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I've just finished listening to a world geography class recorded by a 16-year-old high school student at Overland High School, which is just outside of Denver. Michelle Malkin has transcribed most of the class, and her transcription seems to me accurate.
The remarks are astonishing. (Israel, for instance, was founded because"the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minister in Palestine." The teacher doesn't say whether the"Israel-Zionist movement" assassinated Winston Churchill or Clement Attlee.) Beyond such factual errors, the teacher hits all the expected points--vehement denunciations of Israel, globalization, capitalism, Bush (whose State of the Union address sounded"a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler use to say"), US drug policy, and the like. His best comment:"I don't know if I'm necessarily even taking a position." The student's questions and explanatory comments were far more intelligent than those of the teacher, which is depressing enough. As far as I could determine from the tape, the student who recorded the class was the only person who spoke more than a few words.
The teacher has been suspended pending a review of his performance, a reminder of one critical difference between HS and college instruction: HS curriculum falls under the control of state or local governments, and there is no presumption of absolute academic freedom of instruction.
This event, however, seems to me relevant in two ways regarding college classes. First, the recording demonstrates how a teacher can spend virtually an entire class talking but doing almost no instruction in the ostensible subject of the class. There are, of course, some college classes that properly deal with contemporary matters. But the vast majority don't: and so every second spent denouncing Bush or discussing the war is time taken away from instructing in the topic for which the student (or her parents) paid to be taught. Second, there's a big difference between having a student complain that a teacher is biased and actually hearing the teacher in his own words--perhaps one reason why the higher education establishment has so vociferously resisted moves to make what goes on in the classroom more transparent.
Our friend, louie, is a full-time employee of the uni -- neither a faculty member nor a graduate student -- but a staff member, a "computer programmer", who spends most of his working days promoting his particular form of moonbat doctrine on various sites. I've never seen the issue come up in debates with Horowitzians, but you may have more experience than I do. Also, if you'd like some references on the subject, I'll be happy to give them to you off-line.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/5/2006
My sense is that politically, public school teachers tend to reflect the ideology of the area from which they come, with perhaps a slight tilt toward the more liberal side. Certainly in NYC, most public school teachers are strongly liberal Dems. But I don't know of any evidence to suggest that pub. school teachers tend to be more conservative than their locale.
The caveat here is the NEA and other teachers' unions, which are very liberal.
Scott Eric Kaufman -
3/4/2006
I thought everyone already knew the citizens of Louisiana are the proud owners of the 49th best educational system in the country? But yes, I included that qualifier because I knew that my experience was merely anecdotal, and because I don't know if the Coach-as-Civics/American History/World History/State History paradigm teacher is a national phenomenon.
Also, I suppose I should look up Proyect's blog and see the moonbattery for myself. Quick question: when you say "on Columbia University subsidized time," do you mean "during the academic equivalent of working hours" or "because he's employed by Columbia"? This issue irks me, and comes up often in debates with Horowitzians who claim that because the University is my employer, they have some purchase on what I can say/read/teach and do with my time. But since professors and graduate students don't keep "normal hours," I'm often at wit's end trying to explain how the University doesn't subsidize all the time I spend on my dissertation (or if it does, it does so outrageously poorly).
Ralph E. Luker -
3/4/2006
Scott, It would be fair to point out that you went to public schools in Louisiana, so the evidence you offer is hardly representative of the nation at large. On your last point, I'd say that, on his own site, Mr. Proyect does his best to offer a moonbat alternative to Horowitzian wingnuttery. That he does it on Columbia University subsidized time doesn't make up for his failure at Horowitzian entrepreneurship.
Scott Eric Kaufman -
3/4/2006
Quick note: Mr. Proyect is right to point to the possibility that the majority of high school history teachers are conservative. I don't think he can prove it, but I can at least offer a little anecdotal evidence:
Every single one of my history teachers from 7th grade until I graduated was both 1) a coach of some sort and 2) a flag-waving, hippy-hating conservative. I can't count the number of high school history classes were spent listening to Coach So-and-So prattling endlessly about Clinton and Foster and abuse of executive power and how the entire nation had been shamed by a presidential hummer. It happened everyday, and I had to sit there and take it. Mind you, I attended one of the worst high schools in the second worst educational system in the country--the buildings had been condemned before I matriculated, and they were still condemned on the date of my graduation--but still, when I read Mr. Proyect's claims, I couldn't help but nod in agreement.
