Mar 02 2006
The Jay Bennish Fiasco
About this moonbat teacher caught on tape (Michelle Malkin has the complete rundown, including a transcript and a link to the recording), three things come to mind.
First, there’s this:
AURORA, Colo. — Dozens of students at Overland High School walked out of class this morning in support of a teacher who was at the center of a controversy over comments he made about President Bush during a geography class.
And here are two of those three “issues” I have with this whole thing. First, why are the teachers and administators allowing students to walk out of class? This is a high school, not a university; the students are children. Do high schools have so little discipline that kids can just get up and walk out of the classroom, and scream and howl at the moon? Or are teachers allowing this because they support this wackjob? Perhaps I’m cynical, but I suspect the latter is the case.
Second, the remarks weren’t solely, or even primarily, about President Bush (see the transcript on Michelle Malkin’s site, or if you can stomach it, listen to the tape, linked from Michelle’s site). The remarks were your basic wacked-out anti-American, anti-capitalism blather. Misrepresenting them as being “about President Bush” leads the reader to believe that they were somehow innocent, and directed at the President, when they most emphatically were neither.
And last, we get to that academic freedom issue. Since faculty are always screeching about it, when more often than not, the remarks under discussion have nothing to do with academic freedom, let’s tackle that thorny “what is academic freedom” issue.
Academic freedom is not using the classroom to rant about topics irrelevant to the topic. Sorry, but howling about the evils of capitalism has nothing to do with geography. He should have been slapped harder the last time he did this.
Academic freedom is not presenting fantasy as if it were fact. Like all leftists, he did this numerous times, for example, when he cast intelligence as if it were murdering innocent people. This also applies to Holocaust deniers, which is also not academic freedom. And it applies to Ward Churchill, who is one of the biggest proponents of the fictitious “evil white settlers deliberately infected the peaceful Native Americans with smallpox by giving them blankets” story.
Academic freedom is not indoctrination. A school, no matter what the level, is supposed to be about education. Indoctrination and groupthink are antithetical in every way to education.
Anybody who abuses academic freedom is abusing the educational system, and should be slapped hard for it.
However, I have more trouble with this nutjob than I do Ward Churchill. This is a high school. These students are children. Liberals are correct about one thing: We hold power over our students. And for this reason, abusing the educational system in elementary or high school is abusing the students — and the abusers should be fired.
14 responses so far
14 Responses to “The Jay Bennish Fiasco”
I listened to the audio of TEACHER CAUGHT IN BUSH RANT, with great interest. Also, with sadness.
My name is Michael Class. I live in the Seattle area with my wife and two children. I am a retired “dot-com” executive turned author, photographer, and publisher.
I was appalled at how some teachers presented American history to my children. My son and daughter learned that Thomas Jefferson had slaves—before they learned that he wrote the document articulating our rights and duties as free people. European settlers killed Native Americans with blankets infected with smallpox, they found out. That allegation upstaged the stories of courage, perseverance, and curiosity that defined the pioneers. My children knew that more than a hundred thousand people died when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, but they were not made to understand the moral context and the enormous scale of the conflict called World War II in which the atomic bomb story fit.
With a curriculum seemingly designed to instill guilt and shame, I wondered, how will my kids ever discover the lessons of history that inspire greatness and noble aspirations? Will they ever believe that they can make a difference? Will they have any heroes left at all? Then, I wondered: What would the heroes of America’s past say to the children of today?
I wrote, photographed, and published a book designed to set the record straight, to properly prepare our children for the future. My book is called Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame.
If anyone knows where I can reach 10th-grader Sean Allen, I will gladly send him a FREE copy of my book. He did the right thing.
My book specifically rebuts the positions taken by teacher Jay Bennish - because I have heard his arguments so many times before. My book tells the truth about capitalism, the War on Terror, and places them in historical perspective.
In the book, my real-life son, twelve-year-old Anthony, time-travels into the great events of the 20th century. Digital photographic “magic†places Anthony in the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis with Charles Lindbergh, on the moon with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in the laboratories of Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk, and on Normandy beach on D-Day. It looks as though Anthony really did meet Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, FDR, Lou Gehrig, Charles Lindbergh, and Audie Murphy. And it’s all historically accurate: Even Anthony’s conversations with America’s heroes are based on things they really said.
While writing and photographing the book, I spoke with relatives of famous scientists and inventors, Holocaust survivors, award-winning biographers, and others who could help me ensure that the facts of the book were both accurate and vivid.
But the book goes beyond a simple recitation of historical facts: the book presents the moral lessons of American history. The chapter about Lindbergh’s flight is really about choosing one’s destiny. The story of Lou Gehrig is one of a virtuous life. The chapter about Thomas Edison is really about business. The story of Apollo 11 is about wonder, taking risks, and courage. The story of Dr. Jonas Salk and the cure for polio is really about dedicating one’s life to a higher purpose. When Anthony “meets†his immigrant great-grandfather at Ellis Island in 1907, it’s really a story about what it means to be an American. Anthony’s observation of D-Day and the liberation of the death camps during the Holocaust is a testament to the reality of evil and the need to fight it.
