Does the kid who taped his teacher have a valid point? Maybe he does

[Armstead]

This may bring out the blowtorches, but I think the kid who taped his teaher in Colorado may have had a valid point.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot, for a second. Suppose the teacher had been ranting against the people who opposed the Iraq War, and called them collaborationists with terror and cowards. Suppose he had been trying to convince the class that Americans have to support the Commander in Chief no matter what, for their own safety.

Suppose some liberal kid had taped that, and leaked it to Air America.

Most of us on DU would be having kiniption fits. We'd call the kid a hero, and would be frothing at the mouth to have the teacher fired. Even if the teacher had said "This is just my opinion and you are free to disagree and chllenge me," we would say that is just a ruse for the teacher's propaganda.

It's true that the kid was being snarky to tape the teacher. However, in a school, a teacher should not be saying things in a clss that could not stand the light of day if overheard.

It's also true that teachers should be able to encourge forthright discussions of contemporary issues and controversies. However there is a difference between stimulating and referreeing such discussions, and forcing one set of opinions on them and abusing the teacher's role as an authority figure.

When I was in high school, one of our teachers -- who was a great techer and a cool guy -- started one class by saying, "Do you all realize how much danger the world is in?" It turns out he was an anti-Communist John Birch-style right winger. He spent the class outlining the supposed threats from communism throughout the world, and basically scared the bejezzus out of us with his paranoia. It was the wrong thing to do to a bunch of young people who were in the formative stage of their development.

I just think we ought to be intellectually honest enough not to accept in-class propaganda being imposed on kids from any side, including our own.

[LaurenG]

1. The problem with this is

The teacher was telling a "verifiable" truth and saying it was his opinion at the same time.

[stray cat]

2. it warrants an investigation - getting students to think is great

using your position as any type of propaganda platform is not. We need to be consistent if we don't want teachers to preach religion in science class or right wing propaganda.

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. The teacher wasn't using his platform as a propaganda tool. He was

stating FACTS, making the kids actually think and engaged them in a "trial for war crimes." If there was a trial, then the Bush administration had to be represented on the OTHER SIDE, Right? The only one who used this as propaganda was the little Nazi student and his parents who shopped the tape to the media. IMCPO.

[Virginian]

16. I think these are two different events.

One teacher was in the spotlight for having a debate in the format of a trial.

The other teacher was taped for 20 minutes of his class. During this time he brought out how the bushies use the same we/they tactics to obtain a maliable population that was used by Hitler.

The trial was an excellent way to have the opposing groups present their arguments in a clear, logical way instead of yelling the same talking points back and forth in irrational anger.

The lecture was simply pointing out how both leaders used the same methods to rally their populations for the "cause" and how both used fear and xeniphobia as a political tool. (Strange how the same methods still work. Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.) I only heard the sound bite on the morning talk show. He may have used Stalin and Lennin and earlier US Presidents as well. The kid was asking leading questions so that the teacher was talking about the things the kid wanted to tape. I think this is called entrapment.

[Armstead]

33. Yes, but you cann't entrap someone who isn't entrapable

Maybe the kid was asking leading questions. But if the teacher was willing to step into the trap willingly, that shows poor judgement, IMO.

If the teacher was simply trying to illustrate a potential historical parallel, he could have prsented the question in a more neutral way (giing both baic interpretations), and had the kids discuss it.

[Virginian]

70. The teacher did not say anything most of us would consider bad.

He isn't daffy. He is a very smart man. He has a progressive class, possibly AP. He sent out a thorough syllibus for the parents to sign, which is possibly why the kid brought the tape recorder on that specific day.

He said the kid recording him would probably get an A because of his participation in the class. His class isn't to preach liberalizm, but to teach the kids to think.

I'm not going to second guess his class format. I'm not here to defend his methods, I wouldn't dare; school has come a long way since I was a student.
I'm just repeating what I think I heard him say.

