History suggests that the disillusioned and the disaffected do not readily take to the streets nor man the barricades to defend a system that failed to defend them.
David OlusogaRead
From daycare to graduation, our education system stacks the odds against the poor. Predicted grades is just one of many hurdles that are set a little higher for those whose parents do not have the money to smooth their path in life or the inside knowledge of how the system works.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The education system often disadvantages students from low-income families by imposing barriers that wealthier families can navigate more easily.
David Olusoga's quote highlights the systemic inequalities within the education system, suggesting that students from poorer backgrounds face additional challenges compared to their wealthier peers. These challenges often manifest in various forms, such as biased grading predictions and a lack of resources, which together create a significant disadvantage for those who cannot afford to access the same support and information that wealthier families can provide.
Themes
EducationInequalityPovertySystemic BarriersOpportunity
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on education reform, one might use this quote to illustrate the disparities faced by low-income students.
More from David Olusoga
All quotes →No matter that you're a British citizen, no matter that you were born here - your skin colour means you do not have the same rights as others to express critical opinions about your own country.
David OlusogaRead
Public buildings, built from the rates and taxes paid by past generations, are being auctioned off by impoverished councils who need the money to pay the redundancies of workers they can no longer afford to employ. Many of these grand Victorian buildings will be turned into flats that most people will never be able to afford.
David OlusogaRead
Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I'm trying to put those bits back in.
David OlusogaRead
We nonchalantly expect that next year's smartphone will be faster and better than this year's, yet we struggle to imagine that society and our lives could progress at anything like the pace at which technology advances and we meekly accept it when things go backwards.
David OlusogaRead
Our national history cannot be national if, in the near future, one in three young adults feels their stories remain untold, if this country's long global history of empire and interconnections is marginalised and if the historical reality of race is rendered almost invisible.
David OlusogaRead
Similar quotes
One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.
Malcolm XRead
Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.
John Taylor GattoRead
The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.
Edith WhartonRead
Education should foster; this education is meant to repress. Education should inspire; this education is meant to tame. Education should harden; this education is meant to enervate. The English are too wise a people to attempt to educate the Irish in any worthy sense. As well expect them to arm us.
Patrick PearseRead
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share of impart, but I didn't know how to ask.
Pat ConroyRead
Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.
Louise PennyRead