I don't know if you've seen this news story.

High school teacher's comments investigated by district

If you have time you can listen to what this teacher Jay Bennish is "teaching" his tenth grade students.

Is this what you want your childern to learn?

 

He's teaching the kids to think....Sounds good to me.

 

While i think that it is great he is engaging the kids in critical thinking, i don't think he needs to go about it in a political way. He's a teacher not a lobbiest. Hell i wouldn't want to sit there and listen to his rants. He is supposted to be teaching world geography not economics or international politics. sounds like a teacher bent on producing conspiracy theorists.

 

Unfortunately now, teachers cannot say anything outside of the curriculum that is given to them. They teach to the lowest level to "leave no one behind" but in turn this does not challenge the more advanced students and holds them back from their potential. Some parents who have no idea of what it takes to teach are quick to jump on the disapproval bandwagon when something does not go the way THEY think it should go. Not too long ago a mother complained that her sons homework was "too difficult" and thought that it should be easier. While teachers get spit on, punched, stabbed, shot and disrespected by students and where are the parents then?? Less and less people are willing to teach because the pay is not great, anything you say is taken the wrong way or misinterpreted and if you don't agree with something you get investigated. No wonder American schools constantly rank as some of the lowest in the world. They go as far as giving students the answers so that when the scores come back the state will see improvements and send them more funding. School should be difficult, children should be challenged, I didn't feel he was telling the kids how to think, just give them information that is out there that they otherwise would not have ever looked into or questionned themselves. It is a mind opener and a challenge for them. We live in a world where we are number one and most don't really care what goes on in the world or in the next block as long as it does not affect them or their family(when everything does, just not as noticeable). Schools should teach personal finance(budgeting), debt reduction, and have physical education that are not electives. With obesity, bankruptcy, and credit card debt controlling our youth from the day they graduate. When will that happen? Everyone is always entitled to their opinion. You can't force an issue, or think that your way is the only way. There has to be a compromise.
Oh well, i just think things are getting worse before they will get better. Just my opinion.

 

Schools today are so concerned with offending someone and getting sued (it's sad that this is even an issue) that they have to limit everything they do.

My parents are both teachers (my dad is an elementary school principal) and so I have grown up with more than one perspective on the school system; That of the student, and that of the administrator. Simple things like movies on the bus during a band trip have to be monitored so as not to offend anyone. Anything over a PG-13 rating must have signatures from the parents, because if even one child complains, the school is held accountable and can potentially be sued.
Phys-Ed is optional mainly because the "fat kid who can't do it" will complain and the parents will fight to have it made optional for their poor little boy who needs his daily cheeseburger from McDonalds.
Elementary school children CANNOT PLAY TAG, because someone might get hurt.
All music must be filtered for swearing, because it might offend someone, and again bring down the wrath of the parents.
Not a single one of the schools here has had a snow day in over 9 years (despite living in northern canada and having -40ºC temperatures) because parents complained that they cannot find a babysitter on such short notice
Religion cannot be discussed without the teacher losing his/her job, not matter what the context it seems.

One of the biggest things I hear the teachers complain about (again, I had access to the staff lounge through my parents) was the loss of streamlined classes. This means that they used to have seperate classes for the quick learners and the slow learners. If you could handle the work, you were challeneged. If not, you were put in the slower class, which would challenge you at a level you could handle.
Of course, this got shut down by another angry mob of parents who felt their child was "the best and smartest and was being treated unfairly"
So now, people who excel in class have to wait for the slow students to catch up. I myself noticed this in grade 8, where math was at this point quite easy to me. I understood every concept quickly, but was forced to do 80 of the same questions over and over until the other kids got it "to make sure I was treated JUST LIKE everybody else". Eventually I got sick of this and stopped trying. After that, math got harder for me. Now, I struggle to hold my own in a math course, and unfortunately I need several such courses for my major.


Relating more to the topic at hand, I don't think teachers should be so restricted in what they say. My friend's philosophy class had a professor who was having them re-consider their beliefs in God. He had the class do an assignment on whether or not God existed in their opinion, and based on a few rules of good and evil, how could he exist? At first, I thought this guy can't do that! He's telling us that God doesn't exist and that's going to **** off a lot of people. Then I realized, he is only making us think critically about what we believe in, so we don't just blindly follow. He did not force any belief on anyone.