[TahitiNut]

3. conniption

NOUN: Informal A fit of violent emotion, such as anger or panic. Also called conniption fit.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/64/C0576400.html

</nitpick> :evilgrin:

On topic: I'm far more inclined to regard the teacher's intellectual integrity than their political position, despite my bias in regarding the right far more devoid of that quality.

In my view, any teacher who does not develop the student's ability to think for themselves and instead expects them to merely regurgitate the material presented is NOT DOING THEIR JOB ... independent of whether that teacher is right, left, or in between. A dialectic is a valid teaching approach, whether in playing "Devil's Advocate" or being Jesuitical.

[Armstead]

21. Spelling is my Achilles Heel

Even though I actually write for a living, I'm terrible about spelling and typos.

I probably just spelled Achilles wrong too. :D

[havocmom]

4. Yep

If the class was about politics, ethics, anything like that, I could see spending a lot of time on the points the teacher is accused of dwelling on. But if the teacher is supposed to be teaching a particular subject and regularly takes up class time going off on tangents unrelated, might be time to rein him/her in enough to get them back to teaching the class.

I had a couple of teachers who were bored with their jobs and didn't do much teaching of the subject. Had a chemistry teacher who was fascinated with astrology, of all things! I feel cheated.

[qanda]

50. The teacher was on the Today Show this morning

And said that everything he discussed was in the outline for the class and that he was talking about a different subject but the boy who made the tape kept asking questions to redirect the conversation to the State of the Union. The teacher said that he was making an attempt to tie the State of the Union speech to the broader subject. In other words, he was set up!

[Bandit]

67. And you feel geography is not effected by such issues?

How do you think geographic boundries are drawn? :shrug: If this had been a PE class I might agree with you but IMO wars are crucial to geography.

[atreides1]

5. Perhaps

But I have not heard the entire tape, just a few minutes of what the teacher said. And from what little I have heard it doesn't exactly sound like a rant. Also, the tape is reported to be only 20 minutes long, so once again the whole story isn't revealed.

I think that the young man was going for his 15 minutes of fame, and he would have had a more solid standing if he had approached the school administration before getting daddy involved!!!!

[DBoon]

6. No

having to deal with opinions you don't like is part of life, even if those opinions are absolutely idiotic.

I wouldn't care if the teacher was a right wing nut - there are plenty of those around anyway (see AM radio). High school is a great place for liberal teenagers to get practice arguing down RW talk points. Shutting down wingnuts eliminates this valuable educational experience.

I'd only be concerned if politics entered the grading process.

PS. In our high school, we would have had a lot of fun messing with a RW John Birch type teacher.

[stray cat]

9. So no problem with Sean Hanity or Fallwell "teaching"?

[DBoon]

17. Kids will have to deal with that idiotic nonsense soon enough

and a high school classroom is a safe environment for heated arguments that in a workplace (for example) might cost you your job.

I doubt that either individual is qualified to be a high school teacher, and neother would likely pass the background check necessary to be a teacher dealing with teenagers.

I would allow both to lecture, as long as I could bring in Noam Chomsky too.

[Finder]

47. Both talk out their ass...

and could easily be refuted by any text book.

[emulatorloo]

7. 1. was open discussion 2. teacher said you don't have to agree w me

3. I have heard the student was getting an A in the class, so not "punished" for his hannitized positions 4. father and son shopped it to right wing media outlets rather than handling it with school.

[CornField]

8. Does it relate to the classwork? Is it in the syllabus? Did parents know?

In each of my daughter's higher public education courses (junior high & high school), teachers present a syllabus of their class at the beginning of the year. I knew, for instance, that the sex education class would be speaking primarily of abstinence as the best form of birth control. Further, such class summaries are first presented to the school's administration for approval before they go to parents.

So, the question is not whether challenging students is acceptable, but whether parents took the time to actually read the information they signed at the beginning of the course.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. The teacher was not ranting or distributing propaganda

He was giving one side, and there were other sides presented as well. He also encouraged the students not to take his side as absolute.