And Ralph, I understand that leftists tend to crypto-facism at the same frequency as their counterparts on the right, but I don't think they're nearly so well-organized. I mean, is there a moonbat equivalent to Horowitz's wingnuttery?
Jim Williams -
3/4/2006
I'm still perturbed by KC's concern over the teaching of current events in classes. Our study of history should give us historical perspective on current events, and historical analogies are also very useful in making the subject matter come alive to students.
When I teach about Athenian democracy, I explicitly compare and contrast it with our system of government which is not particularly democratic in comparison. I see nothing wrong - indeed, much good - in that approach. I should note that Donald Kagan is well known for taking that approach.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/4/2006
Hogwash. "Cliopatria" has taken no position on the case of the Colorado teacher. We speak as individuals here. I know that that offends your collectivist sense of how things are or are supposed to be, but that's just the way it is.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/4/2006
Indeed. I'm not saying that I "believe" Dollar Diplomacy was a good policy--I think it was one of the most counterproductive foreign policies the US ever pursued.
But the purpose of a HS history textbook is to provide a narrative of American history, with a heavy reliance on factual statements, not for the author to give moral judgments or play armchair policy analyst. "Hoping to head off trouble, Washington urged Wall Street bankers to pump dollars into the financial vacuums in Honduras and Haiti to keep out foreign funds" is a factual statement. That doesn't mean the policy was a good policy. But this sentence certainly isn't the equivalent of Goebbels: it's describing what happened.
Louis N Proyect -
3/4/2006
I am not trying to "dominate" conversations. I am participating in this thread because Cliopatria is a public forum that has now joined the rightwing blogosphere, Fox News and the Rocky Mountain News by trying to silence yet another Colorado teacher. Sometimes weeks go by without me posting a single word here. But if you want to boot me for "dominating" Cliopatria, Dr. Luker, go ahead. People will surely understand that this is your privilege as blogmaster.
Christopher Newman -
3/4/2006
Mr. Proyect,
You talk as though teaching history -- teaching anything, for that matter -- is solely about what one "believes." The "intelligent design" lobbyists will be happy to hear that.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/4/2006
Not ever having been a Democrat (much less a Stalinist), myself, I do appreciate your willingness to acknowledge publically your own kinship to David Horowitz. Oh, and it would be appreciated if you would stop trying to dominate conversations at Cliopatria while at the same time smearing some of us over on your own site.
KC: "There's nothing objectionable or even particularly controversial about the first sentence in the quote from the American Pageant, nor from the first clause of the second sentence."
Of course not. You agree with it. Things that I believe you would find controversial. However, what I believe is not found in high school textbooks. They are generally the stuff of the college classroom, which drives the new McCarthyites crazy. They are not satisfied that the mass media, high school textbooks and talk radio is dominated by their ideas. They want to throttle all exceptions to the norm. There was a good movie I saw last night that dealt with this phenomenon. It is called "Sophie Scholl". Highly recommended.
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/4/2006
Of course the kid is being used to make a point. Whether that is wrong depends upon his intent and volition, the point being made, and the scrupulousness with which it is being made.
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/4/2006
Concerning the possibility of splicing.
One thing I do have in my tape policy is that if a tape is used to file a complaint with me then I have a right to a copy of all tapes made.
Jonathan Dresner -
3/4/2006
Twenty minutes? That's all it is? Come on KC, you're an historian who deals with tapes: how reliable is twenty spliced minutes of one lecture in isolation?
Robert KC Johnson -
3/4/2006
I think that's the approach the professoriate should take in general. A couple of the Volokh commentators pointed out, correctly, that technological change makes a closing off of the classroom from all outside scrutiny impossible to achieve (this story, for instance--five years ago, the student probably wouldn't have had sophisticated enough audio equipment, and the tape would have been next to impossible to listen to on the internet given most people's connection speeds).
