Dalbey: Words matter
Words matter. Someone should tell Jim Patch that. He’s lived 65 years, long enough, it would seem, for him to have figured that out, perhaps even long enough to have imparted that message to the industrial arts and auto body students he taught during a 40-year career in the Des Moines public school system.
Honest, Patch insists, he’s not a racist. Even though his comments at meetings of the school board, where he’s not quite a third of the way through his first term, are peppered with insulting and demeaning slurs, he wasn’t putting students down because of their ethnicity. Trust him. He promises to clean up his act and watch his words.
Even if you buy Patch’s explanation that his words weren’t racially motivated and have been taken out of context, they seem to betray a lack of respect for anyone but the easy-to-handle, top-performing students who slide so easily into academic life that they place few demands on their teachers. Attitudes like that are far more insidious than blatant bigotry. It’s easy to spot prejudice and slap it down; easy, too, to camouflage disregard for underachievers and call it something else. It’s difficult and politically treacherous to hold accountable those educators who set the bar so low for certain students that they consign them to a life of mediocrity and, ultimately, low expectations from society in general.
Words hurt. Is it ever OK to characterize non-English-speaking students – any student, any person – as “dumb as a rock”? Aren’t teachers taught to avoid generalizations and smack down stereotypes? As the Des Moines schools become more culturally diverse, shouldn’t sensitivity and understanding among members of the district’s governing body increase correspondingly? Patch’s words are a pockmark on the increasingly diverse complexion of the Des Moines student body, revealing him as out of step with the times and ignorant about multiculturalism, the bedrock of most schools’ mission statements and philosophies.
It’s impossible to forget where Patch came from. The Des Moines Education Association, the powerful teachers’ union, was so eager to have an ally on the school board that members failed to listen closely enough to their messenger. Patch’s words are a subtle indictment of the teaching profession, suggesting that certain students are pigeonholed and categorized, stripped of their individuality as their sharp edges are shoved into standardized round holes. Most disheartening is that some people apparently think that’s all right.
As embarrassing as the uproar over Patch’s words is for the school district, it may sput school board members, administrators and teachers to look closely at themselves to ensure that all students are regarded as equals and are extended the same chances to succeed.
Maybe Patch just a good ol’ boy who has no truck for all that politically correct talk and multicultural mumbo-jumbo, an educator who’s found over 40 years of working with students that the best approach relies more on the practical and sensible than on the motivational and inspirational. Or perhaps the attitude that both accepts and expects minimum performance by some students is pervasive.
Words matter. Patch’s are a challenge for anyone who cares about kids to listen a little more closely what’s being said in classrooms.
Beth Dalbey is editorial director of Business Publications Corp. E-mail her at bethdalbey@bpcdm.com.