ynewlon

09-10-2006, 11:26 AM

My 7th grade teacher, back in the early 70's, made a statement about President Kennedy. The classroom became infuriated. Everyone stated debating the teacher. One boy was brought to tears. Being 7th graders, we were not prepared with the knowledge of the subject to defend our opinions. Our assignement was to discuss the statement with our parents, research the issue, and come to class prepared to defend our formed opinion. Everyone participated in the next day's discussion. There math may have been left undone, But everyone did their History Homework. That was my favorite Year of History and I will never forget my teacher. He was wonderful. He taught us not to believe everything we hear. To Arm ourselves with knowledge and to Respect the opinions of others. And Even if you don't agree with what someone says, you should defend with your life their right to say it.

"It is better to remain silent and thought to be ignorant, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

sincerely

inelson

07-09-2006, 6:20 PM

The first amendment is the first amendment! As a classroom teacher I do discuss many things with my students. When I give my point of view on an issue I do preface these discussions with the notification that it is my opinion and they should hear many opinions and make up there own minds about issues after collecting may points of view. This empowers students to think for themselves...

Meddygpwy

05-02-2006, 1:40 AM

Every one has the right to the first amendment, but as a teacher, teaching others, perhaps they should watch what they say as it might come back to them, in the wrong way. we all have a right to say what we want but we might be held accountable for what we say and what actions are carried out from what we say or teach.

hiawatha4

03-15-2006, 5:11 PM

It is great when you have a teacher or professor who has a view, but when they choose to discuss something like Jay did, you have to know your audience and where it will go from there. I had a teacher once that didn't like Jimmy Carter, and never went off on tangents like this. Geography is a great subject, and politics do play in geography and is called political geography. There is cultural geography, spacial relationship geography etc. Be responsible, short and sweet, just say, you don't like who is the current President, and leave it at that, and keep it objective. That's what I would have done. Everyone has a right to his/her opinion, but you have to responsible when expressing it. I wonder if that was part of his lesson plan that day?

Onward and Upward!

Spyder_man

03-15-2006, 1:29 AM

SolomonII,

You?re obviously still suffering from Nam. It was horrible time that tore America apart, just like Iraq is doing today. I think there are two collective opinions about Nam. We shouldn?t have gone, and you shouldn?t have been treated that way when you came home. This is what happens when the nation gets involved in an unnecessary war.

I?m so pi$$ed about the Iraq war. We are sacrificing our finest and bravest for nothing. When some asked the President "what the avg American can do to help fight terrorism..." He told us to go shopping. Some sacrifice. :rolleyes:

You may not believe this, but I used to be a Republican until I saw what a clusterf*ck Bush has made of the country. I used to be the Alex Keaton of my block. We?ve been lied to by this administration so many times I?ve lost count.

No one is being held accountable for Iraq. No one is being held accountable for 911. Not one person. The worse offense of all was that Bush didn?t listen to his military or intel advisors. Gen Shinsheki said we?d need 300,000+ troops to secure Iraq and he was forced to retire. When ever there?s a war, the State Dept is always involved deeply. Colin Powell was put in a corner until he resigned.

Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, never saw any action yet they are sending our boys and girls into harms way for no reason. When Cheney was asked to go to Nam he deferred 5 times. He said he had better things to do. Bush?s daddy got him a cushy job in the TX Air Nat Guard.

Now, Mr. Bennish certainly didn't call Bush Hitler, which would have been wrong. But he did compare the language Bush used to that of Hitler. Right or wrong, the language Bush uses is threatening to people of other countries.

Here's an excerpt of the text of his lesson that everyone is up in arms about:

"He?s threatening the whole planet. He started off his speech with talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, the most advanced, best system and that it is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the world like us. Sounds a lot like the things that Adolph Hitler used to say. We?re the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and our job is to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to. Now, I?m not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they are not, but there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very ethnocentric. Right? We?re right, you?re all wrong."

A bit over the top, but not necessarily wrong.

There comes a point when you stop toeing the company line.

stb1

03-13-2006, 4:41 PM

I believe eveyone is miising the point... This guy is a teacher and iss paid by tax dollars and I haven't heard anything complete enough to justify this individuals 1st ammendment rights? With the Cu professor and noe this left wing nut, I wonder if either really knows what "freedom" is and what it really "costs"? God save us from propaganda, nor "right" and "left". People are dying, again, so the liberal left and media can poke holes in democracy.

zivo24

03-13-2006, 12:05 PM

Solomon,

You are proving Bennish's points yourself.

You are labeling anyone that disgrees with you or speaks against the president and his adminstration as "un-American" and dismissing them as "leftists" and liberals.

How many times do neo-cons, like yourself apparently, need to be reminded that disagreeing publicly with our leaders, even the president, without fear of reprisal, is one of our greatest freedoms.

The campaign to label, belittle, and demean anyone who speaks against the president is very comparable to the tactics used by Hitler and the Nazi, Mao Tse-Tung, Mussolini, Castro, etc. They all used the politics of division to intimidate people into submission.