If the teacher was saying "Here is the truth, and accept it as such or suffer the consequences," that would be one thing, and I would agree with you. He was not doing that, as the tape itself proves. You say "there is a difference between stimulating and referreeing such discussions, and forcing one set of opinions on them and abusing the teacher's role as an authority figure." I agree, and I have been the authority figure in more classrooms than I care to mention. But the simple fact is that this teacher did not force "one set of opinions on them" or "abuse his role as an authority figure." He presented a wide array of opinions, including the one that is rarely heard: that US foreign policy may be - MAY be - considered imperialist and violent. As one among many, with the proviso that students take that position with a grain of salt. Is that "forcing one set of opinions" or "abusing his role?" In my opinion as an experienced teacher with at least some understanding of the pedagogy this teacher was attempting to perform, no.

So, I agree with your premise. I simply don't agree that it applies to this particular case, and so I don't agree that the kid had a point. I think the kid, and his right wing benefactors, are abusing a commonly held premise (your own) in order to force their own single opinion on everybody. If you disagree, even as a thought experiment, with this perspective, your very career is imperiled. And that, my friend, is damn dangerous.

[tridim]

12. The teacher presented both sides as part of a discussion

Your 'shoe on the other foot' example is nowhere near what happened in this case. He's teaching critical thinking. It's impossible to do without comparing and contrasting the issues.

If a teacher can't present the side that contains the truth, why even bother teaching kids at all? They're certainly not going to learn the truth from media, that's for damn sure.

[Armstead]

15. Did he present the other side with equal passion?

If he did, to illustrate different viewpoints, then that's okay.

But presenting one siad, and saying "You can disagree with me and argue with me" is not appropriate in a high school IMO. I don't think the personal opinions of teachers on such issues should be part of the classroom, because it mixes that up with the role of imparting knowledge.)

(Important to note that I distinguish high school from college.)

[tridim]

22. From what I understand he did present different viewpoints

and everything was up for discussion. I remember having a creation/evolution discussion in biology class.. The one religious student in the class was very upset, but she didn't go crying to the media. She presented her point of view and we discussed it as a class. Now, we don't know for sure, but I think this is exactly what happened in this case, except the Bushbot took the tape directly to the RW media, a culture that does not engage in or encourage critical thinking. At the very least, he's a massive hypocrite.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

28. The best way to handle this stuff

is to set up debates. Lay out the question and get them to cover both sides.

From what I read of the transcript the teacher did a lot of butt-covering. The questions is whether or not is was enough.

[Armstead]

31. I agree about debates

IMO both (or all sides) should be taken by students, with the teacher playing refereee and/or devil's advocate (no pun intended) to all sides in a neutral fashion.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

52. "Equal passion?" Now teachers have to be ACTORS too?

If anything, the disclosure of the fact that teacher favors opinion A over opinion B, while explaining both, is MORE honest, as it allows the students to take what the teacher says with a grain of salt.

[enlightenment]

13. The presumption here is that these teenagers

don't have the ability to question what they are hearing -- to actually engage in debate with the teacher.

Do we really believe that teachers are such monsters that they will punish a student for disagreeing with them? If that's true, then education has problems that go far beyond this episode. As a teacher, I just don't buy it. Sure, there are teachers who won't tolerate dissent (and they shouldn't be in the classroom) but if this kid was "brave" enough to report the teacher for the comments, how hard would it have been to report him if he suppressed debate?

Let's play the suppose game again: teacher makes comment. Kid disagrees, but instead of taping teacher and then reporting the "offense," the kid speaks up in class -- "hey, teacher, I disagree. This is what I think . . ." Maybe other kids might speak up, also.

In a perfect world, actual debate and discussion then takes place. Students - gasp - learn something from the exchange of ideas.

From a protective standpoint, I think the CO teacher put his foot in it; Americans have an almost Pavlovian reaction to the mere word "Hitler" -- their brains shut down the minute they hear it and further discussion can no longer take place.

But was he right to try to shake these kids out of their terminal ennui? You bet. He made the assumption that they weren't empty vessels, waiting to be filled with knowledge -- but thinking beings capable of independent thought who learn through questioning, discussion, and debate.

