BlogBlurb - Liberal Impropriety

Within the last few weeks, a debate has erupted over the allegedly proven comments made by a teacher in a Colorado high school classroom that compared President Bush to Hitler and called America the most violent and hateful culture in the history of mankind. An excerpt of the tape can be found here. Tell me if you think it sounds a.) balanced, and merely "thought-provoking", or b.) having anything to do with GEOGRAPHY.

A recent interview on FoxNews' Hannity & Colmes found Sean Allen, the student that recorded his teacher giving a lecture on geopolitical issues offering an interesting conclusion to the debate that ensued. He said he was confident the school made the right decision in allowing the teacher to resume his duties! He went further to suggest that Mr. Bennish was, in fact a good geography teacher... when he taught geography.

Sean Allen has become a figure head of the teacher-student relationship in class, and what is appropriate for a teacher to say publicly. Fox News and Sean Hannity have driven this story into the forefront of the media from day one and it is clear from the recording that the teacher clearly overstepped his bounds and gave a radicalized personal opinion.

The school responded by suspending the teacher, which many students were given the opportunity to protest. Here is an edited video of some student's reaction to the suspension. As of Friday, March 17th, the teacher was reinstated and allowed to teach his students once again. Sean Allen respectfully agrees with this decision, never wanting his teacher to lose his job in the first place. He transferred out of the class, and THEN went to the media so he could simply bring accountability in, from outside the isolation of the principle's office. However, Sean has still been threatened for his stand against agressive indoctrination. 17 year old Miles Merritt, a junior, said that when he was enrolled in Bennish's human geography class last fall, "it turned into a very political class" with Bennish criticizing Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina. So this is not an isolated incident.

It has always been abundantly clear that liberal-viewing teachers outnumber conservatives by a large margin, but for the most part it has not been overwhelmingly clear whether there has been clear impropriety in the teacher's lectures. I am sure there have been indiscretions on the part of conservative teachers attacking liberal leaders as well, but it is not known how often, and it is not as widely complained about. While both are wrong, this may simply be because there are less conservative teachers existing in the school system through which to abuse this sacred position. Nonetheless, this class was a high school class, which even further implicates the teacher's claim of "stoking and challenging the thoughts and minds of the students"... High school students are still extremely impressionable, and should not be challenged to face the filth without choice that college students have to face by choice.

My biggest concern is that we will end up boxing ourselves into a corner because of a teacher's liberal rant. I don't believe it is right to indoctrinate children from the right or left, in a public place. But the fact that we sentence our children to attend compulsory doctrine-centers, we take the chance that our kids will be exposed to teacher's opinions. We are at fault, and we can change it.