Start Them Young

A teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado has been placed on unpaid leave for remarks he made to his world geography class. I'll get to the remarks shortly. I do want to point out the school will probably lose this teacher if this leave lasts very long. The guy can't have a ton of money in the bank. Unpaid leave wasn't justified. He deserved a slap on the wrist and a lecture about just what is expected of him in his classroom. I'm assuming here that he doesn't do this on a regular basis and hasn't been admonished before.

Now on to the remarks. He was discussing the SOTU address

"Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say," [Jay] Bennish told students at the suburban high school. "We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward, and our job is to conquer the world."

There's more, much more. I agree with most of what he said and usually voice my opinion in much stronger terms. The teacher pointed out he wasn't equating Bush with Hitler. I would do something like that.

However, Bennish could have toned it down a little bit. He was only trying to get the kids to think for themselves which is admirable, but Adolf Hitler never goes over too well in some settings.

Now, burying the lede, here is the reason for the title.

Sean Allen, a sophomore in the class, had recorded the lecture on an MP3 player, and this week turned it over to a local conservative radio show.

The little shit recorded Bennish's lecture and then went to a conservative radio program with it.

I might cut the kid some slack if he had gone to the principal and the incident could have been handled discreetly, but Sean blew the thing wide open. He's gonna make a great little neo-con.