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This one gets complicated...; What should a teacher be allowed to say.
Topic Started: Mar 5 2006, 01:18 PM (368 Views)
artvark
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I'll give my own opinion later on. I've certainly got one on the subject, but I'm curious to see other's opinions before potentially skewing debate by giving my own. Not hubris, just an attempt to learn from others on this board.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ack=1&cset=true
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
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NateFizzle

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The link says we have to register so could you please just copy and paste the article.
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artvark
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My apologies. Here you are.

School busts teacher for Bush-bashing
Unpaid leave spurs free-speech fracas

By Nicholas Riccardi
Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Published March 5, 2006


DENVER -- It was the day after President Bush's State of the Union address, and social studies teacher Jay Bennish was warning his world geography class not to be taken in.

"Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say," Bennish told students at the suburban high school. "We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward and our job is to conquer the world."

The teacher quickly made clear that he wasn't equating the president with Hitler, but the damage was done. A sophomore in the class had recorded the lecture on an MP3 player, and last week it was played during a local conservative radio show.

Bennish, a five-year veteran of Overland High School, in Aurora, Colo., was placed on unpaid leave by the Cherry Creek School District on Wednesday, sparking an uproar over issues of free speech and proper classroom behavior.

About 150 Overland students walked out of school on Thursday to protest Bennish's absence, and the teacher's lawyer has threatened a federal lawsuit.

But after a meeting Friday with district officials, the lawyer, David Lane, told the Denver Post his client wouldn't sue before the district finishes an investigation into the matter. "I have to see what they're going to do," Lane told the Post.

Lane argued on Denver's Mike Rosen radio show, which originally played the recording, that what Bennish said is not so outlandish and was intended to provoke his students into thinking about current events.

"Maybe it's not mainstream, middle American opinion," Lane said Friday morning. "But the rest of the world agrees with him."

Lane added that if Bennish had spoken in support of Bush, he would not be under scrutiny.

Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the school district, said officials were investigating whether Bennish had violated a policy that says teachers may not intimidate students who hold political beliefs different from their own.

"Teachers do have a 1st Amendment right to express their opinion," Amole said, "but it must be in the context of the material being taught and it must provide a balanced point of view."

The Cherry Creek district serves 47,000 students in an arc of suburbs southeast of Denver.

A partial transcript of Bennish's class taken from the student's recording showed the teacher voicing a wide range of criticisms of U.S. policy and the Iraq war. Bennish has not disputed the recording's accuracy.

He noted that U.S. troops have spent 30 years fighting the drug war in Colombia and using "chemical weapons" to eradicate coca fields, cited more than 7,000 "terrorist sabotage acts" committed by the U.S. against Cuba and called the United States "probably the single most violent nation on Earth."

During the class, Bennish questioned why the United States is allowed to wage war in the Middle East but Palestinians are condemned as terrorists for attacking Israel. A student interjected that the United States does not single out civilians, unlike Palestinian terrorists. The teacher asked how Israel was created, and pointed out that early Zionists used assassination and bombings to create their state.

According to the transcript, Bennish concluded by telling his students: "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me. . . . What I'm trying to do is to get you to . . . think about these issues more in depth."

Rodney Smolla, dean of the University of Richmond Law School in Virginia and a 1st Amendment expert, said that courts allow school districts to regulate teachers' speech. "Teachers have 1st Amendment rights to speak on matters of public interest in the general marketplace, but they don't have as great a level of rights when speaking inside the classroom, on matters related to the curriculum," he said.
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
Pat Hughes is baseball radio magic.
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NateFizzle

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Although I do not agree with his comments, I do believe he has the right to say them and should not have been punished. It would have been better to express his opinion in relation to his teaching, for instance when on the topic of say foreign policy talk about his opinions on it. But he has the freedom of speech as long as it doesn't endanger anybody which I don't think it did. So he should be given his payback.
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bosoxdiehard
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Don't agree with anything she said, but he has a right to free speech.
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sfgkml
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The teacher does have the right to free speech, though I don't agree with what the teacher said. However, the article did mention limited free speech when in the classroom; anyone know more on that?
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I don't think it is right for teachers to press (or even share) their political opinions on others. Find another way to get them thinking of current events. It was in no way a 'balanced point of view'.
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eye95
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Here is what I posted on Civility. If you'd like to read the entire rant, there is a link near the bottom to the entire transcript.

On the day after the State of the Union speech this year, Sean Allen attended his Geography class, taught by Jay Bennish, and taped it. He ostensibly taped it as a note-taking aid, but that tape turned into a smoking gun in a case where we, as a people, are going to make a political decision as to where the line is when a teacher expresses his political opinions in the class. Do teachers have an absolute free speech right in the classroom, or are certain types of speech legally restrictable? When a teacher expresses his opinion, is he imposing his ideas on the students or is he merely helping them form their own opinions by questioning others who might try to impose their ideas? Are there specific techniques that cross the line from education to indoctrination?