Same goes for the teacher mentioned in this topic.. Sounds to me like he is making the students think critically, and, heaven forbid someone doesn't want to consider that Bush is not the wonderul almighty president that they think he is, and so they have mr **** fired.

I am not a teacher and thus my opinion is not valid here, but I think schools should make sure the students are aware of the truth, whether it is politically correct or not, but the problem is as soon as a teacher says something that somebody doesn't like, all hell breaks loose, so schools now play it safe in all respects.

</rant>

 

But see, that pertains to the class....philosophy deals with religon and issues worth thinking about... if this story was taken from a philosophy class, we wouldn't be talking about it....

The fact is, it was a 10th grade world geography class, and the teacher was doing everything in the world but teaching geography... this is why 99% of people in America couldn't tell you where most of the world are, because so little effort is given to teach/learn anything other than the North western hemisphere.

 

my favorite is...

"If your young and conservetive, then you don't have a heart,
If your older and liberal, then you don't have a brain."

 

I guess I heard something different from what others did. Maybe it's because I don't have kids.

I didn't hear a teacher teaching kids "to" think, but "what" and "how" to think. He's said things that aren't true, given half truths and made accurate statements omitting important details. At the end of this tape he says he's not sure he has an opinion. Oh really?

I don't care if this guy is a flaming liberal, and don't care if this is how he thinks about the world today. It's a free country and he has the right. I don't think it's ok to sit a bunch of impressionable teen aged kids down and go off on a diatribe under the guise of "teaching". What exactly did he teach these kids? That Bush is like Hitler? That capitalism is a system built on greed, and has NO compasion? That we, the Americans are the REAL terrorists? That the US is nothing more than a global bully?

He teaches world geography. Did you guys listen to the long tape of that class? If you did, you think he's teaching them something, related to world geography?

Maybe I am just that niave.

 

Wittom,

I listened to the long tape of the class. I think he strayed from the course material. The pressure that schools are getting nowadays to have students succeed based on standardized testing doesn't give this kind of flexibility to a classroom teacher. I'm not debating whether that's a good or bad thing, just stating that it's not within the realm of public school teachers anymore. After a lengthy diatribe about the pitfalls and basis for democracy, aggressionist/pacifist dichotomy and the Bush/Hitler comparison, it was a question of too little, too late to then attempt to bow out of the entire process by claiming not be have an opinion. (He has an opinion just as he has an a$$hole. In fact, his opinion is clearer than his a$$hole, at least his a$$hole is covered by pants.) Heck, I forgot about the Colombians and other nations bombing and torching NC because of the evil weed.
The guy was doing some good teaching, just not for that class.

 

I caught this on O'Reilly.
He had the teacher's lawyer on.

First, the class was 'Human' Geography, not World Geography. How geography and culture entertwine etc....

Second, O'Reilly irked the hell out of me in his highly touted No Spin Zone.
He does his homework, he knew it was a 10th grade class, he used to be a school teacher.
O'Reilly asks the lawyer, "Is this what you want your 12 year old taught?"
Lawyer, "They aren't 12...."
O'Reilly, "...whatever 12, 13. Is this what you want them taught, exposed to?"

If they are 12 or 13 then they would graduate at 14 or 15 and would be considered gifted kids. As an ex-educator he knew their age but, 16-17 year olds don''t make the story play as well.

O'Reilly plays with the 'Truth' with the best of them. Don't let him fool you.

Fair and Balanced.

It's like the guy who screams 'I'm honest, I'm no thief!'
before you even know there's money missing from your wallet.

 

O'Reilly irked the hell out of me

I love when I hear this

Now get back to reading your NY Times

 

Last night, he barely got the outrage for the teacher's 'Bush-Hitler' out of his mouth and in the next segment he's investigating a woman who is on the Farakan staff and some human rights commission.

He compares this to Herman Gerring on a World Peace group.
He got called on it and his head dropped.

When his head drops like it's he's way of saying DAMN.

Normally, I don't bother with the Right or Left but, if you swear you are neither, it peaks my interest to watch and wait for you to drop the ball.

 

She was a member of the Illinois anti-discrimination board who is also a protocol minister for the Nation of Islam.

 

That was not my issue.

Bush-Hitler = Bad school teacher

She-Gerring = O'Reilly

His crime was doing it on the same night as the teacher segment when he could get caught.

 

Wanna know whats wrong with kids these days?

The majority are being raised by women.