The "teacher" from Overland, Colorado

In a number of places on the web there has been a 20 minute rant from a geography teacher in Overland, Colorado. The guy's name is Jay Bennish. His school district put him on unpaid leave as a result of his remarks comparing Hitler and Bush and a raft of other outrageous comments. But if you listen to the whole tape it is troubling on a number of levels. First, his understanding of economics is below uniformed. His understanding of foreign policy is equally appalling. These are not questions of disagreements about policies but questions of basic facts. It is as if the only thing this guy read for the last twenty years was Mother Jones and the Nation with a bit of the Daily Worker thrown in. Second, his rant was not in any sense what one could call teaching. The tape has him getting wound up on a series of subjects that all ultimately lead back a consistent opinion that denigrates the American experience. We are consistently portrayed as the bad guys. There is plenty of room for disagreement on all of the issues that Bennish presented but in a high school class on geography there seems to have been little notion of teaching here. Third, immediately there were a group of students who protested Bennish's suspension (IMHO should eventually result in a dismissal) as a violation of "First Amendment rights" - those students were probably taught by Bennish. This is not about First Amendment issues. It is about whether any public school teacher has the obligation to engage students in a way that will get them to think. Bennish clearly was not trying to get the students to think - rather he was trying to indoctrinate them into submission.

Think of the learning opportunities in his subject - for example. He could have discussed the geo-historic implications of the partitioning of the Middle East after WWI. The British (by the way the evil Americans were not involved) decided that it would be a good idea to make things neat. He could have talked about the three groups in Iraq and how they might fit together differently. Or, he could have done an economic geography of the United States. Are the differences in wealth and income based on geography, the economic system or some other set of factors? As an alternative he could have done a historic geography of the US relationship to its neighbors to the south. But he chose to do none of these. Most likely there was no basis for this guy to do any of this. I would be willing to bet he could not identify any of the major geographic regions of Iraq and probably could not do it for places like the US or South America (where he said we are bombing cocoa plants). Anyone who does not know from where cocaine comes probably should not be teaching geography.

During the time of his suspension he might do a couple of things. First, someone should send him a book like the Federalist and he should read it and (if possible) ponder it. If that is too tough he might read the Constitution. Second, he should use his lawyer to sue where ever he went to college. If he got a degree (and he has been a teacher for five years so he must not be a temporary) he was a victim of the cruelist of hoaxes. Even an undergraduate degree should expose him to a range of ideas and thought. It should have allowed him to form carefully thought out positions. As I listened to the tape (twice) I found him a lot like a wind up doll - everytime he started to wind down he would renew himself. There could have been some excellent discussions about all of the issues he presented. What was the role of the settlers in coming to the American continent? (He contended bringing disease and pestillence only) What should be the role of the United States in dealing with drug issues (He contended that we were only bullies) Is there a difference between democracies and more totalitarian regimes (He contended that the Palestinians having elected a government might break a string of a couple of centuries where no democracy has attacked another). In each of these instances he could have taught some basic principles of geography (which was supposedly what he was "teaching."

I understand these comments to be harsh. But his complete denial of his responsibiity as a professional to teach and not indoctrinate should not be treated lightly. Perhaps the kid should not have taped him. But if the 20 minute tape is any example of the kind of nonsense he was expounding he should have been reviewed by the district and terminated a long time ago. Passion and intelligence are not the same thing. A good teacher should be passionate about teaching but should also take care not to beat his students with his own opinions.

There are a lot of blogs on this subject the best coverage I found on the issues is at Tim Owensby