Robert KC Johnson -
3/4/2006
I don't have a particularly positive view of the Kennedy presidency--I openly admit my partiality toward Johnson because of his domestic accomplishments, and don't a significant enough difference between the two men's performance in foreign policy. But I've encountered no evidence to suggest that RFK "preferred" Cox to Marshall. Cox was appointed for one reason and one reason only--a desire to appease the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On the issue of textbooks, a comparison to Goebbels?? There's nothing objectionable or even particularly controversial about the first sentence in the quote from the American Pageant, nor from the first clause of the second sentence. The second clause of the second sentence is poorly written; I presume the reference was to how policymakers thought, not the author's conclusions. Given that it's today's professoriate that's writing textbooks, one can hardly view the books as the product of some right-wing cabal.
Louis N Proyect -
3/4/2006
KC, I don't think the issue is rightwing professors using the classroom as a bully pulpit in violation of the need to uphold objectivity in the high school classroom. They don't need to do this. All they have to do is lecture the students from the official textbooks.
With respect to Woodrow Wilson's brutal occupation of Haiti, for which the Haitian people are paying the price even today, "The American Pageant" stated, "Hoping to head off trouble, Washington urged Wall Street bankers to pump dollars into the financial vacuums in Honduras and Haiti to keep out foreign funds. The United States, under the Monroe Doctrine, would not permit foreign [!!!] nations to intervene, and consequently it had some moral obligation to interfere financially to prevent economic and political chaos."
Goebbels couldn't have written anything to top this.
On the criminal overthrow of Allende and the mass murder of the Chilean people, "The American Adventure" has this to say: "Some people, in the United States and abroad, said that the United States arranged the overthrow of Allende. Indeed, in 1974, President Ford admitted that the United States had given help to the opposition to Allende [sic]. However, he denied that the United States encouraged or even knew of the revolutionary plan. [Well, that's a relief.]
On JFK, "The Challenge of Freedom" puts forward a version of American history that approximates official historiography out of the Kremlin when Stalin was in power. "President Kennedy and his administration responded to the call for racial equality. In June 1963 the President asked for congressional action on far-reaching equal rights. Following the President's example, thousands of Americans became involved in the equal rights movement as well. In August 1963 more than 200,000 people took part in a march in Washington, D.C."
After having done some thorough research on this rotten politicians career in order to prepare an article for a New Zealand radical magazine, I find this whitewashing particularly galling. Here's what I found:
Kennedy saw the Justice Department as the main instrument of his civil rights agenda, not the Civil Rights Commission that had been established in 1957 under Eisenhower as part of the Civil Rights Act. Several degrees to the left of Kennedy, the Commission was seen as something akin to Reconstruction and, therefore, unwelcome. In his best-selling "Profiles in Courage," Kennedy referred to Reconstruction as a "black nightmare…nourished by Federal bayonets." When the Civil Rights Commission announced its attention to investigate racist violence in Mississippi, Robert F. Kennedy likened it to HUAC "investigating Communism."
Not only were the Kennedys hostile to the Civil Rights Commission; they appointed 5 segregationist judges to the federal bench, including Harold Cox, who had referred to blacks as "niggers" and "chimpanzees." Robert F. Kennedy preferred Cox to Thurgood Marshall whom he described as "basically second-rate." Kennedy frequently turned to Mississippi Senator James Eastland for advice on appointments. According to long-time activist Virginia Durr, Eastland would "invite people over for the weekend and tell them to 'pick out a nigger girl and a horse!' That was his way of showing hospitality."
Even in their selection of voter registration as the least confrontational tactic in the South, the Kennedys were loath to put the power of the federal government behind it. When the KKK targeted civil rights workers trying to register black voters, Robert F. Kennedy bent over backwards to appear conciliatory toward the racists. He said, "We abandoned the solution, really, of trying to give people protection." This indifference was one of the main reasons the racists felt free to kill activists in the Deep South.
One such assassination took the life of NAACP leader Medgar Evars, who was gunned down in the driveway of his home. In keeping with his accomodationist policies, Robert F. Kennedy told the media that the federal government had no authority to protect Evers or anybody else. Such responsibilities rested with the state of Mississippi!
