The new geography...

[OklahomaTuba]

I knew it was just a matter of time until the whole Bush=Hitler garbage made its way to public schools, instead of being just relegated to leftist loons and democratic presidential campaigns.


AURORA - A 16-year-old boy at Overland High School doesn’t want to hear what he calls his teacher’s left-wing political rants.

Sean Allen frequently recorded his teachers to back up his notes. Allen recorded Jay Bennish, his 10th grade World Geography teacher, making comments about President Bush’s State of the Union Address. Allen’s father claims the comments made in the recording are biased and inappropriate for a geography class.

“I’m not saying Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they’re not. OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use,” says Bennish in his critique of U.S. economic and foreign policy.http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=b8298706-0abe-421a-0116-75e16c449518&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

[OklahomaTuba]

More great wisdom from the neo-commie:

Capitalism: If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. 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.

[KABOOKIE]

neo-commie. heh.

[Jimminy Crimson]

Those are people who shouldn't be teaching.

[Tear Down This Wall]

Why can't teachers just teach anymore? If they want to be editorialists, why not quit the teaching job, go back to school and get a journalism degree, then try to land a job in television, radio, newsprint, etc.?

[OklahomaTuba]

Kids these days...

Bush goes on 'trial' in Morris
Parsippany students confront issues of terrorism and war

BY ROB JENNINGS
DAILY RECORD

PARSIPPANY -- President Bush is being tried for "crimes against civilian populations" and "inhumane treatment of prisoners" at Parsippany High School, with students arguing both sides before a five-teacher "international court of justice." The panel's verdict could come as soon as Friday.

Teacher Joseph Kyle said the "hearing"-- he preferred that term to trial -- opened on Monday in a senior advanced placement government class. The school's principal said he signed off in advance on the subject matter.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060302/NEWS01/603020327/1005

I'm guessing they don't hear much about the millions that will have a chance at freedom and the good we are doing.

[SCOUT]

Kids these days...
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060302/NEWS01/603020327/1005

I thought No Child Left Behind only allowed teachers to teach to the test. Wait, the outcome of this trial is not the test is it?

[OklahomaTuba]

I thought No Child Left Behind only allowed teachers to teach to the test. Wait, the outcome of this trial is not the test is it?
No, the test will be a field trip to DC to "take back our country" by helping the 50 other losers who try to rush the guards at the Whitehouse.

I wonder if the students can get extra credit for protesting a military recruiter or army hospital? Seems like they would.

[critical_phil]

Those are people who shouldn't be teaching.

imo, education is a "calling" and not an "occupation". anyone in that field that doesn't feel the same way has missed the boat...


i've actually had a couple of instances where i felt that teachers were politicking my kids @ westmoore. they both rec'd a phone call from me - one admitted it and we talked about it, and one denied (lied about) making the reported statements.

each was told to keep their opinions relevant and to the scope of the class or else meet me by the flag pole at 3:30.

[Octavian]

Why can't teachers just teach anymore?

as opposed to when?

[NormanPride]

The first teacher is stupid and needs to be let go. The second one just sounds like a good instructor that wants his kids to think a lot. It's not like he's saying "Bush killed all these people... let's put him on trial!" In fact, it's the opposite. He was setting up a defense...

[mdklatt]

Do kids go to school to learn how to learn and think for themselves or to learn how to regurgitate facts?

[Tear Down This Wall]

as opposed to when?

Well, I was born in 1969, went to elementary school in the 1970s and junior high, high school, and some of college in the 1980s, the rest in the 1990s.

Never, until the Clarence Thomas supreme court nomination, did I ever hear a teacher inject their opinion into a subject. I went to public school for all but two years of my pre-college days. Then, each teacher taught their subject and didn't wander beyond the boundary of the subject.

For example, in our high school economics course, we learned about economics, but our teacher didn't give her opinion on any system of economics. This was when Ronald Regan was president, this was during the Cold War. And, yet, the teacher back then was professional enough to simply do her job and teach us economics. Ditto every other subject I was taught in elementary school, junior high, and high school.

It wasn't until 1991, in college, that I ever heard an instructor editorialize. Then, it was about Clarence Thomas. A year later, I had a world literature teacher tell us not to mention God because there was no God and people who said they believe in Him made her sick. Even though I believed in God, I didn't care. By then, I was in my early 20s and just wanted to get my world lit requirement out of the way.

So, through the first 16 years of my education, I had maybe a half dozen instructors editorialize, and all were at the collegiate level. At that point, you are chosing whether or not to be there and paying money to do so.

High school kids have no such choice. Attendance is compulsary. Their parents have to pay taxes to support the school districts and often can't choose which schools to send their kids to in the public school setting.

