Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: The Lost One on March 08, 2006, 10:32:27 PM
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11667344/
As it may be, I happen to live in this school district and this teacher is at the local high school (which my kids would go too if they were old enough).
I know when I was a TA teaching politcal science, all the TAs were told to avoid making such comments. What I don't like about this is it illustrates problems in the US education system. Why is this teacher giving his political views instead of teaching geography, which he is suppose to be doing? And how is he teaching critical thinking?
I don't think this is a free speech issue as much as an education issue. Teachers shouldn't be using the class room as a pulpit.
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What bothers me is that worrying about teachers sharing their personal beliefs in the classroom insinuates that high school students aren't smart enough to form their own opinions. Granted, some aren't. But neither are some adults. I had lots of high school teachers say things I didn't agree with. That didn't make me believe them, therefore it wasn't really a problem--any more than a person expressing a differing opinion in any other arena would be a problem.
On the other hand, if the teacher was teaching this as absolute truth, that would be cause for concern. It's hard to tell from the article if the teacher was just discussing and conjecturing or actually teaching his theories as curriculum.
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Yeah, but JP, your a fucking moron though :/ Australians would say silly things like that.
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I think the controversy is summed up in the article. The problem, to me, is not so much that he has these opinions and gives them to his students, as that he doesn't present a balanced view of the subject. It doesn't sound like he's giving the other side of hte issue. His primary defenses are that he has the right to express his opinion. But the thing the school is investigating is the breach of their policy on presenting issues, against which I can't see a defense.
And, I'm not entirely sure how all his statements relate to teach geography. However, it may be that he just gives an opinion every now and then.
Like JP, though to a much less paranoid and fright-mongering extent, I don't necessarily have a problem with these issues being brought up in front of my children. We should answer the question of whether it's right to sell missles to Israel that we know are being used in a way that results in quite a bit of "collateral damage." But bringing up the question is not the same as answering, "No, this makes us evil." There should be discussion and the arguments for and against should be brought up in a non-aggressive, non-threatening manner.
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The thing that annoys me about this is not the subject -- I firmly believe that kids need to be challenged in school by beliefs they disagree with. What annoys me is that a lot of what this guy was teaching was false. They played the recording on the radio a couple days ago, and there were horrible inaccuracies. Teaching harsh reality is one thing, but reading from a list of twisted political talking points is something else.
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can you give me a for example?
I was forcibly subjected to the Sean Hannity show the other day (I made them drop me off early so I wouldn't have to listen anymore, meaning I had to walk to the busstop the next day to get my car) and that was the first I heard of it. They didn't have the recording, just stupid listeners calling in and saying "Yeah I was a teacher and I quit because there was a stupid liberal teaching things that weren't true." (I did not make this up, I paraphrased, but I don't think I implied anything that the caller didn't explicitly say -- providing no details whatsoever).
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American politics are really silly. Can't you guys learn a bit of civility?
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civi-what now?
Man, I wish you'd stop making up words.
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You can read the whole thing. It's transcribed here: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004689.htm
Don't worry, SE. I didn't hear it on Sean Hannity. I hate the man. (I also hate The Man.)
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My favorite part of the transcript is that, at the very end of his wacky diatribe, the teacher says "I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position."
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American politics are really silly. Can't you guys learn a bit of civility?
The problem is that the kind of person who would rant like that teacher did in front of a captive audience of students is not the kind of guy who can martial either a civil or a rational argument.
I'm all for open discussion of any points of view people care to bring to the table (I know there are people on this board who think I'm a ranting lunatic incapable of reasonable discussion so you needn't point it out to me again) but that's not what the teacher was engaged in. From the excerpts I've heard he was just ranting along the standard liberal talking points. And from the interviews I've seen with the kid who recorded him, it was an 80% of the time occurrence (with 20% of the time being spent on teaching the subject) and was often accompanied by aggressive body language and verbal abuse of anyone who questioned him.
What also bothers me is this response to the story, which I've heard from a dozen people in the news: "Do we want to live in a world where teachers can be recorded and called on the carpet for things they say?" This question is asked rhetorically as though the answer were obviously "No." But my answer is, "Obviously Yes!" There actually seem to be people out there who think teachers should be allowed to say whatever they want with no consequence. It goes without saying that if the teacher in question had been ranting along the talking points of the KuKluxKlan those people would not think he should be allowed to say whatever he wanted. How obviously biased can these folks get?