[Armstead]

19. Teenagers shouldn't have to be in that position of challenging a teacher

I agree that kids should be encourage to think and question and challenge their own beliefs.

But it should not be in way that they have to go up against their teacher's own opoinions. There's too much at stake in the student's perspective, andf it may be hard to do that for many. It doesn't matter how fair the teacher may be as a person. The roles are inherently unequal, and for the kids the stakes are high for not getting on the wrong side of a teaher.

The teacher can accomplish the same Socratic method by presenting opposing positions with equal weight, or -- perhaps better yet -- ask the students themselves to prsent and defend their own beliefs.

[knitter4democracy]

48. I had to do that once.

My Honors English teacher my junior year of high school showed an unrated movie (funded by Playboy) in class, saying it was the best movie of Macbeth out there. Our school policy was that, if a student, for any reason, did not want to watch a movie, she had to be given an equivalent assignment and let out of the room. We were told that, if we left the room, we would be flunked for the semester.

Now, at the time, I was a Nazarene, a kind of evangelical Christian. I didn't watch anything over a PG rating, and I really didn't want to see the movie at all. I was scared of my grade, though, so I sat through it with my hands over my ears and my eyes shut. Not only did the teacher mock me, but she allowed the others to do so as well. I wasn't the only evangelical in that position, but I was the one who usually spoke up in debates, so I was the target.

After the movie was over, I went to my counselor, feeling quite ill. The few scenes I'd seen were terrible, and I was very upset. My counselor talked with my teacher the next morning, and that day in class, she told the class that I had ratted her out and that the entire class had to debate me and show me why I should've seen the movie and not complained. Did I mention that our class's top debaters were in the room? I did my best to take them on, but I was crying by the end, sticking to my position that the school policy should not have been violated and that I had rights. My best friend to this day finally spoke up for me, the only one who did, and explained that, to someone who doesn't watch anything worse than a PG rating, the movie was shocking and terrible, that, to someone used to watching whatever they wanted, it probably wasn't as bad, as they were desensitized to it. She said that she for one was sorry that she had been desensitized and had not stood up for my rights before. That was at the end of the period, so the bell rang, and we all left. I shook for the next couple of hours, even going down to my mom's room (she was the art teacher there) finally to calm down.

That teacher held it against me for months. Every time she was going to assign something or show even a clip of a movie, she would ask me if I were okay or needed to leave the room. For the next movie, she made up an unbelievable assignment, something like a 50 page research paper, as her way of "following" school policy.

The irony in the situation was that I became a high school English teacher. I went to an evangelical college and received my training there, but I left the church, joined a totally different one, and ended up teaching in Catholic schools where I was often the liberal and weird English teacher with the odd class debates. I'll never forget the one the students started on homophobia, but in that one, I refused to let the few kids speaking out for gay rights argue all by themselves. I worried about getting fired for that one, but no one reported me.

I'll never forget being put in that position. I'm not sure how common it is, but I can't believe that it never happens, either.

[immoderate]

14. Teachers get paid to let students think.

I am sympathetic to this teacher but I don't think I support what he did. I didn't hear the tape so I can't judge.

As a former classroom teacher, I feel I have a primary responsibility to cover the curriculum. I enjoyed when my class would go off on a tangent, but limited it, bringing them back with, "We have to cover the material."

If he had given them the objective material, and asked them to draw the conclusions, I think he would be on safe ground. If he delivered the conclusions, I think he didn't do his job well.

In a good classroom the conclusions come from the students. Maybe not all material lends itself to this, but the emphasis should be on student discovery.

I don't want him to lose his job. He should be protected by academic freedom. He might even work his opinions into it. But I don't think this was the best way to approach this material.

--IMM

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Shame on him! He dared to tell the tykes the truth.

And, he challenged them to think. What a disgrace.

[Armstead]

25. To a fundy Bushite "Our President is guided by God" is the truth.

You want a teacher who believes that to be teching kids too?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. There is a difference. One is telling the truth the other isn't.

Just because the fundie "believes" it to be the truth, don't make it so.

