Mr. Bennish was Colorado teacher that was having a class discussion about the speech that President Bush made when addressing the state of union. He compare some of the comments made by President Bush to those that Hitler said, one of the students recorded the discussion and presented to his parent. When the parent heard he was very upset so he contacted the school principal. The principal heard the recording and place the teacher on administrative leave until the school board completed an investigation. But from the whole situation the reason the student was upset was because the teacher had only given one point of view of the situation and he did not provided students a balance and fair discussion.
Now looking at the national social studies standards the teacher did not provide the student with a balance point of view but just stated what his opinion was. The reason for social studies is to provide students with reliable unbiased knowledge so that the students can make their own personal opinion about the situation. Social studies is to provide the students with various knowledge so that they can become an active citizen, the consequence to Mr. Bennish comments is that some of the students are not really given the opportunity to make their own decision about the discussion. The teacher could of approach this discussion some other way, but as the student that made the complaint said that the students were just going to take what the teacher said as if they were facts and not an opinion.
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