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/4/2006
I used the term marxist because of Bennish's comments on the tape, not because the term fits everyone on the Left. (It doesn't.) If you've listened to the tape, I'd be surprised if you don't reach the same conclusion. To be sure, he's not a sophisticated, philosophical marxist, but that's a different standard altogether.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/4/2006
This really is not very difficult, Mr. Lederer. It is one thing, if my students and I have an agreement that they can tape classroom sessions for whatever purpose. It is a second thing, also acceptable, if we have no prior agreement, but a student notifies me that she or he will be taping a session for academic purposes. When, however, a student tapes a class session without prior notice and for the purpose of using the tape as evidence against me, we are no longer teacher and student. We have become accused and accuser. That's an entirely different relationship.
Jonathan Dresner -
3/4/2006
The teacher may or may not have any rights with regard to taping.
But the students should be protected under FERPA and as legal minors, from having their comments made public. If the taping was done for a private educational purpose -- notetaking, or in lieu of notetaking for someone with relevant disability -- that's fine and there's no harm done.
But the students' "expectation of privacy" has to be greater than the teachers'....
John H. Lederer -
3/3/2006
Why?
Is it because a reasonable expectation of privacy is violated, or because the teacher did not expect to be held to account for his teaching if it was only recounted by a student?
If the former, I think that depends on the class. A large college lecture would seem to me to have no expectation of privacy, a small seminar possibly. A high school class would likely fall somewhere in between. In general, though, a class is not something that one would reasonably expect to be held confidential.
If the latter, well that is sessentially dishonest. It means that the teacher is confident that he can cast doubt on an accurate student version of events.
I have to admit that my sympathy is with the student, simply because I suspect, absent the recording, his complaint would have been discounted and ignored.
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/3/2006
KC
I agree that transparency is a better solution than prohibition, which is one reason I do allow taping. As far as I know, no one is right now, but I could be wrong.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
3/3/2006
I really hope this kid isn't being used to make a point.
It seems to me the parents could have gone to the principal or the school board or both with the tape and made their case without plastering it all over the news media.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
It turns out that there is a pedagogical underpinning for the teacher's basic approach. "Radical geography" has its own journal (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0066-4812) and, from what I could tell poking around on the web, a few faculty positions here and there.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
There seems to be an implicit assumption in this thread that there are somehow loads of far-right HS teachers and college profs out there, making comments at the other end of the ideological spectrum (saying that a Hillary Clinton speech reminds them of Hitler?), and that we don't hear of these occurrences only because of the high ethical standards of leftist students, who refuse to complain about them.
I would suggest a far more likely hypothesis--esepcially given the polls regarding the ideological orientation of the contemporary academy--is that there are simply very instances outside of places like BYU or Bob Jones or other schools with an openly right-wing orientation where you'd find such classroom remarks.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
The discussion thread at Volokh is also pretty interesting: it turns out that the 20-odd minutes taped contains several other outright errors of fact beyond the claim that Zionists assassinated the British prime minister.
(http://volokh.com/posts/1141331570.shtml)
I was struck by the school administration's comment in the article to which Rebecca linked: "After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate. There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view." This strikes me as a bizarre standard for the school district to be adopting. If it somehow were arranged for 10 minutes of the class to be granted to a far-right student, that wouldn't have made the class any better.
On the issue of taping: students quite frequently tape my lectures, especially when I teach the introductory Western Civ class at Brooklyn, where most of the students aren't history majors. Sometimes they ask permission to do so; sometimes they don't. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. It seems to me that classrooms in high schools and public colleges and univs. are public space. Oscar's point about the danger of something being out of context is well taken, but I think the answer is more transparency.
Paul Noonan -
3/3/2006
the tape) was on Hannity and Colmes on Thursday. Although he looked, if anything, younger than his 16 years, he seemed awfully at ease and seemed well coached. He referred to what goes on in high school classrooms as "lectures". When did you ever hear a 10th grader refer to what goes on in class as "lectures"? Actually, he reminded me of the character Michael J. Fox played on "Family Ties".