Having spent my high-school years in the late '50s, early '60s, I got an earful of well-accepted RW propaganda that would be regarded as the smelliest bullshit today. From teachers that would have been considered "liberal" then. That generation of lied-to students produced New Left that questioned every shabby lie and shibboleth told us.

If some teachers shy away from telling the truth out of fear of the students, we'll have a return to the crap that was being "taught" in the good old days of the Flag, God, and Mom's apple pie.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

35. I very strongly disagree.

Not about the liberals being right and the conservatives, wrong, obviously, but about that having anything whatsoever to do with what it is and isn't reasonable to teach.

Do you think that what should and shouldn't be taught in schools should be decided on the basis of which political positions those setting the agenda think are true and which aren't? If not, how do you suggest which political positions are and aren't supported are selected?

The only basis on which politics can be taught in schools is one strictly neutral between the various parties of the day.

I'm horrified at this teacher's behaviour, and also at the double standards of some of the DUers defending him and attacking the child who had the courage to stand up to him. I don't believe for a minute that if a child videotaped a teacher going through exactly the same speech but with the political positions reversed, comparing e.g. those opposed to the Iraq war to Chamberlain, or to Stalin, that there would be any DUers who were willing to defend him.

The line about "I'm just trying to make you think" is blatant bullshit; from what I've seen of the transcripts he left no doubt which side he was on, and I've seen no evidence that he tried to present a tokenly balanced case, let alone a legitimately balanced one (although I've only seen excerpts).

A school should not be a place for political indoctrination. More specifically, a school should not be used to indoctrinate even political opinions I agree with.

[Finder]

46. Education vs indoctrination

seems to be in the eye of the beholder these days. There is nothing the teacher said that is not documented.

My children have teachers of various ideologies and are allowed to question, debate and back up with proof anything they choose. Opinion is not ever an issue.

The attitude that politics can never be discussed in school is the reason Civics has been cut from so many curriculums in the past 30 years.

That is why we have millions believing we are a "Christian Nation" regardless of what our founding fathers are documented as stating.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

49. There are no "sides" to the truth.

The teacher told the kids the truth. That's all.

[Nederland]

60. Boy

Funny how if you go too far to the left you end up right where people that go too far to the right are:

Absolutely convinced that you are right and people that disagree with you are wrong.


FYI, after listening to the tape I learned he did not tell the truth in several instances. A couple of his "facts" were simply wrong.

[kevinbgoode]

66. Yes, but the little darling wouldn't have taped the teacher

who said that. I consider that a major issue.

[China_cat]

20. The kid might have been demonized

but the teacher in your scenario wouldn't have lost his job.

[Democrats_win]

23. This kid bashes Jehovah's Witnesses! NOTHING is worse than that.

It's like killing a mockingbird! JWs don't participate in politics and they don't kill people whether it's during war or any other circumstances. This kid actually jokes that he invites a JW into his house and kills him with his Bible. Obviously this kid has problems and shouldn't be lecturing anyone about anything!!!

Bush is a murderer, torturer and traitor. He is not an innocent person. Would there be such an uproar if Charles Manson was attacked or some other criminal?

Furthermore, there is a huge issue now about what exactly did happen since only 20 minutes were recorded. Teachers should not be punished for being provacative.

[KittyWampus]

24. #1. The Teacher, at NO point was ranting

#2. The kid lead the teacher along in the conversation
#3. The teacher was making comparisons based on observable, empirical facts.

[Armstead]

27. Whose observable empirical facts?

An observable empirical fact is that the United States invaded Iraq.

An opinion is:

George Bush lied and invaded Iraq for oil and to expand the American Empire

or

George Bush invadad Iraq to protect our freedom and spread democracy in the Midle East.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

51. Your first "opinion" is very much FACT.

Although it may have failed to mention other reasons.

[Shakespeare]

26. There's just one problem with your hypothetical.

It is HIGHLY unlikely that a teacher would be punished for saying laudatory things about Bush. Therein lies the real issue.