The book is meant to challenge the young reader. Many adults will find the book challenging, too. Anthony COMPARES the people and events of the past with the people and events of his own time. Anthony discusses the nature of good and evil, right and wrong, war and peace, what it means to be an American, honor and discipline, success and achievement, courage and destiny, marriage and family, God and purpose. Anthony’s observations prompt serious discussion of timeless moral questions. Anthony challenges the reader to think critically - to see the modern world in the light of the lessons of the past.
We can’t afford to raise a generation of Americans who do not value their country, their heritage, and their place in the world. As Abraham Lincoln said: America is the “last best hope of earth.”
Thank you.
Michael S. Class
Author / Photographer / Publisher
Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame: An American History Book for Right-Thinking Parents and Their Children
———————–
E-Mail: class@MagicPictureFrame.com
Web site: www.MagicPictureFrame.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loos
Any true American who watches the above, free video will recognize the fact that Bush committed 9/11 the same as his grandfather’s client, Adolf Hitler, committed the Reichstag Fire. Inarguably, Bush is Hitler-redux.
Schoolteacher Jay Bennish is simply putting forward thoughts that any who claim spiritual descent from the Jeffersonian Whig Founders of the United States of America should have been realizing right after they heard GHW Bush’s public statement confirming his “inability” to recall his whereabouts upon hearing of President Kennedy’s assassination: W’s only “qualification” for office.
Death for Treason
Dear Will,
I’ll say this r-e-a-l s-l-o-w so you can understand:
You are a serious whackjob!
Looks like his students are split - 3.2 out of 5 (average)
http://www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/colorado/aurora/overland_high_school/jay__bennish
I knew about ratemyprofessors.com, of course; I didn’t know about ratemyteachers.com. However, I don’t see how that has to do with his abusing his position of authority at the school.
Hey “Idjet” Google “Prescott Thyssen Auschwitz” then decide whether you’re an American or just a fascist…like the Bush Nixon Rockefeller Fifth Column Faction Jefferson id’d as the “real Anti-Christ.”
Here is parent rating from 2005
http://www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/colorado/aurora/overland_high_school/jay__bennish/parent_ratings
DonÂ’t You Need to Breathe to Speak?
Heard about this idiot teacher that was recorded spewing forth DU talking points? This guy is a total d***he-bag. I donÂ’t even really know what he said, even though I heard the sound clips, because there are certain things that, when I hear them, caus…
Jay Bennish - Communist Agent for Colorado Schools
Coming home from school today, there was news of Jay Bennish, a 10th grade geography teacher who taught communism and anti-Bush, anti-America thinking along with (or in place of) his geography lessons: Here’s a summary of what he taught in the ta ……
Man that Will Jones is a laugh riot. It would be sad if he really believed that comedy routine.
Isn’t it “odd” how people like “you,” who find the truth of Bush treason so “funny,” don’t have any issue about homosexual prostitute Jeff Gannon’s being “received” at the residential-side of the White House’s “backdoor” for two years? When you gave your support to draft-dodger Bush did you not know of the homosexual initiation ritual he underwent to get into Yale’s “Skull & Bones?”
…or that in 1968 the Guard was officially closed…hence the “Waiting List?” Did you not know that list was waiting for the door, for entry to Vietnam-free service, to open again, and that the only one’s who “got in” were also the “womanish” sons of Congressmen and the politically connected?
Isn’t it “funny,” there you are shaking hands with a man whose line is completely cut-off (other than the adopted son he permitted to be molested at the age of three) and who lied about dying his hair? Gee, what kind of “man” would dye his hair and then lie about it? Or jump ship in 1942 when his Army National Guard Cavalry unit was shipping out to the Pacific? No polo in Guadalcanal? Better get his rich “pal” to pull strings to get him to Hollywood. (Read “Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob,” if you’ve the stomach for details)
Birds of feather “flock” whose perversion and cowardice, ambition, greed and fear, lead them to serve the obvious knowable Anti-Christ of King and Pope America’s Founders came her to escape.
Novus Ordo Seclorem: The New SECULAR Order
Watch the “Loose Change 2nd Edition” movie to get a headstart on recovery…from the priests who got you, temptation to evil, fascism…whatever.
Ports for Dubai in the U.S.? To ship Carlyle Group heroin from Afghanistan? As a payoff for helping the Bush faction commit 9/11?
Just know the days of the Tories are drawing to an end once more. Whig justice will be on those who linger in Babylon as the Swamp Fox fell upon the luckless dupes defending the Tory retreat so many years ago.
Everybody knows what you’re doing. You aren’t going to get away with it. Repent.
For Treason, Death and Full Expropriation
Death or Banishment and Full Expropriation for Misprision of Treason
The day is coming.
I encourage Will Jones to comment all he likes. The more he talks, the more obvious how insane he is.
Hey all, I’m a RateMyTeachers mod, and I’m not sure who’s doing it, but could you spread the word for people who aren’t Bennish’s students to please stop posting their views on his ratings. The ratings are supposed to be from his STUDENTS, not from people around the country who dislike him for what he says.
Thank you very much.
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