Jay Bennish's lawyer claims that this is a free speech issue, that Bennish can essentially say anything in the classroom without consequence, and that anything short of gross incomptence is not disciplinable. The difficulty with this point of view is that it completely ignores the responsibility Bennish has to his students and to the community. In this case, Bennish is not solely a victim of government oppression of free speech. Bennish also is the government, and is, in the eyes of many of his students, giving the official government line. He has a huge responsibility to ensure that he really is promoting open-mindedness and is not descenting into diatribe.

I believe that Bennish stepped way over the line between education and indoctrination. These are the specific behaviors that lead me to this conclusion:

1. The conversation was essentially one-way. The copious questioning by Bennish was not intended to evoke thoughtful responses. It was designed to elicit short, "factual" answers that merely supported the points Bennish was trying to make--and Bennish supplied almost all of those answers! Only twice during the entire questioning process did Bennish elicit answers from students. In neither case did he help the student explore his thinking. In one case, he agreed with and restated the answer. In the other, he plowed ahead, again answering his own question. Only Allen seemed to have exploratory thinking evoked, and that evocation was clearly more a result of incredulity than of a desire to answer any thought-provoking questions. Bennish was not trying to "make his students think." He was unabashedly telling them what to think.


Jay Bennish's Questions
 
Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Ok.
...
Can you imagine? What is the world's number one single cause of death by a drug? What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!
...
What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina.
...
Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?  [No one answers.]
...
Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.
...
Why did we invade Iraq?! How do we know that the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction-- even if weapons had been found, how would you have known, how could you prove--that that was not a real reason for us to go there.
...
Anyone in here watch any of Mr. Bush's [State of the Union] speech last night? I'm gonna talk a little about some of things he had to say.
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Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!

[Unidentified student answers, "We are."]

The United States of America!
...
Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.
...
Who's continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak?!
The United States.
...
So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other?! What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?! Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future--sorry--attack? [Unintelligible.]
...
Why doesn't Mexico invade Guatemala? Maybe they're scared of being attacked. Ok. Why doesn't North Korea invade South Korea?! They might be afraid of being attacked. Or maybe Iran and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and what else did he add to the list last night - and Zimbabwe - maybe they're all gonna team up and try and invade us because they're afraid we might invade them. I mean, where does this cycle of violence end? You know?
...
Do all Mexicans dislike the United States? No. Do all Americans dislike Mexico? No.
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What is the problem with her saying [that you are for both peace and war]?  [No one answers.]
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So, if we can be for peace and for war, well, why can't the Palestinians be for peace and for war?!  [No one answers.]
...
[To Allen:]  And what is a terrorist?  [Allen answers.]
...
[To Allen:]  How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?  [Allen answers.]
...
Why? After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts.
...
Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally.
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If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children.
...
[Allen states that we were targeting terrorists with our missile attacks in Pakistan.]  Do you know that?
...
Let me ask you this. During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq were involved in an 8-year-long war. The United States sold missiles, tanks, guns, planes, to which side?

[Unidentified student:] Iraq?

[Bennish:] Both.
...
Don't we want one side to win? Not always!
...
Do we really want the Middle East to unite as one cohesive political and cultural body?  No!  Because then they could what? Threaten our supremacy.
...
We want to keep the world divided. Do we really want to kill innocent people? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
...
Right?
...
Listen, between the years 1960 and 1962, the United States through the CIA conducted over 7,000 terrorist sabotage attacks against the small island nation of Cuba. Over 7,000 terrorist attacks were waged against just one little country called Cuba in a two year period, intentionally, let me rephrase that, intentionally blowing up medical supplies, intentionally burning down crops that feed their country, thereby creating starvation, right?
...
Right?
...
And so this whole idea of who attacked who first, how far back in time do you wanna go!?  This is the whole thing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Well, who was there first? Well, if you believe the Bible, you say, well, God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites. But who was in that land when they got there? The Canaanites, who some archeologists would argue are the ancient descendants of the Palestinians. You know.


2. The lecture occured while the students were copying definitions off the board. Students cannot both copy information off the board and rationally consider what Bennish is saying. Bennish's technique all but forces the information flow to be one-sided.

3. Bennish is presenting his opinions as facts. Rather than actually quote what President Bush said in the State of the Union, Bennish builds a strawman and proceeds to tear that strawman to pieces. The readers are invited to compare what Bennish claims the president said to what the president actually said.

Bennish, though his lawyer, claims that he was trying to get his students to "question." If that were truly the case, he would have held a discussion, rather than talk over board-copying. He would've asked more open-ended questions. He would've solicited answers from the students. He would've allowed students to do most of the talking, interrupting only to correct mistaken facts and to spur on deeper exploration. He wouldn't have almost exclusively answered his own questions. He wouldn't have spoken over students' attempts to answer his questions. He would have encouraged answers of more than one or two words.

