More money is put into prisons than into schools. That, in itself, is the description of a nation bent on suicide. I mean, what is more precious to us than our own children? We are going to build a lot more prisons if we do not deal with the schools and their inequalities.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the troubling prioritization of funding for prisons over education, stressing the importance of addressing educational inequalities.
Jonathan Kozol's quote points out the alarming reality that a nation invests more in its prison system than in its schools, revealing a deep societal flaw. By suggesting that this is a form of self-destruction, he emphasizes the vital need to prioritize education, particularly for children, as they represent the future of society. If inequalities in education are not addressed, the cycle of incarceration and societal failure will only continue to escalate, leading to more prisons being built instead of schools.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about educational reform at a school board meeting.
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.
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.
Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education.
Children have very sharp powers of observation - probably sharper than adults - yet at the same time their emotional reactions are murky and much more primitive.
When new cooks come to work for me, they obviously make mistakes at the beginning or there's some messiness to the presentation. What I always say to them is: 'If you were cooking this for your mother or your girlfriend, would you make those mistakes?'
What you look for as a reader is somebody who is going to take you and say, 'C'mon. Come into the story. I'm going to show you what there is to see.' The guide who is going to tell you, 'Pay attention over there,' or, 'Do you remember that other thing? Now watch!'
You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.
A diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome can be useful to help a person understand why they have had difficulties.
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