No freedom of speech in the high school classroom

A teacher has been put on leave for stating that some people compare Bush to Hitler, among other things.

Per CNN:
AURORA, Colorado (AP) -- About 150 high school students walked out of class to protest a decision to put a teacher on leave while administrators investigate remarks he made about President Bush in class, including that some people compare Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Here are a couple of quotes:

Bennish [Bush says] "It's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to," Bennish can apparently be heard saying on the tape. "Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not, OK. But (there are) eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

The kid who recorded him: "He wanted us to question why a coke headed, alcoholic who's had all of his jobs have failed but one, and whose daddy bought him into office became the President of the United States," Allen said during the show.

Yes...please do question that!

Here's a link to the whole transcript of the lecture: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004689.htm

Here's an audio link: http://secure.eonstreams.com/koa_am/GeoTeacher.mp3

I just finished reading the transcript. I think that I would have said everything that Bennish said, so I can't disagree with him. I thought that he hedged his statements as well as could be expected. I can't help but wonder how fair and balanced a similar lecture would have been from the father of the boy. In my experience, "fair and balanced" is usually applied to whoever does/says things in the way of the person judging whether it is "fair and balanced". It's very rare, perhaps impossible, to find an individual who can be truly impartial.

Bennish was providing an alternative perspective. Students need to learn that there is more to US History and foreign policy than what is presented in School House Rock and the news. If the students are paying any attention at all to the media and political banter in this day and age, they have probably already heard the administration's version of things.

Free speech, people! Free thoughts! Students should learn to be critical consumers of media, propaganda, and politics!

I'm concered abou the precident set by this. The recording and denouncing of teachers is problematic from the point of view of students who just want to be able to listen to the lecture later. Even when I was in high school, some teachers were skitish about having their lectures recorded, and they weren't saying anything controversial. (I've even read about people wanting college students to turn in college professors!)

Ultimately, I think the problem of this type of topic in the high school boils down to authority. Ideally, we'd want students to be able to listen to biased information and filter it to find the truth. However, this would mean telling them that the teacher isn't always right; something that I didn't realize until college. Telling them that the teacher isn't always right leads to authority problems, and with teachers being responsible for classes of 30 students (sometimes more, rarely less), the last thing that they want is even the chance of students not respecting their authority in any respect.