Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post.
Register to become a member today!
Lawernce Kansas teacher fired over political views
Posts: 4869
-
Karma: 20
I'm going to start this by saying he was recently rehired.
I'm surfing the web today and I came across an article talking about a Lawernce Kansas teacher who had been fired for his political views. The article was from fox news and I was like whatever I'm sure this dude was a bad dude and was fired and now he's saying that he was fired just for being conservative. But I read a little deeper and came across a blogpost which delves a little deeper into the source of his termination.
http://kansasmeadowlark.com/2009/06/16/lawrence-teacher-appears-on-fox-and-friends-your-web-site-is-too-patriotic/
The incident that caused him to be fired was that while teaching a history class one of the students noticed that the way he described Hitlers rise to power (which was actually incorrect) was similar to the way he described Obama's ascendancy to the presidency. This quote I find extremely troubling "Not good enough, she went straight to the Asst. Prinicipal and said
I was picking on Obama and comparing him to Hitler. I was called in, I
explained everything that happened exactly like I have just stated, and
I thought, that was that. Evidently not.:
Posts: 4869
-
Karma: 20
That means the grounds that the assistant principle fired him on was that he was "picking on Obama". I'm sorry but that sounds like it's straight out of the third riech.
Posts: 11626
-
Karma: 3,522
absolutely absurd. All you can do when you hear stories like that is either a.) facepalm or b.) lose faith in humanity
Posts: 9691
-
Karma: 1,702
Ok obama isn't anything like hitler in the sense of killing jews or being a horrible human being. I will clarify that for all the liberal kids on here who think they are hot shit. His ascent to power is somewhat similar though.
But that doesn't even matter to me. I think that teachers do have certain free speech rights. I have had teachers basically give me their socialist manifestos(foreign language teachers strangely enough). It was a fucking waste of class time but I didn't care a great deal. In a way I benefited by hearing opinions different than my own. Most history teachers are biased as fuck one way or the other so I don't see what he could have done that was so horrible.
Posts: 1583
-
Karma: -1
Posts: 9691
-
Karma: 1,702
I think it is also important to point out how badly bush got shat on by teachers. There are teachers that would basically compare his leadership to a dictatorship and talk about how much dick he sucked. While bush did suck and debauched the constitution I don't know of any teachers being fired because they "picked on bush".
There are always going to be teachers who use their position to feed their world view to others. That is just a fact of life, but quite frankly I think it might be a good thing. Students need to hear different opinions so that they can learn to be independent thinkers. Opinions shouldn't be taught as facts but are valuable discussions which I think should be practiced often in english and history classes.
Posts: 3748
-
Karma: 36
no matter where you stand on the spectrum, keep your own bullshit out of the classroom. I get pissed off when my teachers in college slam conservatives and push their idiotic 9-11 conspiracy theories. I look at it both ways unequivocally, you are a teacher....teach the subject matter and keep your own opinions to yourself. The break room at highschools and the department buildings in college are for political debate, not the classrooms, unless its a poli-sci class.
Posts: 8203
-
Karma: 406
sounds like lawrence kansas is always the center of everything controversial about education. im pretty sure thats where the huge evolution debate was, well im def sure that was kansas.
to be honest, im not surprised to hear this. public education systems are liberal. Anyone hear about the teacher in california spitting off all the bullshit about religions and stuff. he said some bad stuff. Finally a kid video taped it and stood up against him. Im not sure if he was fired but IA highly doubt it.
Posts: 9691
-
Karma: 1,702
They were probably searching for an excuse to fire someone. A bunch of districts are facing budget shortfalls so they are letting teachers go. I think they should drop middle school sports first. They should also consider a 4 day week. That oughta cut 20% of transportation costs since bus drivers would work 1 day less a week. My school district is fucking gay and is dropping good teachers. They should probably make any sport that doesn't pay for itself in ticket revenue a club sport instead of letting go of teachers. Kids will live if they have to pay 80 bucks to play baseball, were fucked if kids can hardly read in classrooms with 40+ kids.
Posts: 14217
-
Karma: 2,892
that's pretty messed up. i mean, it's not like he even said Obama was a bad person. of course, there are plenty of other figures to compare him to, as there are plenty of other figures who rose to power the same way Hitler did, but Hitler is a very easy and probably good choice because everybody knows who he was and learning about him is a good thing. it's a good thing they rehired him, firing him over teaching is pretty fucking ridiculous.
Posts: 3748
-
Karma: 36
one of the few times i agree with you...ithink
Posts: 1359
-
Karma: 25
and your black so if your defending someone against obama you know he was somewwhat correct haha
but i totally agree with you 100%
Posts: 14217
-
Karma: 2,892
^^ i would hope we could agree on this
^i'm not defending him against Obama, i'm defending him against the idiots who fired him and the idiotic student. i'm pretty sure that Obama is over being compared to Hitler by now, the ultra-conservatives have been doing that for the last 4 years.
Posts: 3080
-
Karma: 969
we were having a debate like this on the last day of school cause a bunch of teachers are not being re hired next year.
our school spent a shitload on a SECOND statue of our school mascot this year that went right beside the first.
and there was something proposed about a fee for students to take the school bus. and parents flipped! but i mean hey you pay one fee that probably wouldnt be all that much and you can keep some of the people who teach your kids and keep the classes somewhat smaller.
there was a bunch of other stupid stuff my school did that wasted a lot of money. but i cant remember to much of it.
also we switched our gym/biology teacher with some gym teacher from australia kinda like a student exchange but they did it with teachers. yeah they realized once the guy got here that he didnt teach biology. so they had a full year and a half of him teaching stuff he'd learned basically the night before. pretty stupid.
Posts: 3382
-
Karma: 216
They said the same thing about hitler.......
Posts: 292
-
Karma: 16
i'm an obama supporter, but if the guys argument makes sense, it makes sense and he shouldn't be fired. that's just how it is
Posts: 4869
-
Karma: 20
Come on read Mien Kampf and then read Dreams of my Father and think about how stupid what you just said is.
Posts: 2559
-
Karma: 152
I may not like the comparison but the cases are similar. hitler was such a disgusting and disturbed person that he should not be compared to any U.S. president, not even George W. even though I hate him with a burning passion.
Posts: 9691
-
Karma: 1,702
A statue of a mascot? Seriously? They should consider charging students to rent books. Say 10 dollars per class for most kids. They could let the really poor kids slide but their parents would have to fill out some paper work. People get so worked up when they think they have to pay something but it is well worth it. We are really lucky to have a decent(far from perfect) public school system.
All times are Eastern (-4)