Teaching Civil Speech

     Open up Facebook or any other social media and a seemingly endless stream of boorish speech streams across your screen. Frequently the words, “Watch while _________ owns _______” headline the clip. Despite our cultural embrace of rudeness, abusive speech neither indicates a fulsome grasp of the issue at hand nor is it acceptable in civilized discourse; especially among those who claim the name of Christ. Recently a speech purportedly given by a University Professor circulated in which he supposedly “put college students in their place” for being easily offended and trampling on the Bill of Rights in their rush to avoid confronting issues or concepts which did not fit their world-view. In part of his speech he wrapped himself in the mantle of Christianity, claiming that he had the right to be offensive.

     As an educator and a Christian, at least a man who actively seeks to emulate Jesus since He loved me so much that he paid an incalculably high price for my sins, I feel I must push back against our current penchant for discourteous speech. I do seek to challenge my students. I want to lay things before them that test their prejudices, that make them reconsider their predilection for accepting cultural norms without question, and stretch their minds past the insular world of West Texas. As a history and English teacher, I work hard to unveil truth in such a manner as to help them consider why they hold fast to certain viewpoints and more loosely to others. As their teacher, and hopefully mentor, I want to usher them into newer vistas which enable them to better employ their talents and take their place as leaders. Like Christ, I must do so with skillful, gentle hands.

     My students enter my classroom trusting, hoping that I will help them. Of course there are moments when they behave foolishly, uttering nonsensical, ill-formed ideas. I must disabuse them of those patterns of thought. These bruised reeds need binding up and the smoldering wicks need fanning. Encouragement does not mean that I accept silliness or ignorance; instead I deal with them as gently as possible. Occasionally I rattle cages; as with the revelation to my 7^th graders that for decades Texas was always a “blue” state. But I do so to illuminate, not own. And therein lies my problem with our winner-take-all culture spilling into the classroom.

     When I allow myself to engage in an adversarial relationship with my students I fail them as an educator. I do not suffer fools gladly, being willing to answer a fool according to his foolishness, always remembering that as the classroom teacher I speak from a position of power and authority.

When I engage in dismissive, rude speech I give up that intellectual high-ground. To start a semester or even class with a screed; even one that may forward defensible ideas or concepts, degrades the learning experience, bending the teacher-student relationship into an unnecessarily adversarial direction. For centuries one of the hallmarks of the educational experience and educated minds was civil discourse. When we in the profession of education adopt the more adversarial atmosphere of talk radio or the Sunday argumentary, we erode our ability to speak into the lives of our students. Such aggressive speech does not illuminate or educate in or outside the classroom, serving only to divide or build walls. And in an age in which our nation faces significant challenges at home and abroad we must seek to find unity and carefully thought out solutions to thorny problems we face. This age requires well educated young men and women who understand how to engage in thoughtful, investigatory discourse to uncover and execute solutions. Is my pride so strong that I never consider another viewpoint, another thought, another consideration, one different than my own? If I never model and teach well-reasoned, thoughtful, and polite speech how will they learn such behaviors? If I continually display and applaud, often by forwarding and reposting, such ugly behaviors how will we as a country and society ever find our way out of this dark morass into a more civil culture which embraces solutions instead of verbal altercation?