This was indoctrination. Clearly.

Should Bennish be fired? I don't think so. He should definitely be disciplined. A more experienced teacher should mentor him, helping him improve his technique for getting students involved and thinking. His classes should be monitored, in person or on tape, so he can be spot-checked to ensure his methods are improving. He should only be fired if this has been an ongoing problem (or becomes and ongoing problem) that Bennish refuses to correct.

Teachers should be allowed and encouraged to express their opinions. To a small extent, this is a free-speech issue. However, to a larger extent, this is a responsibility issue.
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artvark
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Eye, thanks for posting more of the lecture. While the object of the exercise is to get students to think, Machivellian techniques such as these need to be used VERY carefully.
As a teacher, there is an inherent position of power over students. Expressing your point of view, even with the disclaimers of "I'm not trying to tell you what to think" are not sufficient due to the inherent imbalance of power in the classroom. Using one's own personal opinions to prove a point is a dangerous tactic that most pedagogical techniques frown upon.
Much as I may agree with many of his points of view, his presentation of them in the classroom is a dangerous game and most likely innappropriate.
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
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NateFizzle

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I'll have to agree with you guys. If it wasn't an opinion session to try to spark good conversation its uncalled for. It's kind of like a math teacher talking about sex.
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eye95
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*ahem*

I am a math teacher. And, I like to believe I am quite competent at sex! :P
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NateFizzle

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eye95,Mar 5 2006
05:01 PM
*ahem*

I am a math teacher. And, I like to believe I am quite competent at sex! :P

Yeah, but you wouldn't tell your students all about it though.
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eye95
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natefizzle,Mar 5 2006
04:06 PM
eye95,Mar 5 2006
05:01 PM
*ahem*

I am a math teacher.  And, I like to believe I am quite competent at sex! :P

Yeah, but you wouldn't tell your students all about it though.

Demonstration/performance would be a more effective teaching technique than discussion or lecture!
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artvark
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Why do I feel like I just stumbled into a Life of Brian excerpt... ;)
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
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ThomasTomasz
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If we as a country eliminate religion in public schools because it can influence some of the students, then we should eliminate the political exposure that teachers give to their students in public school. They can force these issues on the students, and thats not what we want. AP level courses in high school is fine, especially for AP Government and History courses, but anything besides that, teachers definately should not be allowing their politics to interfere with their teaching.
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eye95
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ThomasTomasz,Mar 5 2006
04:42 PM
If we as a country eliminate religion in public schools because it can influence some of the students, then we should eliminate the political exposure that teachers give to their students in public school. They can force these issues on the students, and thats not what we want. AP level courses in high school is fine, especially for AP Government and History courses, but anything besides that, teachers definately should not be allowing their politics to interfere with their teaching.

I see only one solution to the problem of schools teaching kids in a way that is at odds with the students' families' values (religious, moral, and political): We need to eliminate public conduct of education in favor of public funding of education. Since schools cannot help but pass along values, families need to be able to choose schools that pass along values they want passed along.
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artvark
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eye95,Mar 5 2006
06:26 PM
We need to eliminate public conduct of education in favor of public funding of education.

Could you elaborate on this point? I'm not certain what you mean by this. :huh:
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
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eye95
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artvark,Mar 5 2006
06:30 PM
Could you elaborate on this point? I'm not certain what you mean by this. :huh:

Guarantee each student a certain amount of money each year to be spent on education. Each family would be free to choose to spend the money at a public school or at an accredited private school of their choice, allowing families to choose a school that will not indoctrinate their children with values the family believes is morally, ethically, religiously, or politically wrong.
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artvark
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eye95,Mar 5 2006
06:41 PM
Guarantee each student a certain amount of money each year to be spent on education. Each family would be free to choose to spend the money at a public school or at an accredited private school of their choice, allowing families to choose a school that will not indoctrinate their children with values the family believes is morally, ethically, religiously, or politically wrong.

Interesting, but rather impractical.
A) It would be tied up in the courts for years with lawsuits of every stripe
B) What provisions would you suggest for the guarantee of standards being met?
C) Would this, in your opinion, save money or cost more overall? Also, would the funds come from their current source (property taxes) or from some other source of taxation?
"Get out the tapemeasure...looooong gone."
Pat Hughes is baseball radio magic.
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kyyankgrrl
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If teachers want to voice their opinions, use the op-ed sections of their local newspapers. Students are in class to learn, not hear a personal political rant.

In 2004, when my great-nephew was in kindergarten, he came home and told his mother she should vote for George Bush. When she asked why, he said "because my teacher said so." His mother promptly had a discussion with the teacher, requesting that she stop campaigning via 5-year-olds, or the principal and school board would be informed.
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