’t have a clue. I just realized that a bunch of us could just walk away from school in the middle of the day and chalk it up to support for a “cause.”

Stalin had a word for that type of activist, I think :). Nevertheless, I think you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of teachers who get removed from teaching don’t have students organize and participate in a walkout to protest, especially when they’re loathsome teachers who stifle dissent.

Daniel