High school teacher's comments investigated by district

[Midnight Mike]

AURORA - A 16-year-old boy at Overland High School doesn't want to hear what he calls his teacher's left-wing political rants.

Sean Allen frequently recorded his teachers to back up his notes. Allen recorded Jay Bennish, his 10th grade World Geography teacher, making comments about President Bush's State of the Union Address.

Allen's father claims the comments made in the recording are biased and inappropriate for a geography class.

"I'm not saying Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not. OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use," says Bennish in his critique of U.S. economic and foreign policy.
Towards the end of the class, Bennish goes on to say, "I'm not in anyway implying that you should agree with me, I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think about these issues more in depth and not to just take things from the surface."

The Cherry Creek School District is conducting a thorough investigation of the complaint from the Overland High School parent and student concerning comments.

The school district says at first glance it does appear the teacher acted inappropriately at the very least.

A spokesperson for the Cherry Creek School District said they have placed Bennish on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. This is not a disciplinary action; the school district wants to remove him while they sort through the rest of the investigation.

The Cherry Creek School District expects to finish the investigation by the end of the week.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGN ... 89c01ca7bf

[T-Bird76]

Oh man they should have heard some of my teachers. My 11th and 12th grade history teacher was so dam liberal she made the classroom her personal grandstand to spread her views around. At-least when this happened in College you could debate with the Prof. in High School they just kicked us out of class.

[Midnight Mike]

Oh man they should have heard some of my teachers. My 11th and 12th grade history teacher was so dam liberal she made the classroom her personal grandstand to spread her views around. At-least when this happened in College you could debate with the Prof. in High School they just kicked us out of class.

I had a Liberal Hippie for a history teacher, she kept preaching how Reagan was going to blow up the world.

The best was when she brought in some movie about the 60's & we had to watch it during class. The gal actually wore her hippie colored T-Shirt, & gave extra points for students that did the same.

One of our reports was to listen to the hippie songs & write as to why we thought the Vietnam War was wrong.

Like you said, in High School, do what the teacher says or out you go....

[Matt Molnar]

This guy is a certified nut job.

I had a history professor who couldn't stop going on in class about how great a guy Stalin was. I put a swift end to it...
Me: "You left out how he starved 20 million of his own people to death."
Professor: "Umm, err, well, yes." Then he changed the subject.

[PhilDernerJr]

You're the man, Gotham.

[Tom_Turner]

This crap has been going on for decades.

I had one teacher - in elementary school no less - present her take on the six day war. Now class - here's Israel - one o****ry. They are fighting X, Y, Z .... Now class do you feel thats fair? 6 countries against one?

I guess I missed that lesson when it was the Allies against the Axis.

At least that was under the guise of "Current Events".

Later in High School, some english teacher suspended the regular days lesson to start bitching about her salary. She started moaning about how Reggie Jackson got paid so much money to chase a ball around a field whereas the valuable work teachers do was not appreciated and after all, who should be paid more?

I offered that the reason for the pay disparity was only Reggie Jackson could perform at his level, whereas a few hundred thousand people could do her job.

I don't think she liked me after that.

Anyway, bad enough students are regularly indoctrinated in college, because they can't think for themselves, but it should be criminal in grade school.

[mirrodie]

then this guy Allen ought to steer clear of hte political discussions over in the anet forums.