How to Talk about this Week's (03/06) Freedom of Speech Story
It looks like this story about a teacher being placed on unpaid leave for anti-Bush comments in his classroom is going to be this week's freedom of speech story. And while we're sure to hear a wide range of opinions on the matter from high school teachers, professors, pundits, and perhaps even GWB himself, I think a student's thoughts should be heard. Hence, I will give mine.
First and foremost, let's be clear about what really matters here, and how this story should be framed. This is not a story about freedom of speech. If it is, it shouldn't be. The classroom is not a venue for rattling off opinions of either like or dislike. The classroom is a venue for education. When we talk about what Mr. Bennish did or said, we need to talk about whether it was educational or not, not whether it crossed some abstract line of freedom of speech. After all, there's quite obviously nothing in principle wrong with sentences such as The United States is "probably the single most violent nation on Earth," or "George Bush is a murderer of small children," etc -- it's how these remarks are framed within an educative experience. Whether or not Bennish should be on leave is not a question of what he said per se, but if the things he said were of any educational value at all. Reading a book by Howard Zinn supported by facts and arguments in which at the end he claims "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" is a more educational statement that when Berkeley hippies scream out "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" at a protest.
How Mr. Bennish falls within this debate over pedagogical value is quite clear in my mind. He answered his critics in one simple statement: "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me. ... What I'm trying to do is to get you to ... think about these issues more in depth."
Simply by saying this, Bennish is converted from a bad teacher into a good one. Where once he was force-feeding his students opinions which their young minds could not themselves get around to grasping on their own, he is now challenging them to seek truth -- and not necessarily the truth he is espousing. That's good teaching. That's using "political bias" or whatnot to challenge students to think critically rather using it to think uncritically that Bush is a Nazi. The rest, meanwhile, is circumstantial. Teaching as well cannot be judged from abstact principles. In his class their are certain students, with certain attitudes toward learning, with certain histories, etc. What Bennish said should be judged on how effectively he was responding to these specific conditions of the classroom. Did he respond effectively? One cannot say for sure (it certainly seems like he did). But when people with better understanding of the conditions (fellow teachers, his students (who largely support him), the principal, etc.) are forced to make a decision on what course of action to take in regard to punishment, they should make their decision based on what they believe education should do and be, not what teachers have the "freedom" to say in their classrooms. Too Fishian? Tough luck. He's right (or rather, Dewey was).
First and foremost, let's be clear about what really matters here, and how this story should be framed. This is not a story about freedom of speech. If it is, it shouldn't be. The classroom is not a venue for rattling off opinions of either like or dislike. The classroom is a venue for education. When we talk about what Mr. Bennish did or said, we need to talk about whether it was educational or not, not whether it crossed some abstract line of freedom of speech. After all, there's quite obviously nothing in principle wrong with sentences such as The United States is "probably the single most violent nation on Earth," or "George Bush is a murderer of small children," etc -- it's how these remarks are framed within an educative experience. Whether or not Bennish should be on leave is not a question of what he said per se, but if the things he said were of any educational value at all. Reading a book by Howard Zinn supported by facts and arguments in which at the end he claims "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" is a more educational statement that when Berkeley hippies scream out "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" at a protest.
How Mr. Bennish falls within this debate over pedagogical value is quite clear in my mind. He answered his critics in one simple statement: "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me. ... What I'm trying to do is to get you to ... think about these issues more in depth."
