QuoteProject
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.
Jonathan Kozol
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Kozol critiques the educational system, highlighting inequalities that perpetuate privilege and detachment from societal issues.

In this quote, Jonathan Kozol sheds light on the systemic issues in education, suggesting that schools efficiently serve the status quo rather than address deeper societal inequalities. He points out that affluent children receive a quality education that reinforces their privilege, while those from marginalized backgrounds attend underfunded schools that prepare them primarily for servitude. This stark contrast promotes a cycle of privilege and ignorance among the privileged, thereby detaching them from the struggles faced by the less fortunate.

Themes

EducationInequalityPrivilegeSystemSociety

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be used in a discussion about education reform at a community event.

More from Jonathan Kozol

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.
Jonathan KozolRead
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.
Jonathan KozolRead
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.
Jonathan KozolRead
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.
Jonathan KozolRead
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.'
Jonathan KozolRead
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.
Jonathan KozolRead

Similar quotes

No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.
Gordon BrownRead
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.
Neil GaimanRead
As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.
Parker J. PalmerRead
So I believe in singing to such an extent that if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing become a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.
Brian EnoRead
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
Charles William EliotRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.