Teacher Suspended for Showing Moore Film

SALISBURY, N.C. -- A community college instructor who was suspended for showing "Fahrenheit 9/11" in class the week before the presidential election is offering no apologies and says he was unfairly punished.

Davis March showed the Michael Moore documentary critical of President Bush to his film class. Administrators pulled the plug on the movie with about 20 minutes left when March tried to show it to English composition students.

"This story is now about academic freedom ... the movie is ancient history," said March, who served a four-day suspension and returned Nov. 2 to Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, about 45 miles northeast of Charlotte.

School officials said March disobeyed orders by refusing to meet with administrators before showing the film, but March said no edict to seek permission had been issued.

"If I'm wrong about this, I've been wrong my entire career," said March, 54, who has taught at the school for two decades. "If I backed down, how could I go back into the classroom and face my students?"

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-fahrenheit-suspension,0,6259883.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

this.

HE IS BEING UN-FAIRLY PUNISHED. He should sue the college.

which has a point-of-view.

If he had shown "Farenhype 9/11," I wouldn't support suspending him, either.

New York that had to get "permission" to show F9/11 to their students and it was granted.

But, this is bullshit ..suspending a teacher for showing F9/11 when no "edict" was given.

Far be it from Universities to get political..it's only our Country that's at stake.

You have every right to show it!!!

did he really expect anything else?

film class and english comp class?

Which did he show it in?

It makes a difference to me.

Film could be very appropriate for film class, and completely inappropriate for english comp.

A film class is, by definition, about making media productions of various kinds. An English composition class is, by definition, about writing essays on various topics. A media production class might address a topic by means of critical thought but that's not the focus - the media production is the focus. This contrasts with the fact that in an English composition class the focus is always on critical thought and the expression of those thoughts.

From my experience in both kinds of classes I'm sure that F-9/11 would be an appropriate presentation in either.

I teach research methods in the social sciences, and one thing that our entire university department has noticed is that by their graduating year, a lot of students still don't know how to structure an argument. This isn't just an English comp issue -- it has serious repercussions for every discipline that relies on papers, essays, and reports to communicate findings. Whether they're coming from the hard science side, or sociology or philosophy, or more applied areas like resource management -- we see many papers which are poorly written because students don't know how to find credible information, organize and interpret it, or even care to back up their assertions. And as for debunking opposing arguments effectively -- most of the class stared at me like I'd asked them to fly their desks to Cuba, when I assigned an example of this for homework.

An older colleague remarked that this has gotten far worse since most high schools stopped teaching rhetoric and logic -- and with the rise of the Internet, one of the negative side-effects has been that a surprising number of students stop looking for information if they can't find it on the first page of a Google search. Our library has special academic search engines that can help you track down journal articles -- sure beats the old Science Citation Index system! -- and last time I checked, most of the graduating class has never used these functions.

One of my colleagues had to stop a class debate on the environmental impact of automobiles because people started exchanging personal insults -- the scary thing is, the kids thought it was the right way to discuss an issue because "that's how they do it on talk radio".

If I had to pick just one clip from F 9/11 to screen, I'd probably pick the Orwell quote at the end, and walk the class through step-by-step, explaining the reasoning that Moore is using. (It's a good summary of the film, and very thought-provoking in its own right.) I noticed that Moore has begun using academic-style footnoting in his books -- not only is it more rigorous, but very helpful to anyone trying to do similar research. It's just so much easier to find and verify points that way.

So now they are dictating what professors can and cannot do in the classroom? Whats next?

Pretty soon teachers will be required to teach that Jesus dicovered America so the religious Reich could spread his word.

Just imagine Hitler. That's all we need to get the big picture.

politics and government...and, PROTEST movements! And, of course, the professors and administration were mostly 'librul'...at least, the ones I had. Thank God for that!

But, not anymore. No siree! Not in Imperial Amerika!

:argh:

no tenure, no retirement, no benefits, crappy pay. And obviously in Charlotte, no academic freedom.

The administration is way out of line. I think F9/11 would be a great film for an English class examining rhetorical devises.

I'm surprised they didn't make sure this heretic was sent to the public dunking stool.