So, in my mind, the school districts have a duty to be sure their teacher simply teach their subject matter. It's not too much to ask. That's what they're paid to do. If a teacher wants to be political commentator, he or she should put down their chalk, apply to a journalism school, and be on their way.

Guys like the teacher in Colorado would have been fired back when I was in school. Geography is geography. It's not Hardball with Chris Matthews or Hannity and Colmes. Just teach geography and keep your hippie comments to yourself and your petty, loser, soap-averse friends who can't get over Bush whipping John Kerry's butt in 2004.

[NormanPride]

Do kids go to school to learn how to learn and think for themselves or to learn how to regurgitate facts?

With No Child Left Behind, facts. It's sad. I miss the days of random school projects on whatever the teacher felt like teaching that month. :(

[mdklatt]

Geography is geography.

What do you think geography is?

[sooner n houston]

With No Child Left Behind, facts. It's sad. I miss the days of random school projects on whatever the teacher felt like teaching that month. :(
And kids graduating, in mass, that could not read write or do math. Boy those were the days! ;)

[Tear Down This Wall]

Do kids go to school to learn how to learn and think for themselves or to learn how to regurgitate facts?

Your proposition is not valid because it presupposes that children who learn to memorize facts cannot also think for themselves. In fact, that is the biggest problem of all from the liberal side of this argument.

Geography, the class this "teacher" was leading, is a very fact heavy. There's nothing to think about. Brazil is in South America. Tanzania is in Africa. Oklahoma is in America. You cannot hypothesize your way around Geography.

Nor is philosophy any help in locating the Nile River, Swiss Alps, or the Bering Strait. They are where they are, no matter who is leading any particular country in the world. Whether or not Bush is like Hilter will not alter the location of Rome, the Sahara Desert, or the Red Sea.

Also, education is often called a discipline because that is, in fact, what it is. In order to learn algebra, I must sit and work the equations over and over again. No amount of philosophical pause will make me learn the subject. I must do the equations. And, the better I discipline myself to complete the equations, the higher my retention of algebra will be, and the higher my grade.

Yet, in my willingness to discipline myself to learn algebra, or the location of the Andes Mountains, or the theory behind capitalism or communism, I do not automatically lose my ability to have a point of view.

I've given this example before in the many debates about Creationism versus the Big Bang theory. I was taught and tested over both at a private junior high school. Yet, the learning of the theories did not affect my opinion of either. It simply made me all the wiser for having knowledge of both.

The pre-collegiate education, and I would argue even the first two years of college, should be heavy in learning facts to prepare you for your ultimate decision in how to complete your education in your junior and senior years of college, and even beyond.

But, no matter how you slice it, there is no truth to the point that you either choose to regurgitate facts or have a point of view. Every student does both. And, it is the school districts' responsibility to make sure their teachers know when each is appropriate.

Here, the Geography teachers rant on things political was not germane to the subject matter, and therefore, out of bounds.

[mdklatt]

Geography, the class this "teacher" was leading, is a very fact heavy. There's nothing to think about. Brazil is in South America. Tanzania is in Africa. Oklahoma is in America. You cannot hypothesize your way around Geography.


You are ignorant about what geography really is. Geography is about much, much more than memorizing state capitals.



Here, the Geography teachers rant on thing political was not germane to the subject matter, and therefore, out of bounds.

Political and economic discussions are completely germane to a high school geography class.

[Tear Down This Wall]

No. Really, they aren't. Political and economic discussions are for Government/Civics, History, and Economics classes. That's why they have them all separated out.

Geography is about geography - the location of places and things on the globe we call Earth.

Government, usually U.S. Government in public high schools, is about the system of government in this country and how it began and developed.

History is about the events that have played a role in shaping where the nation is today, from the dicovery of the country to Bush kicking Kerry's arse.

Economics is about theories of markets and how each is supposed to work.

It's really no more difficult than that. The Aurora geography teacher could have made his statements in a government or history class given it's obvious relation to the subject matter taught in those classes. And, the school district has already said as much.

[NormanPride]

And kids graduating, in mass, that could not read write or do math. Boy those were the days! ;)

Actually, you'll find that more now. Kids are moved along forcefully despite the fact that they don't know the material/can't comprehend the topics. Before all this, those kids would be held back or put in special classes.

[mdklatt]

No. Really, they aren't. Political and economic discussions are for Government/Civics, History, and Economics classes. That's why they have them all separated out.

Geography is about geography - the location of places and things on the globe we call Earth.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Well if you are studying a location, it might help to know the local forms of government and militia than make them unique. I doubt "Dubya" falls into anything they would learning though unless they were maybe learning about something relating to him and i doubt that it would come up. My Geography teacher talked to us about Bermuda Grass :)

[sooner n houston]

Actually, you'll find that more now. Kids are moved along forcefully despite the fact that they don't know the material/can't comprehend the topics. Before all this, those kids would be held back or put in special classes.

