Class is in session
Now this (3/4 down, Today Show video)) is how you respond to a wingnut attack…and Michelle is reduced to making fun of Jay Bennish’s hair. A few highlights (see how I admit they’re highlights rather than claiming completeness, Michelle?)
The process of cognitive dissonance is one way to activate their minds and to get them to think about these various things…
Not only is that sound teaching theory, but maybe it’ll raise a generation of kids for whom cognitive dissonance doesn’t just shut down their minds. I’m talking to you, wingnuts.
[Matt Lauer states that the student in question - and his family - shopped the story around to conservative outlets until one bit. Bennish states that the student asked leading questions about the State of the Union.]
…my job as a social studies is to argue alternative viewpoints; encourage critical thought so that students are aware that there are those viewpoints in the world.
Awareness of differing viewpoints - the last thing in the world wingnuts are looking for.
The people who come off looking the worst in this are the student and his family. The student seems to have come into this planning specifically to get Bennish to say something “incriminating” and asked question after question for that purpose. And I apparently owe an apology to Bennish for calling him a “bad lecturer”: I wasn’t totally clear that Bennish’s fairly stream-of-consciousness affair was part of an unplanned discussion section of the class.
Bennish essentially shut this story down today. Let’s see if the wingnuts realize it. I’m not holding my breath.
Yessir. A win for the good guys. Shame on the wingnut crowd.
Comment by LA — March 8, 2006 @ 5:35 am
That teacher had such incredible class. Very well spoken. His answer regarding whether he would have the kid back in his classroom was perfect.
Its unfortunate the wingnuts will never understand when they’re utterly in the wrong.
As an aside, I would like one wingnut to define “cognitive dissonance”; feel free to look it up. And while you’re looking that one up, check out “class” as well.
Comment by eb — March 8, 2006 @ 5:51 am
Ha ha ha. As I said over at Freedom Camp[/whore], so this guy makes the point that the Bush Administration has too much in common with past fascist regimes, so the wingnuts raise a hue and cry, getting the guy suspended — even earnin him death threats. So aren’t all these people sort of proving his point for him?
Comment by teh l4m3 — March 9, 2006 @ 3:17 pm
As I said in Freedom Camp’s [/pimp] comments, it’s funny that the same people who were apoplectic over Muslims trying to restrict free speech are now calling for Bennish’s head.
As I said at elemental visions[/shameless], the wingnuts should find one thing that Bennish said that can’t be supported by fact.
Comment by elemental — March 9, 2006 @ 4:48 pm