A great deal has been written in recent years about the purported lack of motivation in the children of the Negro ghettos. Little in my experience supports this, yet the phrase has been repeated endlessly, and the blame in almost all cases is placed somewhere outside the classroom.
Interpretation
The quote challenges the notion that children from disadvantaged backgrounds lack motivation, suggesting that external factors, rather than the children themselves, are often blamed.
Jonathan Kozol's quote reflects on the common narrative surrounding children from impoverished neighborhoods, specifically those within Negro ghettos, which posits that they lack motivation. Kozol argues that this narrative is misleading and that it is often used to deflect responsibility away from the educational system and societal structures that contribute to these children's circumstances. By suggesting that the blame is misplaced, he calls for a deeper examination of the systemic issues at play rather than accepting superficial explanations.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about educational reform and the challenges faced by students from underprivileged backgrounds.
Schooling should not be left to the whim or wealth of village elders. I believe that we should fund all schools in the U.S. with our national resources. All these kids are being educated to be Americans, not citizens of Minneapolis or San Francisco.
An awful lot of people come to college with this strange idea that there's no longer segregation in America's schools, that our schools are basically equal; neither of these things is true.
Hypersegregated inner-city schools - in which one finds no more than five or ten white children, at the very most, within a student population of as many as 3,000 - are the norm, not the exception, in most northern urban areas today.
I wrote the first book, and I thought people would say: 'Separate and unequal schools in the City of Boston? I didn't know that. Let's go out and fix it.'
The trouble is not that schools don't work; they do. They're excellent machines for achieving historically accepted purposes. In suburban schools are children of the rich, who grow up to privilege and anesthetic oblivion to pain - and who then use the servants produced by ghetto schools.
Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.
Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions.
But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until the very essence of the Bible flows from you.
Emotional 'literacy' implies an expanded responsibility for schools in helping to socialize children. This daunting task requires two major changes: that teachers go beyond their traditional mission and that people in the community become more involved with schools as both active participants in children's learning and as individual mentors.
Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!
Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.