Jonathan Kozol: Education in America (1 of 6)
www.mediaed.org
Jonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Kozol graduated from Noble and Greenough School in 1954, and Harvard University summa cum laude in 1958 with a degree in English Literature. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. He did not, however, complete his Rhodes, deciding instead to go to Paris to write a novel. He spent four years there writing his only published work of fiction, The Fume of Poppies, and getting to know the likes of William Styron. It was upon his return that he began to tutor children in Roxbury, MA, and soon became a teacher in the Boston Public Schools. He was fired for teaching a Langston Hughes poem, as described in Death at an Early Age, and then became deeply involved in the civil rights movement. After being fired from BPS he was offered a job to teach for Newton Public Schools, the school district that he had attended as a child, and taught there for several years before becoming more deeply involved in social justice work and dedicating more time to writing.
Kozol has since held two Guggenheim Fellowships, has twice been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, and has also received fellowships from the Field and Ford Foundations.
Kozol also has worked in the field of social psychology. Kozol is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good Magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. Kozol's contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.
Пікірлер: 46
Alfie Kohn mentioned him in an interview, which led me here. Loving this man already. I'll definitely be learning much more about Kozol and his activism......
you should make a playlist. this is a great presentation on the importance of education
Excellent and thank you!
Jonathan Kozol is a fantastic human being.. All the hate in some of these comments can not change that. Thank you Johnathan Kozol for all your work and love over all these years.
I just read sahame of a nation This guy is awesome
i just read his book "amazing grace"...life changing.
I adore this man. Savage Inequalities, Rachel and Her Children, and Amazing Grace are MUST reads for every American.
Where was this speech delivered?
You calling my last sentence "silly" merely means you did not care for the statement. You having an aversion to a comment means little to me actually. If you care to tell me what sentence you are referring to, I will not only support it, but elaborate on the reasons that I am correct.
Here's the problem with this argument. Imagine you are a tenth grade teacher whose students are reading at a third or fourth grade level, because their education all along has been so abysmal. You could bring them up to a seventh grade level, and that would be a huge accomplishment, but according to your argument, you'd still be paid a "dirt low income" and your hard work would be ignored or you might even be punished. The problem's more complicated than you're making it out to be.
This guy is funny. I like him. Just read "Savage Inequalities" for school. Really great stuff.
2) and the debate will be judged by people who can think. I have made my point here and will now move on to another shinning example of a person who had it not been for stealing and lynching would never have had what they have today.
@bizakis9 Yes, I am a black man who many would call radical and it is "comrades" like Mr. Kozol that moves black intellectuals from cultural nationalism. I too thank him, Tim Wise, Robert Jenson, Peggy Mcintosh and others like them. They are the best of america and exist in spite of it. Good comment.
@amourdutigre I see you went in to your classes with an open mind and ready to learn. As always, the conservative position exposes itself as the "I am only concerned about myself but I will disguise it by talking about America as if we were one and the same". Some of my intellectual mentors have disparaged my favorite authors too; I'll never forgive Harold Bloom for what he said about Updike and Stephen King, but he's still the best critic on Stevens out there. Better red than dead. Peace.
@amourdutigre I must tell you one of the things I agree with you..is I feel we should really take care of our 'own' kind. I remember when after 9/11 everyone wanted me to worry about all those damn 'Americans' that had been attacked...wanted me to worry about them. I love how you see that so clearly. I remember when they said "America Under Attack"....yea, right! You keep telling it.....right on!
@amourdutigre I agree that sending your kids to some god-forsaken ghetto school is not the way to create a more just society. What would be, and what should be done, is sending kids from ghettos with clear ability and talent to schools of the kind your kids go to, because there's no reason other than class privilege why they shouldn't. America says its all about upward mobility but there's no moving upward for those kids (anymore...there was at a point in history), and that's Kozol's point.
