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Yeah. I heard it too. Major league douche bag. Big time.

Doesn't surprise me, though. I hope we start holding these HS teachers accountable for their BS.

 

This guy is a religious zealot!

I listened to the recording of what this teacher had to say and I don't see how you could come up with this statement.

He was trying to get his students to think about the things he was talking about....not trying to get them to change their views, just think about them.

Conservative teachers do this same thing and are never condemed for it...but as soon as a liberal teacher does it, all hell breaks loose.

As far as this teacher "bashing Bush, capitalism, etc.", he was speaking the truth, which in all reality is not bashing.

 

Hi Anon,

Thanks for your comment. Political ideology does not belong in a high school classroom. The Germans, during the time of Hitler, perfected the state school as a tool for indoctrination, and the United States has since adopted the model. This teacher was a conspiracy theorist with an overlay of paranoia. You simply have to listen to the tone of his voice, the content of his rhetoric and his unsubstantiated assertions. He was doing everything in his power to convince them...

"Religious" (ideological) fanatics deal in absolutes, and evoke "truths" from "spiritual" sources.

Anon, I was in education for years, and rarely ran across "conservative" teachers. :)

Hope you drop back in!

-Jack

Hi LB!

Good to see you as always!

-Jac

 

Jack, I'm not as put off by this teacher as you are. For one thing, you don't have to worry about him swaying impressionable minds--his rhetoric simply isn't good enough. (He would profit from a study of Cicero.) His delivery style is likely to turn students against him.

Now, you said that "The Germans, during the time of Hitler, perfected the state school as a tool for indoctrination, and the United States has since adopted the model." I disagree--public schools in America have been "tools for indoctrination" virtually since their inception. It's just that what is being indoctrinated has changed in some parts. Public school was visualized as a way of molding proper citizens, so we said the pledge, sang "God Bless America," prayed to a Christian God, put on plays about the Pilgrims, etc.: all meant to produce national pride and patriotism in students. That's indoctrination. We don't call it that because the word itself has developed a stigma, but we did, and do, inculcate a doctrine. And the public still wants that in schools--it's just that they want to choose the doctrine.

Back to the teacher: I listened to only about five minutes, so I can't weigh in on everything he said. I think his description of capitalism is basically correct: there's nothing in the economic model that emphasizes safety or human rights. His implication, of course, is that all capitalistic systems are therefore bad, which he where he gets into trouble.

It's actually a shame--he could have asked probing questions that got his students doing the deep thinking that he says he wants; instead, he just comes off as a guy ranting on a street corner soapbox.

 

EP,

I listened to his whole delivery. There were overt signs of paranoia and I find such dangerous to others. I am sure that the school screened him psychiatrically before they hired him, wouldn't they? The reason I am put off as it is obviously not an isolated incident for this teacher--what more has he told these students?

I agree 100% with your statement concerning state schools. I just point out that the value of the "state" school was recognized by both Lenin and Hitler as a means of creating the "citizen" and has been generously embraced by our government. We have increasingly patterned our schools after that philosophy over the years. OBE is one such structure that has been added to the socialist mold. I agree too, it all depends on the latest dogma that the education system embraces!

I think that one of the problems is that teachers know far less than they once did. Not in terms of knowledge, just the ability to process it. I don't know how many times I have had to school people on the term "capitalism"--that it is strictly and economic system--nothing else, and cannot be compared to socialism, communism, etc. There is a fundamental ignorance of this because of the ideologues and their misuse of terms. Of course ideologues are quick to assign moral values to amoral concepts.

Thanks for your input, EP!

-Jack