Students Protest Aurora Teacher's Suspension For Criticizing Bush

[guruoo]

TheDenverChannel.com

Students Walk Out Over Aurora Teacher's Suspension
Teacher On Paid Leave After Criticizing Bush

POSTED: 4:52 am MST March 2, 2006
UPDATED: 8:47 am MST March 2, 2006
AURORA, Colo. -- A high school teacher was on administrative leave Thursday after he criticized President George W. Bush, capitalism and the United States' foreign policy in his geography class at Overland High School.

More than 100 students at Overland walked out of class in protest of the suspension Thursday morning. Then, additional students walked out to protest the teacher's remarks.

An Overland student went public Wednesday with a 20-minute recording of the incident, in which teacher Jay Bennish said there were similarities between what Bush said during his State of the Union address and "things that Adolf Hitler used to say."

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http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/7608274/detail.html

[4morewars]

1. Power to the people !

Good for them !

[adigal]

18. Sean Hannity continually encourages kids to tape their teachers

if the teachers express anything against the administration. He says that if the kids call him with the tape, he will put it and the kid on his show. He should be careful - it might be illegal to tape someone without their permission, especially in a school.

Sounds like Hitler Youth, no??

[MrPrax]

24. Komsomol were encouraged

as well to denounce 'deviates' and 'cosmopolitans'.

Funny how the decades long dissection of 'totalitarianism' and it's lessons, seems to have produced a 'better' product where state indoctrination, media and public debate are so seamless that no one raises an alarm bell or more frighteningly efficient, no one notices it's 'totalitarianism' simply because more than one brand of toothpaste sits on GUM shelves.

Come on, Young Pioneers...Your Turn to Lead the Pledge of Allegience today

[John Q. Citizen]

26. Taping in class is a pretty standard educational tool. A student can

listen and review a lecture later. Or maybe someone has a buddy who missed class and is taping it for him/her.

That said, I'm very glad to see 100+ students walked out to protest the suspension.

[ClayZ]

28. Look at these faces. OMG!

Is this how the fundies want their kids to look?

http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/photos/hitler_youth+large.jpg

[hootinholler]

30. In Md. it is illegal to tape without permission.

Ask Linda Tripp.

-Hoot

[adigal]

31. I hope one of the little robotons from Md

take Sean up on his offer, and tape his teacher without permission!!

Whoooeeeeeee!!

[Ishoutandscream2]

2. All Hail Bush. Bush is America, America is Bush!

No one is to make critical remarks of our glorious leader. Sieg Heil!

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. maybe this is what it takes to get more kids involved

Calling all very well liked social studies and
history teachers!

[TN al]

15. Did it involve the kids in a current event...

...or did they just want to skip class that hour and found a convenient reason to do so.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

16. it's always exciting to be a rebel

I'd like to hope that the kids
are smarter than that.

[TN al]

23. Maybe you should observe a high school...

...and then decide what they are rebelling against. My money is on getting out of class for an hour was all that they cared about.

[Lorien]

4. It would be an issue if what the teacher said was false

but historically-yes, there are many similarities. The students are there to learn, and there's nothing wrong with bringing this to their attention. If he just said something like "I think bush is a real asshole", then that would be an entirely different matter.

[CanuckAmok]

5. the great irony of this being...

...that removing the teacher from class for his comments proves his point.

[Tsiyu]

33. Same thing I was thinking

Wouldn't todays' little Repukes have made FINE little Nazis!

Kudos to the kids who stood up for free speech.

[jrw14125]

6. i smell lawsuit!

[bluestateguy]

7. I just listened to his whole (illegally taped) lecture

Was this material appropriate for a geography class? I'm not sure. I think context depends here, and we don't know what that is.

Indeed he was expressing an unambiguous point of view, but the tape also revealed him to be very respectful of students who asked critical questions.

Even if he was stepping outside of his curriculum this does not warrant his suspension. At most it would demand an explanation from him as to how this topic was related to geography.

And the kid needs to be investigated to determine if laws were broken by taping without the teacher's consent.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Did the kid with the tape set the teacher up for this and initiate the

discussion? Or maybe he had a friend do it?

[Rageneau]

8. I imagine Bush will have a few of these kids "disappeared" now.

Taken to Guantanamo and tortured for their own good. THAT will get the rest of them back in line pretty quick.

What's a kid or two when it comes to saving America?

[0007]

29. junior don't care whether they are children women or elderly

Torture is the answer sez junior!

[Bobbie47]

9. students just walked out per Faux news n/t

[zann725]

10. Alright, the kids show "spine!" Now if they just alienate the dork

who taped and turned the teacher in for First Amend. rights!

Back in my high school days, that kind of kid would've found something 'foul' in his "home" desk. Good citizenship should always be rewarded...malicious "snitching" should not.

[Bobbie47]

11. Faux is

going to have the kid on the news here shortly..

[Hissyspit]

12. Recommended, kicked and Recommended

Did I mention I recommended it?

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Suspended for telling his students the truth

What is this country coming to? :cry:

Good for these kids!! I am sure their teacher is very proud of them.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. I wouldn't want to be alone in the locker room if I were the kid

who taped the teacher . . . or the boys room.

[f-bush]

17. The teacher is absolutely right!

My mom was born in Frankfurt in November of 1933 and live there for the first 11 years of her life. She has recounted to me thousands of details and horrors of what went on there and also in her new home town of Bad Homburg.

She had also told me much of what Hitler had to say. So much of it sounds as if shrub has such paraphrased so it has a suger coating for those of the more easily duped American public.

[fasttense]

19. My mother who lived through WWII

Said that Americans, before the war, would read about Hitler's remarks and they knew what he was saying was out and out lies, manipulation and cover-ups. They would wonder why Hitler and his henchmen kept repeating the same lies over and over again without anyone contradicting them. She said it was very much like what bush* and his henchmen are doing today. And just like the German people, American citizens are buying into the lies.

Seems the teacher was simply stating the facts. Just because it is facts that bush* lovers don't want to hear, doesn't make it any less legitimate.

Nice to see these kids stand up for democracy and our freedom of speech.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Nice to see the kids were willing to go there

maybe there is still hope in this one party system of ours... yep some should just stop pretending

[catmother]

21. great.

[Doctor_J]

25. Horowitz and Lynn Cheney have organizations that terrorize

teachers who don't like *. Whoever ratted out the professor probably got paid for it.

[HughBeaumont]

27. Conservative youth are such damned IDIOTS.

"So these kids are going to have notes on why George Bush is related to Hitler and why the state of Israel was founded on violence and terrorism," Allen said on KHOW Radio Wednesday. "These kids are going to have notes on this and accept that as fact."

Bush's grandad did business with the Nazis, and the fascist ideology that Hitler admired mirrors exactly what the Bush Junta is doing now. And no one has to accept anything they don't want to, Sean. Look at yourself, for instance. Much like all Faux news fans, you've accepted that Bewsh is doing a great job, which he isn't. You believe this war is a success, which it isn't. You believe this economy is going gangbusters, a WHOPPER of a lie. You believe that Israel is perfectly innocent of ANY wrongdoing, which they aren't.

[Buddyblazon]

32. I graduated from Overland in '90.

It was a great school. Cherry Creek School district. Really take care of their teachers.

It's nice to see one of our schools in Colorado on the map for something good instead of tragic.

GO TRAILBLAZERS!!!

[RazzleDazzle]

34. Oh, thank God for these kids. There is hope.