Since I majored in philosophy I am familiar with all you mentioned. As for french thinkers, give me Sartre, Camus and De Beauvoir. "Racism is man's way of getting by virtue of belonging to a group what he is TOO MEDIOCRE to earn on his own". He said that after seeing WHITE racism in the US. As for Seneca, good reading, but few can live the life of the Stoic. De Tocquevill, an apologist for the inhumane treatment of blacks. Thoreau, like his "boy" Emerson, would have agreed more with me.
@amourdutigre This is response to your comments for the "Education in America" video. First, I agree with you when you talk about responsibility, self initiative. There is an education crisis will lower income people in general bit it is the parents responsibility to raise their kids properly. However as political science Major I do look at the whole picture and realize how far even the American kids who go the private/upper income schools still test lower than kids in China/Japan.......
I understand the difficulty to "prove" someone is a bad teacher, but the real problem lies in the inequality of quality of education. Since education expenditures are based on the property tax of that area, lower income families will most likely send their kids to a low income school. Yet i do feel that teachers who through evaluation and are considered poor teachers should be fired. The problem lies in the system and its becoming to large to fix
3) white under their hair makes them more akin to whites) Allport is WHITE btw as are ALL but one writer of the books I mentioned. Yes, I am an intellectual. Your parents did not tell you about me and my kind. Happy learning.
@amourdutigre So, you /do/ believe people should be held responsible for the actions of others? You believe that otherwise innocent, 7-year-old children should be deprived of a good education because of the shortcomings of their parents? It's hard for me to believe a person like yourself frequents the ghetto enough to "see" anything, but I'm positive you've never seen children wasting money on drugs and cars. Again, you're blaming these children for their parent's actions.
@amourdutigre First of all Im not in the education field, and I have been working since I was 15 and Im 33 know, so I do not live off anyones tax dollars..............I said I agreed with you about responsibility, self initiative......but I just took objection to your use of certian words.
Okay, I can now begin: 1) The American constitution is the only constitution that has a clause for non whites being considered to be 3/5 human. 2) Your founding fathers from Jefferson on made it clear that America was for whites. Not only that, but Jefferson claimed that we blacks were of a "distinct race" (when he was not screwing a black slave lol) and therefore not "men" in that "all men are created equal" thing. 3) Abe Lincoln made it clear that we blacks were never meant to be the equals
@xjtbarnesx Read Mr. @amourdutigre from other areas and you can see what he is about! Lets not engage with folks like him......I belive in personal responsibility....but we need to address the education crisis in America.......lets stick to folks who want to talk without making those kind of statements.....dont waste your time with folks like that! GOD BLESS!!!
@amourdutigre Most poor people do not use drugs and they are not thugs. Fourth, I grew up in a mixed race ghetto and I saw just as many poor white people using drugs and out on the corner as poor blacks. Lindsey Lohan and Charlie Sheen are two of the worst drug addicts I can think off. Fifth, I thought your use of the term 'thuggary" was wrong...........
@amourdutigre I find it hard to believe you are as educated as you say when you post these ignorant remarks. But if so congratulations for retaining your prejudices.
I love how educated and intellectual people are labeled by the working class as "Marxist elites." Since public education is not intended to train future intellectuals and are strictly to adjust the young to the herd/slave mentality,then well educated i.e."self educated" people who think outside the box must be "Marxist elites". This is a label meant to help the working class feel better about their lack of real world understanding.
@amourdutigre Ah i see know the truth comes out.......I saw your Kenyan comment about the president....just as I fugured......LOL Take care Im not wasting anymore enery on you!!
@amourdutigre Well my friend, let me just say that you've convinced me. I've started watching FOX News, and do those guys know their stuff. What an ass I must have been for thinking it would be nice to help the poor, those bastards deserve their fate for wasting the equal opportunity America gave them. If the poor can't afford their unalienable rights, well they should have saved more money. Rights are for winners, and these people are subhuman at best.
cool you used big words that totally means you're smart and not just regurgitating things you've heard other people say.
biography reads like a caricature of the typical ivy-league Jew. all he needs is an adopted gay African son.
Stop leaning so heavily on being white, read, study, and get back to me. Good luck to you also!