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You can read the whole thing. It's transcribed here: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004689.htm
Don't worry, SE. I didn't hear it on Sean Hannity. I hate the man. (I also hate The Man.)
Thanks! I probably will.
and I have absolutely no problem with a student recording a teacher's lecture, on or off the subject he's supposed to be teaching. He's supposed to take notes anyway. If a teacher is abusing students, the more evidence the better. Get that freak canned.
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Without doing any further research I can point out an obvious falsehood the teacher spouted. The missiles Clinton launched into Afghanistan did not kill "thousands of innocent Africans and Afghanistan people - Afghanis - that had nothing to do with al Qaeda or anything." They may have killed a couple of camels. That strike is an open joke in the intelligence community.
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I read it, and there's plenty of info in there that is, at best, one sided. This teacher was clearly letting his political agenda take precedence over teaching children.
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If a teacher is abusing students, the more evidence the better.
I had gotten into religious debates with teachers while in high school (not a good idea, but I was really dumb then and my teachers quite liberal). Fortunately, my teachers weren't abusive about it. One was completely wrong about something and I got evidence and brought it to school, talked about it after class, and he was gracious.
Teachers, of course, have opinions and will expound on them in class. But they should never abuse students. It's about discussion, not browbeating.
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Bennish: Let me ask you this. During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq were involved in an 8-year-long war. The United States sold missiles, tanks, guns, planes, to which side?
Unidentified student: Iraq?
Bennish: Both. The answer is both. Why would we send armaments to two sides that are fighting each other. That seems to be self-defeating. Don't we want one side to win? Not always! Sometimes you just want there to be conflict!
The British -- this is one of the grand strategies of the British imperial system--was to play local animosities off each other. To prevent them is to divide and conquer.
Do we really want the Middle East to unite as one cohesive political and cultural body?
No! Because then they could what? Threaten our supremacy.
He might have a nugget of truth there. I didn't read most of it because it was incredibly boring and stuff i've already read. But i've heard before that the white house is using geo-political tactics used in the 18th and 19th centuries by the British Empire to stop russia getting close to India.
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Agree. I would say that it's a given that we don't want the Middle East to become a unified Fanatical Muslim Theocracy/Dictatorship .
But rather than saying the reason is because it would "threaten our supremacy" I would say it's for other obvious reasons involving airplanes and explosive backpacks.
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One could argue that the US sold missiles to both sides because we're all capitalists who'll do anything for a dollar and don't care what the product is used for, therefore having nothing to do with creating conflict in the Middle East. So his assertions aren't necessarily conclusive.
Not that I'm saying anything about what the US's intentions actually were. I'm just speculating.
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Bringing things back onto subject; I think that the pink one looks better.
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Okay, having now read the article I'm going to have to say that I really don't care for any of this. I mean sure, Bush has done things that I don't like but not anything that I would get worked up about. Personally I think that it would be best to just let this thing blow over locally, not nationally. The reason I say this is that people these days are far to willing to sue over every little thing; I wouldn't mind so much if they would just sue over stuff that needed to be fought over, but come on, sueing because of something stupid wastes everyone's time (can we say McDonald's coffee?). Maybe I would care more if my blood didn't start to boil over even hearing about a lawsuit on the news, which it has been doing for quite some time, since I learned about the stupid things people sue over. Like Donald Trump sueing an author for five billion over saying he had less money then he claims to. It's ridiculous.
Anyway, both sides of this issue have some very valid points, and I am leaning more in favor of the teacher since I read about the extra credit assignment, but then I can also see that unless he made it a required assignment it should probably not have been said. Eurgh.... :(
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Trying to get compensation for suffering third-degree burns over six percent of her skin and being hospitalized for eight days while she underwent skin grafting followed by two years of treatment because Mcdonalds kept their coffee superheated to 190 degrees is hardly a stupid case. Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her medical costs, but the company offered $800. When McDonald's refused to raise their offer, Liebeck filed suit.
During the case it was discovered that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit (82-88 degrees Celsius). At that temperature, the coffee would cause a third-degree burn in Two to seven seconds. Testimony by witnesses for McDonald's revealed that:
* consumers were not aware the coffee was so hot that there was a risk of serious burns
* McDonald's did not warn customers of this risk
* they could offer no explanation as to why there was no warning
* McDonald's did not intend to reduce the heat of its coffee
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A subject for another thread perhaps, but I would tend to disagree with you on that one Jeffe.