Also, I think Bennish said the "British minister" NOT "prime minister" was assasinated in Palestine.
That said, it's a ridiculous rant and utterly inappropriate for high school. I note most making comments aren't making a distiction between what is appropriate in HS and what is appropriate in college. I, at any rate, think there is a distinction.
I am also reluctant to condone taping in a HS classroom, not because of the teacher, but because the interaction between student and teacher is recorded. That isn't much of a problem here, because only Allen is heard interacting with Bennish to any degree. But the unidenfied student who seems to agree with Bennish ( the student who Malkin calls "brainwashed")is heard for a moment. I hope he (it sounds like a male voice to me) won't be publicly identified and I think in general students should be free to interact in class without having to worry that there words will be broadcast or made available on the Internet.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
In fairness, Mr. Nolan, I don't think that we know that Bennish is a Marxist in any significant sense of that word. Perhaps you commonly use it to refer to anyone on the Left. If so, count me on the Left.
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/3/2006
Judging by the rationality of your posts here, I doubt if anything you said in class compares to Bennish's rant. Yes, one tape could represent an aberration. That's why any disciplinary hearing would involve further evidence. Still, the initial tape was certainly effective in drawing scrutiny that, I'll wager, is long overdue.
An interesting sidelight: the latest news report quote a rep from the Colorado Education Ass'n saying that they won't represent him because he's not a member. That raises a couple of questions: why is a good marxist not a member of the union? And why, if the union represents the entire bargaining unit, is it not going to represent him as an individual?
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
3/3/2006
I haven't listened to any portion of the tape, and I doubt I will (having lots of other things to spend time on!) Probably I shouldn't enter into the discussion without listening to it, but I'm willing to believe KC if he says it's egregious.
However, I'll point out a few things. First, in my Texas high school world geography was basically world history with lots of maps, and some current events, so a State of the Union speech seems appropriate for the class. Second, I'm uncomfortable with tapes. As Oscar points out, they can be taken out of context. Third, I agree with KC and Ralph that the entire episode represents a break down in the teacher-student dynamic, but additionally, I doubt this teacher will get a fair hearing in a dispute that Michelle Malkin has entered.
Last, here's a link to the CNN story about this. Some 150 students protested the teacher's suspension today. Something tells me, tape or no tape, there are other things going on here.
Oh please, we are operating in an environment in which patriotism is being impugned on a daily basis. When a student tapes a professor making "anti-American" statements in a classroom and Michelle Malkin puts them on her blog, we are not dealing with "transparency" but witch-hunting. Speaking of Malkin, this is a woman who endorses the open racism of vdare.com. If this blog is going to retain a modicum of scholarly pretensions, surely the blogmeister can do better than that.
John H. Lederer -
3/3/2006
I am not sure what editing went into the tape--but at least what I heard didn't suggest discussion. Ihe students were expected to silently respond to a series of rhetorical (and loaded) questions, and occasionally to add a predetermined response. It was eery to me --somewhat like a Chinese reeducation school during Mao.
Louis Nelson Proyect -
3/3/2006
Yes, the ends justified the means--I suppose. You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. Is it any wonder that the biggest redbaiter in the USA today came out of a Stalinist household?
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/3/2006
There are some dangers in the use of tapes. The biggest one strikes me as the potential for using an isolated incident as an example of a larger problem that may not exist.
Once or twice, hard as it may be for you to believe, I have been a blithering idiot in the front of the room. And although I fight the temptation not the proselytize, I have slipped on occasion.
I take full responsibiilty for those days and slips, but I would hate for one such day to be made public in a way that made it stand for my entire career.
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/3/2006
Thank you. And I hope the school board does the right thing, regardless how it came to their attention.
Louis Nelson Proyect -
3/3/2006
No, I don't think it is very good teaching. But that is up to the high school principal to act on, not a cabal of rightwing newspapers, their cryptofascist blog supporters and Republican Party politicians.
David T. Beito -
3/3/2006
I have mixed feelings about this....While the teacher appears to be a simplistic jerk, he can make a good case that his comments fit within the context of promoting class discussion on "World Geography." For quite some time, geographers have defined that subject quite broadly to include political and social behavior and institutions. It isn't just maps anymore, and hasn't been for a long time.
