[A-List] Colorado High school teacher suspended

[Omahkohkiaayo_ipoyi <omahkohkiaayo@xxxxxxxxx>]

In Colorado a high school geography teacher has been put on paid suspension
after he was taped by a right-wing student playing excerpts from Bush's
State of the Union speech and contrasting elements of the Bush speech with
a speech from Hitler and asking his students if they saw any parallels
between the content and tone of Bush's speech and that of Hitler. The
student, taped only portions of the entire lecture and then, along with his
parents, shopped the tape to right-wing radio stations that then played it
and demanded his firing.

Now even the parents of the kid who taped the teacher say they did not want
the teacher fired and students of this teacher and other students have
staged a walkout in protest.

I have had this done to me repeatedly. I used to have my own express lane
to the Dean's Office from protests by right-wingers trying to censor my
lectures. As john Stuart Mill noted: "Although it is true that not all
conservatives are stupid people, it is also true that most stupid people
are conservative." Indeed, this is their game plan: to censor, remove and
intimidate all those views and expontent of those views that they are too
stupid, illiterate and uneducated to debate. This is exactly what Hotrowitz
and his ilk are up to and it was exactly what the nazis were up to in the
transition period between the initial and later full capture of State
power.

In my classes I do not allow taping except by disabled students as I have
had the [highly] selected portions of my whole lectures snipped and played
for the powers-that-be in hopes that it will get me fired. I do not know
the law in Colorado, but in Washington State it is a Class-C Felony to tape
(audio but not visual if with no audio) and I tell my students that if any
of them tapes me without my permission I could--and might--demand that
criminal charges be filed.

One way around all of this, and I did hear portions of the tape
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=171e1b99-c974-4a26-acad-a3f88dc107f1,191abdb6-3db6-418d-904f-91667ef95b2a&t=s2&f=06/64&p=,
would be to simply preface any views with: "This is a view/argument being
expressed by some or significant segments of the U.S. or the World
communities and these are the arguments or pieces of evidence "THEY" employ
to advance and support that view." If I am asked is this YOUR OWN view I
note that it is not necessary for the students to know and I need not
reveal my own views (inside of class) in order to fully and fairly discuss
and explore diverse and contending views which may or may not include my
own views.

At this critical juncture of US and World history we need to pick our
fights carefully, ration our scarce resources for defense on various issues
and not give undue or unnecessary aid-and-comfort to the enemy. And I also
believe that some on the left who create and conduct courses based on their
own narrow identity politics, pet research areas and dogma are giving aid
and comfort to the enemy and not really engaging in effective agit-prop
that they claim to intend.

This is not to imply that righ-wing censorship should not be fought and
countered but only that some degree of sophistication be employed so that
any agit-prop or pedagogy is effective and gives th eright-wing little to
counter with.

Jim C.



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