Teachers Should Teach Students to Think
Like Jay Bennish, teachers should refuse to give in to the hateful and intimidating atmosphere of fear
 

March 15 2006
Counterbias.com
by John F. Borowski
 

“Loyalty in character means absolute obedience that does not question the results of the order nor its reasons, but rather obeys for the sake of obedience itself. Such obedience is an expression of heroic character when following the order leads to personal disadvantage or seems even to contradict one's personal convictions.”

-- Rudolf Hess 25 February 1934, "The Oath to Adolf Hitler"

In Overland High in Colorado, a student hears his teacher make a painful request: ponder today’s politics and be open to thought. If this young student was upset, did he ask the teacher about it? Did his parents follow traditional protocol: call the teacher, if unhappy, call the teacher’s immediate supervisor, if unproductive, take it to the school’s chief administrators? No, this young man knows the best way to confront speech is to enlist avowed enemies of such democratic principles: tape parts of the conversation on an MP-3 player and give it to a conservative talk radio. Apparently, the Mike Rosen radio show, a known conservative, would be a fair arbiter of this situation?

While overt expressions of patriotism are welcomed in classrooms around America, dissent is not. Not even dissent in the form of two-sided, thoughtful analysis of the current state of politics in this nation. Most teachers like Jay Bennish, carefully preface their discussions with disclaimers such as what was reported by the LA Times:

”According to the transcript, Bennish concluded by telling his students: "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me …. What I'm trying to do is to get you to … think about these issues more in depth." He thanked them for asking questions.”

But as Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Bill O’Reilly and the “new order” of selective freedom of speech advocates excoriate Jay Bennish, what will teachers across America do? They will hide. They will avoid tough discussions and thoughtful essay assignments and turn to sterile fill in the blank and multiple- choice questions. Mundane is good, mindless is better and sheep-like is the safest.

According to the critics of Mr. Bennish, there needs to be more “balance.” There needs to be “two-sides” of all issues. Mr. Bennish is giving balance: Mr. Bush has misled the American public on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, fought the creation of a 9/11 panel, refuses to make public data ranging from the secretive energy meeting between Cheney and big oil to contrived “intelligence” to start the Iraqi war. These are not fabrications or a hateful agenda brewed up by a liberal teacher, they are facts. But, America in the year 2006 has a fear of facts.

Just search your own memory. Remember when the news (the so-called liberal press) played the clip with President Clinton stating, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman Ms. Lewinsky." I would like to know how many times that played on television. It was “burned” into the collective CD memories of most citizens. Yet, why don’t we hear and see these three pieces over and over again?

For years, law enforcement used so-called roving wire- taps to
investigate organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order -- and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example. President Bush: April 19, 2004:

“We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks," Mr Bush told reporters as he met members of Congress on energy legislation.

At a black-tie dinner for journalists, Mr Bush narrated a slide show poking fun at himself and other members of his administration.

One pictured Mr Bush looking under a piece of furniture in the Oval Office, at which the president remarked: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere."

After another one, showing him scouring the corner of a room, Mr Bush said: "No, no weapons over there."

And as a third picture, this time showing him leaning over, appeared on the screen the president was heard to say: "Maybe under here?"

How dare the press not play these pieces of data over and over and over again? Teachers like Jay Bennish want our youngest citizens to be equipped with the keystone of “Democracy 101”…the ability to take data and process it through critical thinking. Instead, we have a press that is for the most part obsequious lapdogs to the most corrupt administration in United State’s history. We have a talk radio culture that thrives on lies and intimidation (yet the likes of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment, Bill Bennett’s gambling follies, Limbaugh’s illegal drug purchases, Hannity’s shameless manipulation of Terri Schiavo's health condition are all ignored). And now, we have students who are actively urged to secretly tape their teachers and morph challenging discussions into a “judge, jury and hanging” on radio by pundits that have the most obvious and unapologetic agendas?

Rudolf Hess’s speech to Nazi youth back in February of 1934 is eerily replaying itself in 2006. Detractors of free speech, wrap themselves in our American flag while they undermine the constitution and Bill of Rights. Messengers of dissent, an action that President Jefferson called, “the highest form of patriotism” are scorned and looked to be crushed by the enemies of democracy.

I have taught for 25 years and I have now seen dialogue and truth replaced with blind faith. From: There is no global warming to the teaching of intelligent design; we have entered an era where the foundations of democracy are not being chiseled away but openly chain sawed down.

When people, adult or child cannot back accusations, they rely on a frightening rationale of “just because.” Facts no longer matter and ideology is blindly and dangerously driven by an “absolute obedience that does not question the results of the order.”

Teachers like Mr. Bennish refuse to give into this hateful and intimidating atmosphere of fear. What are we going to do about it? Teachers: don’t run and hide, teach the truth. Jay Bennish did.

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John F. Borowski is a proud and longtime science teacher who teaches children to think about environmental issues. He may be reached at jenjill@peak.org.

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