Simply by saying this, Bennish is converted from a bad teacher into a good one. Where once he was force-feeding his students opinions which their young minds could not themselves get around to grasping on their own, he is now challenging them to seek truth -- and not necessarily the truth he is espousing. That's good teaching. That's using "political bias" or whatnot to challenge students to think critically rather using it to think uncritically that Bush is a Nazi. The rest, meanwhile, is circumstantial. Teaching as well cannot be judged from abstact principles. In his class their are certain students, with certain attitudes toward learning, with certain histories, etc. What Bennish said should be judged on how effectively he was responding to these specific conditions of the classroom. Did he respond effectively? One cannot say for sure (it certainly seems like he did). But when people with better understanding of the conditions (fellow teachers, his students (who largely support him), the principal, etc.) are forced to make a decision on what course of action to take in regard to punishment, they should make their decision based on what they believe education should do and be, not what teachers have the "freedom" to say in their classrooms. Too Fishian? Tough luck. He's right (or rather, Dewey was).
posted by Robot at 2:15 AM
3 Comments:
If this post doesn't get anything going, I have an additional concern that's been bugging me. I know that some readers of this blog are fans of, or are at least are interest in, Lars Von Treir. If you scan the majority of the reviews of his newest Anti-American film, "Manderlay" you will notice they repeat a frequent criticism leveled against him: that he has the sanctimoniousness to criticize America, while having never stepped foot in this country. My question is this: since when does criticism involve let alone necessitate some kind of geographic committment? Did Americans have to go Nazi Germany in the 30s in order to criticize Hitler's policies? Or, to make a better analogy to Von Treir, do I have to go to Russia now to be allowed to criticize the horrors of the Soviet Union? The question is not whether Von Treir has literally stepped foot on American soil, it's whether he cares to learn anything about America. If not coming to America demonstrates an ignorance of it, then yes, I would not like him making movies about America. But because it does not, can't we just drop this stupid piece of a priori judgment?
I think I have much more to say about this story in general but I focused in on this comment while reading:
"Reading a book by Howard Zinn supported by facts and arguments in which at the end he claims "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" is a more educational statement that when Berkeley hippies scream out "The United States is the single most violent nation on Earth" at a protest."
Let's think about this statement, because I disagree with it. So you as an individual read Howard Zinn--you are educated in light of his facts and research. Then what are you? Enlightened? Have you experienced a revolution of conscience? (God, this phrase keeps coming back.) Isn't the whole point of reading a radical position like Howard Zinn to use it in formulating your action? Using that knowledge to change things? Isn't that what "Berkeley hippies" are doing? (I don't like this appellation, because we're supposed to efface any differences within a group into an identifiable whole, and a particularly deridable one. Might a Berkeley protest not also be made up of faculty, residents, students, Pastafarians, etc? They're not all dirty unwashed hippies. And who says their opinions don't count, either?)
Sheriff, Robot and I talked tonight about how you can be skeptical about things up to a point, but eventually you have to take a position given the available data. Presumably many anti-Bush protesters have thought their views over. They can give some account of them, albeit perhaps a limited one. (Some of these people really are rather irrationally rage-infected. [Dig those r's!]) So their individual educational experiences add up to collective action. That is the whole point, daddy-o.
I'm not saying that a crowd is always more important than an individual. Far from it. (For example, when thousands of people protest our government, whereas they used to be not so antagonistic, I take notice and think, maybe these people are on to something. When thousands of people gather in prayer revivals and talk about the Rapture coming, I think, how can so many people be so deluded? But I digress.) Sometimes the most powerful (wo)man is (s)he who stands most alone. But Berkeley protesters aren't just irrational barbarians trampling those timid scholars who are trying to understand United States policy in the safety of their rooms. If those scholars think they've learned the truth, maybe they should join the protest.
I never said what Berkeley Hippies do are bad. I just the things they say, in and of themselves, are not as educational as when Howard Zinn says them in the context of his book. Don't get me wrong. Going to a protest probably teaches you more about something than most books ever can, but I don't think what they teach you is educational in the same way a Howard Zinn book is educational. Maybe the Berkeley protester is a product of a Zinn book. Good. Great. But for the immature youth, a protest is something different. Its power can take over, and it can become indoctrination. In education, we want to avoid indoctrination as much as possible, which is why Bennish did a good thing when he said, basically, "I'm just challenging you to think on your own." A protest never tells you to "think on your own." It tells you to protest with us: to march in line, to chant in chorus, and to put your education on hold in the spirit of the communal.
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