[fishnfla]

29. Yeah really, when the shoe is on the other foot

get back to us. I wont hold my breath

[Armstead]

30. That's a tricky one, I'll admit

But I'd say that we ought to be intellectually consistent about whether or not it is approprite for a teacher to inject his or her personal opinions into a high school classroom.

[sojourner]

39. Coming in on this late, but any teacher worth his/her salt is going to

have some "bleed through" of his/her opinions. Otherwise you'd have a robot (don't you admire and love THOSE teachers?) The absence of critical thinking in young adults in the US is a tragedy and I don't care whether the teacher is RW or not, bully for them if they can engage the brains and stimulate actual thinking. Notice I said THINKING, not INDOCTRINATION...which are two different things.

I actually had a teacher, one of my very best HS teachers, who espoused philosophies completely antagonistic to those I learned at home. (My dad hated him because of the way it caused me to start asking questions at home). The classroom debates that occured were stimulated by the teacher; he brought up in us a desire to think, and allowed us the arena in which to express our thoughts, and ask questions. In the end, I didn't buy the teacher's philosophies (and I never felt he wanted me to) but I sure did learn to think, ask questions and make up my own mind about things.

Debate style set-ups CAN be good, but are quite often just a re-enactment of Hannity and Colmes. Not really the BEST forum for critical thinking IMO (and I speak as an educator who has used classroom discussion as well as debate to stimulate critical thinking).

It's when people try to get kids to accept whole-cloth philosophies and opinions without allowing them to think that pisses me off.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

53. Thank you. This could be a response to post #15 too. -nt

[Finder]

44. Read the transcript...

The teacher presented the information in a way that would get the kids to think. His style was clear to the school and the students and is in the syllabus.

I didn't hear/read opinion, I heard him encourage perspective.

I doubt he will be fired and his suspension has more to do with keeping the media away from the school than a punishment.

[Inland]

65. That's probably right.

It's that darn fascism thing, as it's ok to teach kids to love their country, respect their flag, support their military, and honoring Bush is considered the same thing in these perilous times. But there are other liberal things to say besides the truth about Bush, so those can be put in the hypo.

[sinkingfeeling]

34. Strangely, if a liberal kid had done this, I would feel the same way.

Any teacher, worth their salt, should be leading discussions, stirring up debate, and attempting to instill critical thinking in their high school students. I'd only feel that way IF the RW teacher used the same comments as the one in Denver did....explaining what he was attempting to do.

[Katherine Brengle]

36. Agreed -- we would be frothing if it were the other way around. n/t

[WilliamPitt]

37. I taught high school

right as my Iraq book was out on the shelves. I left it out of the classroom - have fun dovetailing Bush policy with Emma - but they asked me outside of class about this or that. I pointedly gave both sides to the argument. I would have felt rude otherwise.

[gratuitous]

38. What's propaganda, and what's discussion stimulation?

I don't know, and I'll bet that you don't either. Even a 20-minute tape doesn't capture the 75% of communication that occurs through non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, posture, and so forth.

If the 16-year-old was honestly looking to have a debate or an argument, why did he run his tape to the nearest right-wing gasbag with a microphone? Why can't he fight his own battles, and if it turns out the teacher is being dishonest (either by disciplining his student because he can’t refute the argument, or turning him in to the administration on some bogus “disruptive” rap), then I’d say someone else has to get involved. But in this case, the student as far as I can tell didn’t try to engage the teacher in a discussion, just felt his little sensibilities were offended, and hared off to a sympathetic listener who would use his big megaphone to bully the teacher.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

40. The line between the two

Is that it goes from being discussion stimulation to propaganda when the teacher takes sides.

Actually, the line may be even earlier than that - a teacher who set his class debates over the term like "This house believes that the opponents of the Iraq war are not morally equivalent to Chamberlain", "This house believes that Howard Dean is not like Stalin", "This house believes that homosexuality ought to be punished by death" and the like, all right wing talking points, would be propagandising even if he didn't take sides in said debates. But certainly, once the teacher takes a side, it's propaganda.

This teacher stepped well over that line, and my sympathies are entirely with the boy who taped him.