Got an stats to back that statement up? My impression is the exact opposite.

[SoonerProphet]

Rome was divided into an eastern empire, located in Byzantium while the the city itself remained the captital of the west. Sounds pretty simple on the surface, just stupid places on the map, but the reasons as to why are much more interesting. Pretty complex stuff.

It is better to be objective in the classroom and not be a pundit, people can play devil's advocate too.

[Tear Down This Wall]

Wikipedia? The outfit that lets anyone log on and create a definition? Sorry, man. Geography is geography. W.'s State of the Union Addresses have nothing to do with it, no matter what hippie teachers and the knotheads who contribute to wikipedia think. Sad. Very sad.

[Octavian]

You do know that not everyone that disagrees w/ Dubya is a hippie right?

edit: the vast majority of those who disagree w/ him

[NormanPride]

Got an stats to back that statement up? My impression is the exact opposite.

No, but my mother and about a dozen family friends have about 30 years experience each to back it up.

[soonerscuba]

Because teachers in Oklahoma never, ever pundit Republican issues.

TDTW, you have to be smart enough to know that there is a massive amount of study beyond places on a map to geography. I don't disagree that teachers shouldn't get up and hate on Bush, but saying that geography teachers should teach places on a map, is like saying that the only document that a government student should ever lay eyes on is the Constitution.

[Vaevictis]

Geography is geography.

That much is true, like water is water, and the sky is the sky. But there's more to geography than just the physical geography you seem to be talking about. There are several different types of geography, and *most* of them have more to do with people than landscape.

Politics *are* studied in geography, particularly the politics of a region and how the geography of that region has or may have shaped them. Now, do I think that the geography teacher in question was staying on topic? Probably not; most pre-college geography focuses on physical geography. But is it impossible that politics would be discussed in a geography class? Not even close.

(If you don't believe me, well... http://geography.ou.edu/. Just read about what the department focuses on. You'll notice that they SPECIFICALLY mention political geography as a study area. Go check out some of the course titles. There's much more to geography than just places.)

[Tear Down This Wall]

Your links and discussion of geography are focusing on collegiate study of geography. We're talking about a high school teacher here teaching geography to a high school class.

And, again, whatever W. said in his State of the Union Address, no hippie high school geography teacher can realistically stretch a comparison of W. to Hitler into a high school geography class. As I stated before, Government or History, for sure, and as the school district said, only if giving both sides.

This teacher, in his hippie-infested mind, thinks he has an ax to grind with W. So, he rants in front of a group of minors about it. The intellectual lightweight actually had a kid with a brain in his class who caught him on tape. He's busted and rightfully so. Teach the high schoolers geography and go lick your political wounds with your pasty-faced, latte-sipping, chicken littles on your own time.

And, yes, I know not every who disagrees with W. is a hippie, but I've the picture of this teacher, and he looks like he hasn't seen a clean bars of soap or a barber in quite some time.

[skycat]

Your links and discussion of geography are focusing on collegiate study of geography. We're talking about a high school teacher here teaching geography to a high school class.



Wait, didn't you say geography is geography?

You were right about that, but you're wrong about what it is. Don't believe me? Choose a reference. Look it up.

This is not to say that it is impossible for an individual teacher to step over the line. But that's a separate discussion entirely.

[Vaevictis]

Your links and discussion of geography are focusing on collegiate study of geography. We're talking about a high school teacher here teaching geography to a high school class.

Well, as you said: geography is geography. On that point, I agree wholly. Geography IS geography, and geography DOES include politics. And yeah, I know that a lot of high school geography focuses on the physical part, especially when you were in high school, but I can tell you from experience that TODAY's high school geography classes will talk about more than just the physical part.

On day one of my high school geography class (mid 1990's), the first thing that the teacher did was emphatically make the point that there's more to geography than just physical location. He spent a lot of time going over where throughout the year, but after going over the "where" of each location, he went into the cultures AND politics of the region.

Now, based on the article, I think the teacher may have stepped out of bounds. But it's not because he talked about politics in a geography class, it's because he is a government employee *advocating* on government time (assuming that's what he did, the article is a little.. light on details). That's the big no-no here.

[OklahomaTuba]

Oh come on, we all know geography = liberal indoctrination.

That's why Bush = Hitler.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Everytime I see Hitler and Bush in the same sentence, it ****es me off. It takes a very special whack job to even get in that realm. Cheney could drown 3 puppies on television and I would say well at least it isn't a totally native people who have a different religion. When people say Bush is like Hitler, it gives me the impression that people are forgetting how truly heinous things that Hitler did. I mean for ****'s sake people, watch Schindler's List or something. It really scares me that we are throwing out Hitler comparisons so easily. It tells me that there is a time in the not so distant future where we will say "Yeah, but..." when it comes to somebody else's genocide.

