Teacher Compares Bush to Hitler

[erpowers]

A teacher who compared Bush to Hitler was just on NBC's Today Show. I did not catch to whole interview in that I just turned the TV on in order to see if the media was reporting about Christopher Reeves wife. However, the teacher was captured on video tape by one of his students at least loosely comparing Bush to Hitler. The boy and his family did not go to the teacher or the school board. Instead they shopped the tape around to the conservative media; however, the family have now said that they were not trying to get the teacher fired and hoped he would be reinstated. I do not really believe that family did not want the teacher to get fired. I think things did not go down the way the family thought it would. I think they thought that the teacher would be get fired and everyone would be happy. I think many people stood up an supported this teacher. However, I do have a different reason for starting this post.

My first thought was that the media should run all the stories from the young people who have Republican teachers who spew Republican ideas in the classroom. So do any of the people who have kids who have who have experienced Republican bias in the classroom want to go to NBC and tell them your kid's experience. I just think the Republican bias in the classroom does not get reported enough. I have seen many stories on this discussion board about how people kids have been challenged by their Republican teacher. I think these stories should get out more.

[earthside]

1. Ironic, Isn't It?

Well, here in the Denver area, this story is all over both of our newspapers this morning.

The kid made an audio recording of a part of teacher Bennish's classroom talk.

It's one thing to record a teacher to have lecture notes to help with study or test preparation.

It's another thing all together to record a teacher for the purpose of exposing their "incorrect" political views, to bring the power of the state (ie, the school district) down on the "subversive" teacher.

You know, kind of like how the Hitler Youth were encouraged to turn in parents and teachers and other "suspicious" adults in 1930s Germany.

Ironic that the fleeting reference to Bush and Hitler is getting so much attention.

[Bluzmann57]

2. Why did the kid have a recorder in class?

Seems a bit like a setup from here. So if thats how they want to play, then I say let's play! Tape every classroom session, everyday, for every purpose. That way, there can be no doubt about anything a teacher says or does. Of course, there is a little matter of big brother...

[underpants]

4. Yeah I have been wondering about that

Did the teacher give the okay to record him? Is there any guideline or regulation that covers this?

I don't mention this as a means of saying that Bennish should sue the kid or anything I have just not heard anyone ask how you can get away with "secretly recording" like this kid did.

[SunDrop23]

9. Someone said alot of kids use those recorders...

so they can transcribe lecture notes later. I heard it on Sirius Left last week. I wish I could recall who made the statement.

[Divernan]

3. Publicly attacking/ridiculing a teacher has too high a price for students

It looks like this boy and his family found out the hard way that publicly attacking a professional earns you the enmity of others in that profession. So all this kid's other high school teachers are frightened and outraged that students might now think they can videotape classes and publicly attack teachers. Lawyers all know that if a judge engages in bizarre, prejudicial behavior, one doesn't videotap him/her and release the tapes to the local news channels. One gathers evidence and goes to the judicial disciplinary committee, VERY QUIETLY. Why? Because you dis one judge in public and your clients and the clients of every lawyer in your firm will feel the wrath in the courtrooms of every other judge in the county. Similarly, people who have filed high profile med malpractise suits against doctors have trouble getting other local doctors to accept them as patients.

As a parent, I learned that if your kid has a problem with a teacher, you try to find other parents and then have a private meeting with the principal, OR you wait until all your kids have finished in a particular school system and THEN go public with complaints. So the suggestion that kids of dems, with Republican-biased teachers, should go public, is not in the student's best interests. In school districts that are GOP majority, the school board will also be GOP dominated and all the teachers know that. So if there's one gop biased teacher, there are probably a lot more and it is very easy for teachers to just shave a kid's grades down, let alone subject them to harassment in classes.

[NativeTexan]

5. If this was a history or a government class...

....and it isn't done with hate, as I often do, then it is more than fair game! The obvious comparisons are there. I write about them often here AND in LTTE's. The wrongwingers want to make so much of it, and I can understand that. But you know, they sure can't remember their OWN hate speech toward President Clinton about a sexual relationship. Ann "the devils minion" Coulter still DOES.

But there is a place for the Hitler/Dubya comparison in school if you consider the "the bigger the lie the more people believe it" policy of the Bush Administration, compared to it being a complete way of life for the Third Reich. And so on.

[erpowers]

7. No Hate

From what the teacher said he did not do it with hate. He just did it to get the kids to think critically. Later in the lecture the teacher thanked the kid for his question, told the kid the questions were good, and said the kid did not have to accept what he said.

[underpants]

6. First off-No he didn't

Secondly I watched that this morning (I broke my ban on watchgin the Today Show). The whole thing is pretty clear cut to me-it was covered in the syllabus and the parents signed off on it. Bennish really should make that point much more clearly IMHO.

Other than that-this kid and his family did shop this around and the whole thing comes right on the heels of some RW guy offering money to UCLA students to tape their profs...any coincidence here?

Bennish did pretty well in my opinion and Lauer was actually pretty fair with him.

This whole excercise is more of the "oh whoa is me my poor white middle class suburban self"

see my sigline.

[BoneDaddy]

8. Christ on a stick

I went to a Catholic HS... the shit I could have taped in there would be a best seller. Granted it is a private parochial school, but I took a sexual education from a Catholic perspective and it was quite hysterical. Good thing no one was listening as we all banged each other on the weekends anyhow. Not to mention the amount of freaking coke, weed and other drugs in good ole Catholic HS.

[RethugAssKicker]

10. The teacher is justified in his argument.... In Hitlers time

he coaxed the students to turn in their freind, family and teachers if they disagreed with the state. Sounds exactly like what this boy did!