Friday, March 03, 2006

Dead Skunk Friday: Bush, Hitler, and High School

Lately, Fridays are becoming the day when I gravitate back to a story I've been trying to ignore all week. "Dead Skunk Stories," I call them, because they're disgusting to look at, yet all but impossible to look away from.

This Friday is no exception.

In case you haven't heard, a teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado has been disciplined for allegedly comparing George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler in front of his students.

One of the students taped the remarks, and showed the tape to his dad. His dad didn't like what he saw and heard, and complained to the school principle. The teacher, Jay Bennish, has been put on leave while school district administrators determine whether he violated a policy requiring balanced viewpoints in the classroom.

Yesterday, roughly 150 students walked out of class to protest Bennish's suspension. One student held a sign that read "Honk if you like free speech."

This morning, Bennish filed a lawsuit against the Aurora school district.

The kid who made the tape and showed it to his dad is thinking of changing schools for fear of reprisals.

What Happened?

I've only seen snippets of the tape on television. Nothing the teacher said sounded all that offensive to me. But Bush and Hitler are two of my all time least favorite political leaders, so hearing someone compare them doesn’t ruffle my feathers.

The controversy began on February 1st, the day after Mister Bush's State of the Union address. That a high school teacher might lead a class discussion on a major speech given by the president of the United States the night before hardly seems surprising or inappropriate.

The closest I've come to finding a transcript of the classroom discussion is in a report from ABC News.
"Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?" Bennish asked his class. "The United States of America."

Yeah, that's an incendiary sounding statement to be making in a classroom, especially in a public school in a state that's about as blue as a strawberry. But is it a true statement?

America is, after all, the only nation in history that used a nuclear weapon on a civilian population, not once, but twice. Were those acts of violence necessary and justified? Having mulled that question over for decades, I come down on the side that says yes, they were, given the circumstances in which they were committed. But necessity and justification are separate issues from whether the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were two of the most violent acts of war ever conducted by a "civilized" nation.

So I'd say Bennish was stating an uncomfortable but accurate fact. We don't want teachers doing things like that?

As to the Bush-Hitler comparison:
"I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not," Bennish said. "But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

Anybody who knows a fiddlers fundament about political tactics and rhetoric is acutely aware that Bush's and Hitler's tones are eerily similar, even though the two leaders are obviously not exactly the same.

So where's the problem?

Was Bennish somehow trying to brainwash his students, to sway them to his political point of view?
"I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me," he said. "What I'm trying to get you to do is to think, right, about these issues more in depth."

Trying to get his students to think about issues in depth. How dare a high school teacher have the unmitigated arrogance to attempt a thing like that!

#

The radical right would like to see the American education system limited to teaching of the "3 Rs," which would reduce all learning to rote memorization of spelling, archaic grammar rules, and arcane math equations.

I happen to agree that our public school systems are weak in teaching basic skills. I wish I had a penny for every time I've handed a dollar and a nickel to a convenience store clerk to pay for an 85-cent candy bar and heard "That's too much."

But even the simplest human mind is much more than a computer hard drive. Higher brain functions go far beyond the storage of facts and formulas. Memorizing multiplication tables won't teach anyone how to get along with family, friends, co-workers and customers, or how to discriminate between self-respect and bigotry, or how to tell when they're being brainwashed by people who want their votes.

Perception and Reality

We don't have a fraction of the context necessary to draw accurate judgments regarding the Overland High School controversy. For all we know, the dad of the kid who taped the classroom discussion could Adolph Coors class Colorado conservative Bush supporter who overacted to what he thinks he saw. Conversely, teacher Jay Bennish might be a card-carrying member of al Qaeda who's been covertly assigned to corrupt the minds of America's teenagers.

But I'm guessing the former is more likely than the latter.

And the fact that 150 high school students risked expulsion and other discipline by walking out of class to support their teacher might be a significant clue as to where the reality of the situation lies.

Postscript

Earlier today, I caught a few seconds of a cable news shouting contest on the high school Hitler controversy. The guy on the right, purple faced and bellowing, labeled Jay Bennish with epithets like "pink-o communist."

Who does sound "eerily similar" to?

PPS

You knew that Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandfather, did business with the Nazis, right? While U.S. troops were fighting in Europe during World War II, some of Prescott's companies were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act because they were fronts for German industrialist and Hitler financier Fritz Thyssen. A regular Milo Minderbender, old Prescott was.

How about them acorns?

14 comments:

  1. The one who's screaming the loudest is probably the most insecure and afraid, and is also probably the one who knows the least about the given topic.

    Talk about basic educational needs! Debate? Reason? Compare and contrast? Lost arts, unfortunately.

    I've said for years we waste too much time teaching kids how to write checks, when we should be teaching them practical ways to handle money so they'll have enough to COVER those checks.

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  2. Scott,

    "Anti-American" how? In what context did he discuss capitalism and human rights? What did he actually say. Was he expressing his own opinion, or was he quoting the opinions of others?

    You know who you're sounding "eerily similar" to, don't you, Scott?

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  3. Anonymous5:20 PM

    I had a teacher like that...in fact a couple of them in high school.

    Mr. Monrad taught history and taught us about Laos and the recent history of SE Asia. And he welcomed, or demanded, debate. bless his heart, we were well informed for Viet Nam.