As for the teacher, I think that his comments are not only highly opinionated and one-sided, but also quite inflammatory. Suggesting that other countries should have the right to bomb North Carolina is obviously going to strike close to home, and is going to get a lot of people angry. This person does not want to get his students thinking so much as he wants to get them thinking like him.
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you can disagree, but I think disagreement or no you would be wrong, as that was just what the law was designed for. To handle disagreements between parties.
Mcdonalds had a tradition of settling these cases out of court, pretty generously, untill this case. Where they decided that they were only going to offer 800 dollars. Considering that the womans treatment cost 20,000 it hardly cut it.
It still goes against the facts of the actual case which point to a series of 700 cases of people injured by coffee at Mcdonalds, the case was underscored by McDonalds' quality assurance manager who testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Most people think the woman burned was driving, which she wasnt, her grandson was driving, and at the time of the burn the car was stationary, he had pulled over to let her put creamer in.
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Posted by: Faster Master St. Pastor Posted on: Mar 9th, 2006, 6:33pm
Okay, having now read the article I'm going to have to say that I really don't care for any of this. I mean sure, Bush has done things that I don't like but not anything that I would get worked up about. Personally I think that it would be best to just let this thing blow over locally, not nationally. The reason I say this is that people these days are far to willing to sue over every little thing; I wouldn't mind so much if they would just sue over stuff that needed to be fought over, but come on, sueing because of something stupid wastes everyone's time (can we say McDonald's coffee?). Maybe I would care more if my blood didn't start to boil over even hearing about a lawsuit on the news, which it has been doing for quite some time, since I learned about the stupid things people sue over. Like Donald Trump sueing an author for five billion over saying he had less money then he claims to. It's ridiculous.
Anyway, both sides of this issue have some very valid points, and I am leaning more in favor of the teacher since I read about the extra credit assignment, but then I can also see that unless he made it a required assignment it should probably not have been said. Eurgh....
First of all, some lawsuits, like the McDonalds coffee case, aren't as bad as the news depicts them. That case was more about punishing McDonalds for endangering consumers then it was about compensating on victim. The person who brought the lawsuit got a windfall but that is how the American legal system awards plaintiffs who bring lawsuits against tortfeasors. Otherwise, McDonald could burn as many people as they liked and no one could stop them.
As for the teacher, his highly opinionated remarks probably did more to turn students away from politics and critical thinking then encourage them to think about the issue. When I taught political science, I was well aware that making comments like this teacher would turn most students off (and encourage stupid actions and comments from others). From a teaching standpoint, it looks like this teacher was acting very unprofessional and just trying to convert students to his political way of thought.
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Well I did only skim over the latter three fourths of the article so I didn't really get that much. 8)
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I'd like to point out that if the teacher was trying to make students think, what he would have done is started a conversation among them unbiasedly and played severe devils advocate to each student no matter what side of the issue he or she was on. Being lectured causes the brain to go into a mode that doesn't really allow it to think as critically as in discussion--and although I didn't read the transcript, it seems to me from what I saw on the board that everything the students did say was only said because they were led into it.
Also, I like the point in the article in which the attorney says that the student wont be sued because he, too, has a right to free-speech. Considering, according to the lawyer (who I cannot say I believe), that the student essentially misquoted the teacher by pulling quotes out of context and, essentially, framed the teacher, the first ammendment must cover a lot more than I had ever imagined, or that man must be a stupid, unaware and/or lying sack o' potaters.
I don't care if people sue over injuries for compensation when there is really obviously fault on another party. However, when people sue for being injured at, say, a casino and falling and hurting themselves, that should not be allowed. No, screw you you klutz, learn to walk.
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First, I have to strongly agree that lecturing is not the way to teach student to do critical analysis. That's been my experience anyways.
I wouldn't say that the student was pulling quotes out of context because he tape recorded the entire lecture, gave that to the school board, and that is what caused the issue. This would make any defamation lawsuit against the student difficult (particularly since the student could argue that by giving the lecture, the teacher published his comments first and proving an additional element of malice by going to the media and school board would be difficult). Defamation lawsuits are always tough to win and so I don't think the teacher had a strong claim to begin with. However, the lawyer was smart to make that comment for PR reasons.
On the local news last night, they mentioned that the teacher will not be fired and would not disclose if he was being punished at all. I wouldn't agree with firing the teacher but I think some disciplinary action should be done that is more then telling the teacher to not do it again.