[jeremy885]

Do kids go to school to learn how to learn and think for themselves or to learn how to regurgitate facts?

Can kids be taught an unbiased set of facts or accepted theories and then decide for themselves on how they want to interpret them?

[mdklatt]

Can kids be taught an unbiased set of facts or accepted theories and then decide for themselves on how they want to interpret them?

There is no such thing as an unbiased theory in political geography, or political science, or economics, or any other social science. We don't have much context with the story that started this thread. Maybe the teacher was trying to start a discussion. But lord knows some people can't stand to hear something that doesn't agree with their own slanted black/white view of the world. You learn more from people who don't agree with you than from people who do. Education, particularly once you get to high school, should be as much about teaching you how to think as what to think. If all we're going to do in schools is teach kids to memorize the capitals of Europe be prepared for a lot more high-paying jobs to head overseas.

[49r]

Everytime I see Hitler and Bush in the same sentence, it ****es me off. It takes a very special whack job to even get in that realm. Cheney could drown 3 puppies on television and I would say well at least it isn't a totally native people who have a different religion. When people say Bush is like Hitler, it gives me the impression that people are forgetting how truly heinous things that Hitler did. I mean for ****'s sake people, watch Schindler's List or something. It really scares me that we are throwing out Hitler comparisons so easily. It tells me that there is a time in the not so distant future where we will say "Yeah, but..." when it comes to somebody else's genocide.

I'll bet writing this post really ****ed you off, huh?

[usmc-sooner]

anyone who thinks Bush is like Hitler is too retarded to be allowed to speak, much less teach.

You don't have to like him but to make this crap up shows how slanted a lot of people on the left are. Notice to this comment people we'll point out this or that person on the other side but I doubt very many we'll say that's wrong and let's fix it. Why because if you're on the side of the all out hate Bush than you rarely admit if anyone crosses the line so long as it's against him.

Just like this whole entire thread you guys freakin argue over what geography is and hardly anyone just comes out and says you know the guy was wrong.

You know under Nazi germany if a teacher would have disagreed with Hitler the results would have been torture or death, in our great country you can protest the President at his ranch, disagree with him, call him an idiot, have TV shows that make fun and second guess him at every turn. I guess the comparison is really close between Bush and Hitler, I don't think the left are all hippies but a big part of them are just flat out hater morons.

[Tear Down This Wall]

People get back to the facts of the story:

(1) The class was a 10th grade Geography class. It wasn't a college level class, it wasn't an AP class. It was a Geography class taught to 10th grader. And, it was a Geography class, not a "political geography" class.

(2) The teacher compared Bush to Hitler because of a State of the Union Address, something that has nothing to do with a 10th grade Geography class. Government, yes. History, yes. Geography, no.

(3) The kid in question was smart enough to realize the teacher was out of bounds. The school district agreed enough to suspend the teacher over the comments. The district did its job.

Finally, and the most important point, public school teachers need to do their jobs. The kids are in their schools because they are required to be there by law. Their parents foot the bill through taxes, but have no choice about which public school their child will attend. This is different than a college professor ranting like an idiot with Hitler comparison because the students there are attending of their own free will and on their own dime and time.

The Geography teacher in Aurora was irresponsible and got caught. He's an intellectual lightweight pushing his Michael Moore-like paranoia onto 16-year old kids. It's a freaking joke, and it's good that the school district did their job and shut it down.

[Rhino]

Two things that disturb me here:

1. That this kid went to an online columnist and radio talk show hosts instead of the school administration about this. Of course, those crazies are going to let it get out of control.

2. That nothing happened to these 150 kids that walked out of class to protest the teacher being put on leave. How are you supposed to maintain control when you let that happen with no consequences? I understand the students came back to class, but were there any ultimatums issued by the school?


And, has it been said anywhere if the teacher gave the student permission to audiotape his lecture? I know the student said he "taped the discussions to help him study", but did they teacher give him permission? If not, isn't that illegal? I know it is in the college setting.

[Tear Down This Wall]

And, has it been said anywhere if the teacher gave the student permission to audiotape his lecture? I know the student said he "taped the discussions to help him study", but did they teacher give him permission? If not, isn't that illegal? I know it is in the college setting.

Excellent question, Rhino. I'm not sure, but I think the distinction lies in professional differences between teachers and professors. For example, much of what teachers use in class - materials, books, etc. - is approved by a school board or the state and also approved by the same. So, the content is not theirs personally.

For the professor, it's a little different. Much of what professors lecture is from their own research. Much of that research goes into producing scholarly papers and articles from which they derive their reputations and advancements. So, the portion of what they give in class that is their own theory from their own research is most likely going to be considered intellectual property.

[mdklatt]

Don't you have to get anybody's permission if you're going to record them?

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Nope God bless the Patriot Act ;)