[gratuitous]

42. You know the teacher took sides?

Have you heard the entire tape? Do you know the teacher personally? Were you in the classroom that day? Because if your answer is "no," then you don't know any better than anyone else what happened in that classroom. All I know is that the student ran with his tape to a local radio show without trying to engage in any substantive discussion. I can't defend that, and I'm surprised that anyone on DU would.

[Yollam]

41. I don't like left-wing teachers teaching "Bush is bad"...

If any teacher were to do that, I'd be against them, just as much as I'd be against a teacher teaching that Bush was a hero. Students should be given all the facts and encouraged to thing for themselves.

I'm not familiar with all the details of the lesson, but I believe it was a mock war crimes trial. It seems that in that context, the case for Bush NOT being a war criminal could also be made by his supporters. If both sides were represented, there's nothing wrong with the lesson.

And I have a feeling that if the class had held a mock trial for Saddam Hussein, there would never have been a single headline about it.

[mdmc]

43. since mihop threads get locked in GD at DU

I can see a teacher getting fired for saying mihop (Bush is Hitler = mihop, to me).

[sandnsea]

45. It was a SOTU discussion

In general, I would tend to agree with you. But this was a discussion about the SOTU speech. In that context, opening up the discussion to various opinions about Bush and the US would be the teacher's responsibility. That's the difference.

[Armstead]

57. Opening up to discussion of opinions yes....

But I still think the teacher should be the referee, rather than giving his/her own opinions.

It's kinda like journalism. I just want a reporter to lay out the facts and different opinions -- not skew them or try to manipulate me into what to think.

[sandnsea]

59. He said "some people say"

That's exactly what he did, laid out different opinions that are out there. Just like my high school history teacher did in 1971 when he said slavery was as good as low income jobs because homes and food were guaranteed. Put out something controversial to get the class talking and thinking.

[Armstead]

63. If he presented the otehr side with equal force, that's a different matter

I've heard sections and summaries but not the whole tape.

If he outlined the conservative opinion of all this in a totally equal and impassioned manner, then I'll change my view on him. (I did say "maybe" in my original post, for my own wiggle room.}

[sandnsea]

64. Well Bush did in the SOTU

So why would the teacher need to do it again?? I gather that was the discussion, what Bush said vs. what those with opposing views think. The course of the discussion would bring out the conservative view because that was the basis for the discussion, the Bush SOTU address.

[Mountainman]

54. If one side has facts and the other side has lies, do they hold the same

weight?

What if I told the class that the reasons to go to war in Iraq were lies and you told the class that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 are those both valid statements?

Seems to me to get upset with calling the truth a lie and punishing me for saying it is far worse than me calling you a liar.

[walldude]

55. Seems to me the kid and his dad were out to get the

teacher. Why would they shop this to the righties before bringing it to the attention of the school? And you can bet that if the teacher had been standing up for the war and the Bush administration he would not have lost his job, and any liberals that complained about it would be painted as left wing wackos out to subvert the education system. While I agree the teacher may have gone to far I think the stink over it is way over the top.

[Armstead]

58. I don't defend that.

The kid's parents should have taken it to the school board if they had a problem with it.

[dogday]

56. I wonder how many teachers spoke of Clinton's debacle

and yet there was no "big deal" made of it..


My child's teacher talks to them about politics. Thank God he is a Democrat, but even if he was not, he is allowed free speech and he talked about both sides of the issue...


It is a matter of Free Speech and as long as it does not get nasty or violent, it should be expressed... I will not stomp on the freedoms of others....

[Book Lover]

61. I don't think you can say this until you have heard the full lecture

Until then, everything else is hearsay. Neither you nor I have any idea what the teacher actually said.

[OhioBlue]

62. I think this situation is just an example of how

terribly polarized our society is now. 15+ years ago, I had a teacher that showed a "Hard Copy" episode of Chappaquiddick - anyway, I vaguely remember him being very hard on the entire Kennedy family. Looking back, I can see he was a right-winger, but didn't really think of people as right-wingers or liberals at the time. We listened, discussed, went on with our lives... Never would we have thought about tape recording the teacher and trying to make an issue out of it. If we disagreed, we just mocked him behind his back. We watched some debates and discussed - I honesly cannot remember ever feeling like discussing a political issue was a big deal - even if the teacher let their opinions be known. We were more worried about the test next class, the basketball game, who broke up with who...