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/3/2006
I'm still waiting for an answer. Did you listen to the audio? Do you think that represents the sort of "teaching" public schools should tolerate, regardless whether it comes from the right or the left?
Christopher Newman -
3/3/2006
Ooops, this is meant as a reply to Mr. Proyect's last comment below.
Christopher Newman -
3/3/2006
"Finking"? What's with the mob boss mentality?
The student publicized a lecture being given in a *public* institution. Yes, there is some cause for concern about the breakdown of trust between teacher and student, but -- as I'm sure someone like the persecuted Mr. Bennish would pronounce as though he were distilling the wisdom of the ages into a single momentous aporism -- trust is a two-way street, man.
I'm with Professor Johnson here. Transparency, and the *expectation* of transparency, is the best policy.
Louis Nelson Proyect -
3/3/2006
I have no objection to teachers being disciplined within an academic institution.
My problem, however, is with students finking on their teachers by going to rags like the NY Post or the Rocky Mountain News in order to apply pressure from outside. This is what happened in the 1950s. I am currently reading a biography of Edward R. Murrow and am stunned by the similarities between then and now. David Horowitz and his acolytes use the Murdoch press as a club against dissidents in the academy, just as McCarthy used the Hearst press in the 1950s.
Now, on the question of balance. If leftwing students were secretly making tapes of teachers making outrageous comments in their classroom and were releasing them to television stations and daily newspapers under the control of people like Bob Avakian, we'd be dealing with equal forms of abuse.
Since the corporate media is run mostly by people like Rupert Murdoch, we are not dealing with equivalency. Of course, some people like to think in terms of the need to protect a hounded conservative minority as if it were snail darters, but there's not much I can do about that. It would be like trying to convince John Birchers in the 1950s that Eisenhower was not a Communist.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
Such a comment would be equally unacceptable as the material quoted in the article.
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/3/2006
Mr. Proyect, did you actually listen to the tape? If so, do you regard it as competent teaching
If your point is that we should do more to keep left-wing or right-wing ideologues from using classroom pulpits to brainwash their students, I couldn't agree more. If your point is to defend that particular teacher, I'd like to hear why you think his rant is what we should provide for our high school students.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
Mr. Proyect, You keep making that last claim, but I assure you that people on the Left do not have a monopoly on reservations about surreptitious taping of other people.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
David, If I'm not mistaken, the National Park Service was recently selling a book that made that claim in its bookstore at Grand Canyon.
Louis Nelson Proyect -
3/3/2006
Oh, please. I have vivid memories of high school teachers going on and on about how Russia wanted to impose Communism on Europe and that's why we needed to put nuclear weapons in Germany. American education is basically about brainwashing. People like David Horowitz and the Rocky Mountain News are angry because there are *dissidents* who don't agree with the Cold War (or New Crusade against Islam) consenus. For every "Marxist" high-school teacher in Colorado, there are a thousand who ram conservative politics down their students' throats. But nobody bothers to tape them, because they understand that this would not interest the Rocky Mountain News. Plus, most liberal or radical students would feel that snitching of this sort belongs to Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, not an American classroom.
Dennis R. Nolan -
3/3/2006
I've thought a lot about the taping question ever since compact tape recorders made it easy for my students to tape classes for themselves or their absent friends. After some initial unease, I started to reply to all requests for permission to tape with a joke line: "OK, but I get a share of the royalties."
My attitude reflected a couple of things. For one, there was no way I could stop it. Trying to do so would just drive it underground. For another, I'm pretty confident that nothing I say would strike anyone as particularly outrageous.
Finally, taping is just a modern method of recording. This factor is relevant to the Colorado dispute. Imagine a student who took shorthand or typed quickly and transcribed the teacher's rant verbatim. Since we all allow, expect, and even encourage note-taking, we wouldn't object to the unusually fast note-taker.
So what is the difference between notes and taping? Two things, I suggest, both of which show why the Colorado tape is important. One is accuracy. With notes, one could always challenge their accuracy. In this case, the teacher would, no doubt, assert that the student misquoted him. With the tape, there is no question.