There's an old very American saying that goes something like, "I may disagree with what you are saying but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it". Too bad conservatives don't beleive in this. Their creed is, "do as we say, not as we do".

zivo24

03-13-2006, 11:43 AM

DawnaLR,

I'm not going to waste too much time defending Bennish to you because it sounds like you made up your mind about him long before you really had all the facts.

In regard to the issue of capitalism, there is some validity to argument that it sometimes does more harm than good. I'm all for offering consumers options and encouraging competition for high quality products and lower prices, but the quest for profit has some serious drawbacks that aren't discussed as often as they should be.

Pharamaceutical companies aren't investing in finding cures for the current 'plagues' on humanity: cancer, AIDS, etc. They are only interested in creating and producing drugs that will keep people suffering from these diseases alive longer.

Think about it. A cure for cancer or AIDS is like a lightbulb that never burns out. The company that delivers such a product would surely experience huge profits initially as consumers rush to buy the product, but once the disease is anhilated, the company would have eliminated a huge lucrative market. We've sacrificed the well-being of other people (and maybe even ourselves) in the quest for profit.

It's for reasons like this that I do believe that Mr. Bennish's classroom discussions are not only valid but vital. We need young people to think about, discuss and hopefull one day be a solution to these issues. That isn't going to happen if we censor our educators.

If you want your child to have a multi-dimensional, deeper understanding of the complexity of the world, you should hope that he/she has teachers like Bennish to challenge them.

If you want, instead, for your child to be nothing but a reflection of your own beliefs and values, than by all means, send them to private schools or home school them...but don't expect to be excused from paying your share of the public education tab...people without kids are doing it...people who send their kids to alternative education sources shouldn't be getting vouchers to recompense them for their choices.

SolomonII

03-13-2006, 10:24 AM

Spyderman

What did I say? The same old tired leftist lies and excuses for your un-American behavior. I stand behind everything I said and as far a Bush & Dick Cheney and some of their policies angered me also, & the rest of your questionable statics you quoted are a moot point What thats got to do with the with the anti-american, ungrateful garbage you & your ilk spew! Guys like you have taken a free ride on the Blood & Guts of the war veterans. We didn't go to Nam so Rabid liberal cowards like the Jay Bennish's and that scumbag Ward Churchill could abuse the First Amendment. One Iraqi war veteran is worth more than all the Bennish's, Churchill's and Products of The Public Schools which I refer to as "The Gross National Product"! When are you cowards going to start spitting on them also? It's not suprising that after 12yrs in the Public schools with that constant liberal Mantra being pounded into your head I can't say I would not have turned out the same way. I sympathize with your situation to a point. What I don't forgive is your Lazy, sloppy thinking but you're probably to far gone. By the way when are you, Alex Baldwin and Robert Redford going to finally leave this Country. This is no place for whinner, cry babies and lying left wing, anti-american cowards! I'm done with this webite and am not even goig to bother reading your sorry resonses. God Bless America & our Boys in Iraq!

SolomonII

DawnaLR

03-10-2006, 8:39 PM

I don't think this is a first amendment issue at all. Teachers don't have a first amendment right to say or teach anything they want in the classroom. They are hired to do a job and to meet the standards of that job. Just as I cannot say or do anything at all that I might like or think in my job. This is really an issue of teacher competency, truth and knowledge. if you listen to the entire text of Mr. Bennish's remarks, he shows a great ignorance of history and economics, and even of the supposed geographical forces he is teaching the kids. Whatever happened to the idea that teachers are supposed to know and teach kids true facts. Mr. Bennish is just wrong on so many fronts and he is teaching those wrong ideas to the boys and girls. That is why he should be fired and not for his political views. Take Mr. Bennish's remarks on capitalism, for instance. He said that capitalism has done nothing to help poor people or to advance human rights, etc. This couldn't be more wrong, historically. Capitalism is based on profit. But people being allowed to pursue their own self interest and to profit from their labors has also done more to address the needs of the world in that pursuit than any socialist or communist form of government. As business people, entrepreneurs and even average citizens see needs in the marketplace and then go about filling them, the capitalist system feeds the world, gives us inventions that have made countless lives better, produced breakthroughs in medicine that have healed peopled, given the United States the wealth to constantly be providing funding and relief to other nations around the world. Where do you see any such innovation or prosperity coming from a communist or socialist country where the state owns the means of production? I guess the 24 million people starving to death over in North Korea are doing well? I supposed people prospered and did well in the old Soviet Union? And regarding human rights, the capitalist system runs rings around the others systems too. I guess all the 100's of millions of people killed to redistribute the wealth and "re-educate" people in Cambodia, China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. -- all had their human rights well looked after. I guess they still have a lot of human rights in countries like that today. Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? Freedom of religion? I don't think so. So, you see, Mr. Bennish is wrong and is filling the many gullable young people in his class with lies and untruths. He was hired to teach them geography. That is why he should not be allowed to be a teacher. I think the fact that he was allowed today to continue teaching is despicable cowardice. I pity the poor kids in his class, as they will come out of it so filled with misconceptions and lies. It is, in fact, child abuse. But Mr. Bennish is not the only teacher like this. This is why I would NEVER allow a child of mine to attend any government run school in America today. Thank God for home schooling and private schooling. I only pray and wish that every parent could have access to those options.

Sincerely, Lisa in California