    Had a civics teacher, Mr. Wells aka Stubby Wells. Crazy old guy would have us bring in articles from the paper and call on us to discuss them in class. Stubby hated the Dems. and did not pause to get on his rant. That made is class very interesting and woke us up to the changes that had started.

    And I did have a geography teacher that not only taught simple geography, but also taught why this country/area is valid..politically, economically, etc. And yes, he did spout off some interesting ideas, but it made us realize that there is more to the story.

    Kids need to think, and to kick that into second gear, they need to be challenged to put forth a reasonable argument.

    If our leader can call paraplegic veteran un-American, and trash/swift boat an VN prisoner of war, and call those who disagree with him traitors...hell, he called the game and the rules, not the teacher. What is going on with those kids makes my heart sing! Good for them and good for the teacher!

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  4. Scott,

    I call you on your debating technique and you frame it as a personal attack?

    Please.

    You're just proving my point.

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  5. Anonymous5:31 PM

    Scott,
    It is High School we're talking about here, so they're not exactly young kids. We discussed equally controversial things when I was in High School (a little "police action" going on in southeast asia to be exact), so I don't think that's an inappropriate age for kids to be asked to stop memorizing and start thinking.

    I would also say that Geography isn't that much of a strech for me. History, politics, and geography are pretty closely related, especially when talking about national borders.

    Also, I agree with Jeff that if that many kids were willing to walk out for the teacher, he probably wasn't someone regularly guilty of abusing his position, or at least not to the point of bullying a captive audience.

    Other than that, since I haven't seen these tapes/transcripts, I'm going to reserve judgement for now.

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  6. Anonymous1:05 AM

    A dollar and a nickel for an 85-cent candy bar? How crazy can you get?

    Obviously you should give a dollar and a dime.

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  7. Lurch and Scott,

    I didn't mention this in the post because I only saw it in one place, but I think the guy also teaches social studies, so there's probably quite a bit of cross over. Plus, how one completely isolates geography from history and politics is beyond me. I recall that geography in HS and JHS involved quite a bit of every country's history. That's how I recall learning about Simon Bolivar.

    Joffan,

    Guess I'm showing my liberal arts background. ;-)

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  8. Anonymous6:41 AM

    Scott

    I am all for any teacher to use unconventional methods to get kids to think. I was lucky to have a high school education that allowed teachers to wake us up.

    Liberal education? Yep! I had teachers who wore a WWI German uniform to class while teaching that period of history and a Humanities teacher that would routinely sit cross legged on the desk, which eased us into open discussion. And I can assure you that Stubby Wells was as close to ranting Rush as 1965 could conjure. So when I use the word liberal....I mean it to be all inclusive, not just one "party line."

    Stubby ranted and his political position was the more popular, but some were questioning and arguing against his spin, tirades and statements. We put out the effort to fight back, and those who agreed with Stubby did the same. Isn't that education?? Even in high school debate clubs, etc one must argue for a cause one does not really believe in. Couldn't that teacher have been doing the same to get his class to think?

    I hated high school, but I thank my lucky stars that I had teachers like those. And I applaud those who will step out of the "rote" and add a little reality and challenge. Bravo!! And No, I would not hold it against a teacher who carried the Bush banner, because I would hope that my kid would fight back and speak their minds. Nor would I have my kid tape his class and try to get him fired, just because he was doing something I didn't agree with...politically.

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  9. Who's alleging the teacher "spent 80 percent of class periods espousing his personal political opinions?"

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  10. A tape recorder? This was a video tape, right? How do you make a video tape of a class lecture without the teacher knowing about it?

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  11. Anonymous9:31 PM

    On the other hand, these mini-recorders are common enough today, and I've seen kids that record every word spoken in class instead of taking written notes. This could have just as easily been the first "rant" that the kid and his father thought could be used against this particular teacher. That the kid making the complaint says it happened 80% of the time proves nothing. After all, he can't be concidered impartial in this.

    Good point though, about the kids walking out. That could have just as easily been nothing more than an excuse to escape for most of them.

    Lurch hits the main issue. What we hear is pre-spun, and we'll never actually know if this was a teacher out of control, or a parent with a grudge, because any facts will be altered to fit the conclusion either way.

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  12. Lurch and William,

    Way back when, I think that was the point I was trying to make. We don't have anything like "close enough" to the facts to draw the kinds of conclusions about the situation or the teacher.

    There's a chance that the guy's the creepy ideologue some people are making him out to be, but we have no real way of knowing that. We don't know if he was expressing his own views or just role playing. We don't know the context in which the episode was included in the class.

    And as far as I can tell, neither does anyone who's calling the guy a "communist" (that's a Horowitz quote) and using the story to bash the public school systems.

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  13. Anonymous5:35 PM

    You'd believe the kid because kids, of course, never ever lie about anything they do in school.

    Nope. Never!

    It's interesting how no one addresses the fact he said the class could disagree with him. Why didn't anyone? Why didn't Sean?

    Sounds to me like the same old whining I hear on GaiaOnline from the young neo-cons: "I can't voice my opinions,because the teacher's a better debator than me! S/he won't just accept my opinions as fact! It's not _fair_!"

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  14. Anonymous11:46 AM

    You people need to listen to the entire tape. Then you will realize that he really cannot be defended, and the student who taped him did speak up, he is the only person on the tape that sounds even mildly intelligent, which is the problem. Bennish is an idiot, plain and simple.

    Link to full audio
    http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3560566

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