More importantly, the tape captures the tone and speed and force of the teacher's commentary. Reading the transcript of this guy's class doesn't adequately convey its sheer lunacy. As a posting on the Volokh Conspiracy put it, if I didn't know better, I'd think it was a parody maybe by Horowitz?). The guy comes off as a stereotypical, ideologically-fixated marxist who likes to browbeat and bully his high school geography students.
Bottom line: we're all subject to taping and should be sufficiently professional in our classroom activities that we won't be embarrassed by their disclosure. We used to say, don't do anything you wouldn't want to read about on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. Now we should add, don't teach your classes in a way you wouldn't want to hear on the evening news.
By the way, the tape recording is widely available on the web. I stongly recommend that anyone interested in this issue listed to at least a segment of it before commenting. I challenge anyone, even Mr. Proyect, to listen to it and then claim that it represents competent teaching or to criticize the critics as "witch hunters."
David Lion Salmanson -
3/3/2006
I know of an incident from Colorado (not Denver) where geography students were told that the ancient river valley civilizations were located where they were because "God put them there." No tape recording, but the parent of the kid went and raised a ruckus. The teacher was not suspended.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
Mr. Proyect, If you'd bothered to read the prior comments, you'd already know that I had students "on the Left" who did this sort of thing to me at Antioch, so your claim that college and high school students of the Left just don't do this kind of thing simply isn't true.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
Mr. Lederer, Isn't my objection pretty obvious? Anyone who is being taped ought, by rights, to know or be informed that she or he is being taped.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
It might be, of course, that such extremism on the other side from college profs or HS teachers isn't being documented because left-wing students have better things to do with their time. Or it might be because we don't seem to have many such instances.
I don't doubt that in the 1960s, a lot of profs who participated in anti-communist purges denounced leftists in their classes. But none of those profs are left in the classroom.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
Oh--woops, sorry about my not being clear. I wasn't meaning to imply at all that a majority of classes on contemporary issues aren't well taught.
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/3/2006
I interepreted your statement as meaning that the majority of classes that do deal with contemproray issues don't do so properly. If I was wrong, I cheerfully retract my post.
Louis Nelson Proyect -
3/3/2006
Interesting to see that this rag is in the vanguard of witch-hunting high school teachers now. I guess they are an easier target than Ward Churchill. Do you wonder why leftwing students in college or high school don't go around snooping like latter-day versions of Nazi or Stalinist youth? It would seem that they have better things to do with their time. When I was an undergraduate at Bard, I used to hear diatribes against socialism from Heinrich Blucher that were filled with factual errors and gross distortions of Marxist theory. Then when I got to the New School in 1965-1967, I was treated to nonstop "critiques" of Marxism in my sociology courses. If somebody had approached me with a proposal to begin collecting dossiers on errant professors in order to scandalize them in the tv, radio and newspapers, I would have laughed in their face. This, of course, does not even address the question of how the media was bent on the same sort of anti-Communist distortions. I think that at the bottom of the new McCarthyism there is an overwhelming hatred of that tiny splinter of dissent that remains in the academy. True totalitarians are not happy unless they get 100% consent, even if it is enforced by firings and suspensions.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
This doesn't strike me as a controversial statement.
To go through the disciplines: bio, physics, geo, chemistry, math, computer science. Nearly all courses in these subjects are technical. An occasional class in a course might deal with a contemporary issue like stem-cell research, but that would be rare.
History: by its very nature, if we're lucky we get to contemporary issues in the last class, and that's for those courses that deal with 20th century topics at all.
Classics: By definition, non-modern.
Philosophy: An occasional course might deal with contemporary philosophy.
English/Literature: An occasional course might deal with contemporary literature.
Music: An occasional course might deal with contemporary music.
Art: A few courses might deal with contemporary art.
PoliSci/Sociology/Anthro: More presentist than History, of course, but I don't know of many PoliSci, sociology, or anthro departments where a majority of the classes deal with contemporary matters.
Ethnic Studies/Education: Most seem to deal with contemporary matters.
John H. Lederer -
3/3/2006
I am not sure I understand the strength of your objection.
