Appropriateness of Ranting and Raving in the Classroom
Greetings,
Colorado Teacher, Jay Bennish, has been put on a paid leave after a lecture in February that compared Bush’s State of the Union address to any number of Hitler’s speeches. Fox News has two articles, here and here. Washington Post also has an article on Bennish’s reply to these charges.
To me, this is more than just an issue of freedom of speech. As teachers I believe that one of our jobs is to create thoughtful, critical thinking citizens, and debate is an excellent tool in accomplishing this. This entire situation has come about due to the airing of a 20 minute section of his 50 minute lecture. Bennish claims that the remaining 30 minutes of his lecture was rationalizing his argument and presenting the other side of the argument. From what I have read of Bennish, and my own experience with teachers who spend most of their class time on subjects not related to the class, I would tend to discount this, but I cannot say for sure. But what is interesting is the idea of where class discussion and debate turns into a teacher ranting on random subjects, the appropriateness of each in the classroom.
As I have already stated, I am in support of using debates in order to train the students to think critically. Assuming I am in a history class which covers the rise of any demagogic figure (pretty much every segment of history has at least one demagogue), or a political science class, I could make the point that many of the tactics used by President Bush to rally support were used by Hitler, Churchill, or even Gandhi. I would then go into those tactics, why they are effective, how they are often used to inspire action, positive and negative instances of their use, and how not to become wrapped up into the emotional ‘heat’ of the moment and make rash decisions. This, in my opinion, is incredibly appropriate in a Social Studies class.
A teacher ranting on any number of subjects, despite the subject matter, seems to me to entirely inappropriate. Note that I am not personally accusing Bennish of doing this, but it does appear, from the news stories, that this is what he was doing. To me, ranting should be made in the company of friends, down at the local pub or in the comfort of your own home. If it is done in public, any number of laws might get broken, such as sedition, slander, or obscenity laws. Also people who might not be educated in this matter might take to your view without thinking through the subject carefully.
Websites:
“Colo. Teacher Defends Lecture on Bush.” The Associated Press. Washington Post. March 7, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030700734.html>
“Colorado Teacher On Leave After Alleged Anti-Bush Remarks.” The Associate Press. Fox News. March 02, 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186672,00.html>
“Suspended Colo. Teacher Won’t File Lawsuit Against School.” Fox News. March 03, 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186708,00.html>
March 13th, 2006 at 10:11 am
[...] I totally agree with your response about Colorado teacher Jay Bennish’s comparison of Bush to Hitler. I too feel that it is completely inappropriate for a high school teacher to use his classroon time as a political platform. It drives me absolutely crazy when teachers do this; I feel like they are wasting my time, and I am completely capable of forming my own opinions. As far as his claim that “My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society,” it does not appear that he was challenging his students to debate the issue, but more that he was raising it because he wanted to voice his own opinion. He claims that the rest of the class (the part that wasn’t recorded) was devoted to presenting the other side of the issue and allowing students to add their own input. I hope that’s the case, but one of the articles also claimed that “only about 20 percent of Bennish’s classes are actually about geography; the rest is normally devoted to the teacher’s personal politics,” which presents an entirely new issue. I agree that part of the role of a teacher is to inspire students to critically consider important issues in our society, but this should be done in the context of the subject matter of the class, NOT because the teacher feels like speaking his mind. I don’t honestly know much about geography, so maybe this will seem stereotypical, but does politics even have anything to do with geography? My guess is no, and that alone makes the whole situation inappropriate. It would be a differet thing if a student had raised the question, but otherwise, teachers have no justification to use their students’ personal learning time to voice their personal opinions. I think that some teachers feel that their position of authority in the classroom gives them the right to use it as their personal soapbox, and I feel that this is incredibly disrespectful of their students’ time. Sorry if I went off on my own there, but I just wanted to say that I agree with you CHris and I think this is a very important issue to address in schools, and I’m glad that Bennish is experiencing the consequences of his actions. Hopefully other teachers will take notice of this and modify their own behaviors in class. [...]
April 29th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
[...] This came through my Bloglines last night, and I thought I would share it with you. It is an columnist from the Dickson Herald, who states that it is a teacher’s job to teach the subject they are hired to teach, and lambastes the teachers who, say, talk about the connections between Hitler and Bush, in a geography class. I have two thoughts on this. [...]