Shame of the Nation-Chapter 7 & 12

5 Sentences

In chapters seven and twelve Kozol made it very clear using direct quotes from students in urban schools that they are keenly aware of the differences in their education and the education of more affluent individuals in immediate vicinity. Many of these urban students aspire to be more than what the government thinks they can be, do more than the government thinks the can do and become more than the government believes they can become. Apart from the students, the parents see and are frustrated with the fact that they have no known resources to fight and take a stand against the injustice; only one politically active group was mentioned in the text, something that is incredibly upsetting. However there is a small ray of sunshine when Kozol portrays the schools that while not given the funding and needed supplies to teach to the best of their abilities they are doing something right, making school a place students desire to be and making differences in the immediate community surrounding them.

4 Passages

"Students in these schools still have to take the standardized tests...but nobody tells the children that their rest results define their worthiness or that these numbers measure their identities..." page 287

"There is a healthy feeling in this classroom; the children try to behave themselves not because they're scared of Mr. Bedrock but because they like him and don't want to make things hard for him." page 294

"I expect you to do yourself proud" page 299

"Teachers and principals should not permit the beautiful profession they have chosen to be redefined by those who know far less than they about the hearts of children." page 299

3 Key Terms

Apartheid: a system that seperates individuals based on certain characteristics. In the case of The Shame of the Nation, those characteristics would be of class, race and socioeconomic standards.

Compensatory: to make up for their "lack" of education, as determined by test scores, many urban schools use a curriculum that focuses on labor instead of the academic education.

Pride: Kozol uses this term with both postivie and negative connotation. Positively he refers to the schools that while not perfect or by any means equal, take responsibility and our proud of their accomplishments. Negatively Kozol employs the word pride when talking about how students are "pumped up" and told to be proud of their test scores, not their own accomplishments.

2 Connections

In the e1800's Horace Mann made several trips, visiting over 6000 schools in his lifetime and reporting the condition the schools were in. He made very unique discoveries. The poor had run-down shacks that were dangerous for students to be housed in. While those that could afford to, sent their children to private schools or lived in communities were schooling was a priority, therefore buildings and teachers were held to higher standards. Much like in today's world there was and is not an equality of schools, those who can afford schools are sent to the best and those that cannot afford schools are sent to the dismal schools.

DuBois in the 1900's argued vehemently against the implantation of a manual labor curriculum for African American students. He believed that allowing students to be taught trades they were not being allowed to advance in the world beyond positions they had already held. Today we see the exact nightmare of DuBois being lived out in front of us. Minority students are being taught curriculum based on jobs they can secure as soon as they complete college. While knowing how to balance your checkbook and properly fill out your taxes is an incredible tool that more affluent schools should begin teaching their students, DuBois was correct that it isn't all you should teach your students. These children are not being given the opportunity to try and move past job and positions their grandparents held, their great-grandparents held.

1 Question

What resources are available that I, as an educator can pass on to parents in order to equip them to help fight?

Shame of the Nation Intro-Chapter 6 Countdown

5 Sentences on the Big Picture

After reading Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation the idea that sticks out most in my mind is the conditions the majority that inner-city schools are in. Kozol's thesis of how unfair the government and citizens of these cities treat the poorer, inner-city schools makes me shudder. I completely agree that the current state in which these schools' are forced to operate should be considered wrong and great strides should be taken to rectify the situations; however I do not agree that the "affluent" parents in the vicinity should be blamed. Each person, including children are responsible for their own decisions and actions; personally I would not want to attend or send my own children to low performing schools regardless of the ethnicity makeup of the school. Instead I believe the government should change the way they spend the tax dollars and the way they judge performance, as well as outlaw the underhanded contributions that parents are now able to make to already high performance schools.

4 Key Passages

"Which of these children will receive the highest test scores-- those who spent the years from two to four in lovely little Montessori schools or other pastel painted settings in which tender and attentive grown-ups read to them from storybooks and introduced them for the first time to the world of numbers, the shapes of letters, and the sizes and varieties of solid objects and perhaps taught them to sort things into groups or to arrange them in a sequence, or to do those many other interesting things that early childhood specialists refer to as prenumeracy skills, or the ones who spent those years at home in front of the TV or sitting by the window of a slum apartment gazing down into the street?...but does not hold the government officials of our government of robbing her of what they gave their own children six or seven years ago." (page 53-54)

"Now with the non promotion rules mandates by a number of our cities and states, many experts are convinced the nongraudation rates among black and Hispanic students will increase." (page 118)

"...banishment of recess from the normal school day...recess has been systematically abandoned to secure more time for test-related programs." (page 120)

"I left with confused emotions that I often feel after a visit to a school or district in which academic levels are disturbing and and the physical conditions of the buildings are degrading to the children but where most of the people teaching in these buildings seem devoted and hard-working, and as best as one can discern from a day's visit, seem to be doing everything within their power and experience to cope with the calamity that has been handed them. The tortured dignity in the eyes of many who welcomed me remained as one of the most stirring memories of the experience." (page 157)

3 Key Terms

1) segregated: separate schools, based mainly on race and socioeconomic status most self-inflicted by the residents living in a specified area.
2) racial: uses to describe the negative feelings most individuals in the school districts towards people of different ethnicity or races.
3) affluent: anyone above the poverty line

2 Connections

The No Child Left Behind Act cause for schools to meet standards the government sets. While I do not believe standardized tests should be what teachers teach for I do believe they are necessary. If the government and citizens of America could trust teachers across the country to perform their job to the best of their ability consistently standardized testing would not be needed. I also see what Kozol means by school districts being so close geographically but far apart academically. After being employed for Waco ISD for the past year I have seen firsthand the conditions and abilities students at all three levels work in. Being involved in Midway ISD as well I see the differences. However, just because the Midway ISD parents choose to live there and send their children to Midway schools does not make them wrong.

1 Question

Kozol has a problem with the non promotion rules. My question is, should we as educators then, promote just for the sake of promoting?

The Good & Bad in Education Today

Education today has pros and cons. While reading Shame of the Nation I feel as if suburban schools are being criticized for being the "haves". While I completely agree the urban school in America are in a sorry state I do not believe that suburban schools should be criticized for the way they operate and what the have. The students that attend the schools have no control over how much money their parents make or where there parents live. Just as the students that live in the urban ghettos have no control over their parents incomes. What both sets of students DO have control over is what they decide to do with the education they are receiving. In the end, each individual is responsible for their decisions, their attitudes and the consequences that couple these items.