[mitchum]

68. Frankly, no...the kid is just a little right wing snot-nosed dipshit...

and I won't cry if some other kid kicks his little punk ass.
THE TEACHER WAS NOT RANTING!
I am so sick of people repeating that goddamn mantra.

[ulysses]

69. I agree with your last sentence, man,

but not with the taping of teachers.

[MissMarple]

71. Very narrow. He and his dad set it up. That makes it bogus.

The tape was selective. It was edited. So faux. It invalidates the premise. :shrug:

[Texacrat]

72. Yes

n/t

[MissMarple]

74. As I said, he has so corrupted his point by how he responded. It's bogus.

How one does something defines the result. In other words, the means do not justify the ends. That's and old thought, and it most always holds true.

[Catrina]

73. Whatever point the kid had was lost when he failed to inform the teacher

honestly, that he was taping the conversation. Also, the kid directed the conversation in order to get on tape material he could use to make himself infamous, and it seems, with no regard for the harm he could have done to the teacher's life. Actually, it seems he intended to do harm.

Why are we discussing whether he had a point or not, when the real issue is the Hitler youth movement that appears to be growing at an alarming rate in this country ~ this is not the first time teachers have been baited. A week or so ago there was a story about Young Republicans being paid to spy on and tape college professors in an effort to cause them harm also.

I'll ask you a question. Did the Nazi Youth have a point when, in the interests of national security, they reported that their teachers and/or fellow students were Jewish, or Jewish sympathizers? I know what the prevailing viewpoint at the time was since no one apparently spoke out against it, and may, in fact, have suggested as you have, that despite some discomfort with the tactics, these Nazi spies may have had a point.

Back then, showing some sympathy for the Jews, however subtly, maybe by not outright condemning them, surely didn't belong in any classroom!! :sarcasm:

Imo, what doesn't belong in the classrooms of any Democratic nation is spying on Liberal teachers, about to be the most persecuted members of this society if we're not careful ~

First 'liberal teachers', next they'll be taping teachers suspected of being gay and releasing the tapes to the propaganda arm of the current regime. Would they have a point were they to do that? Surely discussion of sexual orientation would not be proper and a student would 'have a point' were he to secretly tape a teacher who might respond to his questions about gays without also discussing (maybe because the little spy deliberately didn't ask about them) hetero-sexuals?

This little spy asked leading questions to get the answers he wanted, secretly taped the conversation and then ran to Hannity et al to turn in a suspected 'liberal teacher'. What was the point you thought he might have???

I must be missing something here. But assuming I'm not, all I see is Nazi behavior being excused and I find it frightening and very instructive as to how Germany happened ~ something I thought I would never understand, but sadly am beginning to ~

History repeats itself when in incremental stages we apologize for behavior like this rather than learn from the horrible past, that Germany didn't happen overnight. It happened like this, a little bit at a time, because this kind of behavior wasn't nipped in the bud when it began.

Had this student told the teacher 'I want to tape a conversation with you about the war and Bush and then I want to take it to rightwing talk shows' I would have no problem with it. It's called honesty. This was an attempt to 'get' a 'liberal' teacher and the hatemongers were only too thrilled to give it airtime ~ for all we know, this may have been another set-up, eerily similar to what I've read about what happened in Germany.

The only good part of this sordid story is that his classmates had the kind of reaction any decent person should have ~ that gives me some hope ~ although I imagine he's naming names and his classmates may end up on one of Bush's enemies lists. Why is the reaction to this not outright repulsion, especially since we have historical references now for this kind of behavior?

Btw, do we have any similar examples of rightwing teachers being spied on and then reported to the leftwing media? I know I would be as repulsed by that as I am by this were it to happen ~ so I hope it never does ~