To my mind a classroom is pretty far to "public" end of private<-->public spectrum.
A number of people, e.g. parents, school administration, have a very legitimate interest in what and how the teacher teaches. A recording can help clarify precisely what is going on, and avoid both exaggerated claims and improper concealment.
At a lower level, I recall the hysteria which seemed to sweep the country back in the 80's in which various pre-school and early school teachers were accused of sexual molestation of children backed up by psychologists' intense probing of young children which concluded that the teachers were sexually deviant devil worshipers who had involved the children in satanic rites. Recordings would have protected all involved. (Recordings would have helped in the Salem witch trials too, I suppose (grin)).
We currently have a dispute in this country in which some college students claim that some professors use their classes for political indoctrination, The professors deny it. What is wrong with recording the classes so that the answer can be known or at least debated on a factual basis.?
The recording itself is not objectionable -- recording classes is frequently and unexceptionally done for a variety of reasons. I recall that several large lectures I attended as an undergraduate back in the antediluvian days were routinely recorded so students could go and listen to the tapes if they missed a lecture.
If the objection to recording is that classrooms should be private, I am not impressed. The objection that a student surreptitously recording indicates a breakdown in trust is legitimate, but it isn't the fact of the recording that is the problem there.
In the Colorado case, do you think the student would have been listened to had he not had a recording? Would the school administration have responded had the recording not been played on the local radio station? Is that good or bad?
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/3/2006
You said that a majority of college classes don't properly deal with contemporary issues.
How do you know that a majority of classes, in all fields that have courses involving contemporary events, don't properly deal with those issues?
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
I agree with Ralph that the student taping suggests a breakdown in the student-teacher relationship. Having listened to the tape, though, I can see why.
On Jonathan's point, absolutely, Israel is an appropriate subject for a class in geography. If, in fact, Israel were the subject of the class. The Malkin transcript does a pretty good job (a few errors, but not many)--there was no real "geography" instruction there.
I agree with the teacher probably was referring to Lord Moyne. Yet here's a class where (in all likelihood) none of the students were know the history (and the teacher didn't seem to know it very well either). There's a huge difference between a prime minister and a governor-general. In the teacher's mind, they seem to be one and the same.
Robert KC Johnson -
3/3/2006
I'm not sure what you're asking here.
Oscar Chamberlain -
3/3/2006
KC
The first part of your post deals with truly irresponsible and/or incompent teaching.
Then I get to this line: "There are, of course, some college classes that properly deal with contemporary matters. But the vast majority don't: and so every second spent denouncing Bush or discussing the war is time taken away from instructing in the topic for which the student (or her parents) paid to be taught."
If you cannot document that allegation, you should retract it.
Jeremy Rich -
3/3/2006
For those of us who have learning disabled students or teach televised or compressed video distance education courses, being recorded is really nothing new, although it is something I'm not particularly excited about. I never had thought of the potential scandals that could ensure from this, but then again Zionist international conspiracies do not seem to make it into my class discussion.
Jonathan Dresner -
3/3/2006
KC, the "British Prime Minister" under discussion is probably Lord Moyne, the "Minister Resident in the Middle East" when he was assassinated by the Zionist Lehi group.
It's also not entirely clear to me that (or why) a "world geography" class wouldn't take the history of Israel as a subject, geography being a much broader field than borders, rivers and principle exports.
I spent most of a class period recently, ostensibly about the Three Kingdoms/Five Dynasties era, to talk about the ideological and nationalistic issues around archaeology in East Asia. Good thing nobody had a tape recorder....
Ralph E. Luker -
3/3/2006
KC, This whole incident is a travesty. I wish you had said something about the breakdown in student/teacher relationships represented by a student's recording of a teacher's comments in class. The teacher is obviously doing a very poor job in the classroom, but I hope that we won't make a hero of the student; and I wonder if this young kid isn't being used by someone with their own ideological agenda. I had a somewhat similar experience at Antioch, where young thought police on "the Left" were taking my class primarily for the purpose of reporting the professor's "wrong thinking" to the authorities. Spying is one thing that a student can do in a classroom. If a student does that, however, we've long since given up any hope for teaching and learning.
