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Imagine attending a low class segregated school, no matter how smart you may be, you are always categorized. Picture yourself surrounded in a city that’s filled with crimes and poverty, being judge constantly because of your residency. In the book Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol interviews the children of Mott Haven and other lower class cities in the state of New York. Some children in the community are very well educated; however, some of them who obtain such knowledge lack confidence in a poor environment. How can one maintain through such chaos and still aspect to succeed? Having faith, motivation, and positive people in one’s life can really make a difference in their outcome. Although the population is high for lower class children of the ghetto, there is much hope for each individual who follows a clear path.
Children of Mott Haven have it hard compared to other private high class schools such as Stuyvesant. Children who attend private schools have a high chance of going to a prestigious university; however, children in Mott Haven can too achieve their goals in life. Although ...
As Pollock states, “Equity efforts treat all young people as equally and infinitely valuable” (202). This book has made me realize that first and foremost: We must get to know each of our students on a personal level. Every student has been shaped by their own personal life experiences. We must take this into consideration for all situations. In life, I have learned that there is a reason why people act the way that they do. When people seem to have a “chip on their shoulder”, they have usually faced many hardships in life. “The goal of all such questions is deeper learning about real, respected lives: to encourage educators to learn more about (and build on) young people’s experiences in various communities, to consider their own such experiences, to avoid any premature assumptions about a young person’s “cultural practices,” and to consider their own reactions to young people as extremely consequential.” (3995) was also another excerpt from the book that was extremely powerful for me. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I feel that I owe it to each of my students to know their stories and help them navigate through the hard times. On the other hand, even though a student seems like he/she has it all together, I shouldn’t just assume that they do. I must be sure that these students are receiving the attention and tools needed to succeed,
Many neighborhoods are inhabited only by the most hopeless of poverty-ridden people while others downtown or across the park do not care, or are glad to be separated from them. Such is the problem in New York City today and in Mott Haven in Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace. I have lived in New York City all my life and I had no idea that these problems were going on so close to home. If I live about three miles away from Mott Haven and I am not aware of the situation there, then who is? Chapter 1 of Amazing Grace opens with a startling fact.
Jonathan Kozol's book, Amazing Grace, analyzes the lives of the people living in the dilapidated district of South Bronx, New York. Kozol spends time touring the streets with children, talking to parents, and discussing the appalling living conditions and safety concerns that plague the residents in the inner cities of New York. In great detail, he describes the harsh lifestyles that the poverty stricken families are forced into; day in and day out. Disease, hunger, crime, and drugs are of the few everyday problems that the people in Kozol's book face; however, many of these people continue to maintain a very religious and positive outlook on life. Jonathan Kozol's investigation on the lifestyle of these people, shows the side to poverty that most of the privileged class in America does not get to see. Kozol wishes to persuade the readers to sympathize with his book and consider the condition in which these people live. The inequality issues mentioned are major factors in affecting the main concerns of Kozol: educational problems, healthcare obstacles, and the everyday struggles of a South Bronx child.
Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace is a book about the trials and tribulations of everyday life for a group of children who live in the poorest congressional district of the United States, the South Bronx. Their lives may seem extraordinary to us, but to them, they are just as normal as everyone else. What is normal? For the children of the South Bronx, living with the pollution, the sickness, the drugs, and the violence is the only way of life many of them have ever known.
Instead of loving and caring for her baby, and forgetting about Danny, she became worse than him. Rodriguez presents many aspects of the minority class that live in the United States, specifically the South Bronx. Even though the cases presented in Rodriguez’s short stories are difficult to mellow with, they are a reality that is constant in many lives. Everyday someone goes through life suffering, due to lack of responsibility, lack of knowledge, submission to another entity or just lack of wanting to have a better life. People that go through these situations are people who have not finished studying, so they have fewer opportunities in life.
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
"Catching Them Early" profiles the extraordinary efforts of Richmond's Lincoln Elementary School to ensure a bright future for its children. Ninety-nine percent of the kids attending Lincoln qualify for federal meal subsidies; many have family members in a gang. So the school makes special efforts, including the hiring of outreach workers, to provide the kind of support kids need to stay in class and do well.
Author Christine Mitchell’s “When Living is a Fate Worse Than Death” told the story of a girl Haitian named Charlotte. Charlotte was born with her brain partially positioned outside of her cranium which had to be removed or she would have not survived. Her skull had to be concealed by a wrap in order not to cause further damage. Charlotte was born with less brain cells which allowed her only to breath and not feel much of the pain. Charlotte’s parents thought that the doctor’s in Haiti did not know what was best for their daughter. The doctors in Haiti thought Charlotte should not be resuscitated, undergo anymore horrible treatments and die peacefully. Charlotte’s parents were not happy with the doctor’s guidelines and thought the United States medical care would have better technology and could save their daughter. Charlotte’s parents bought her a doll which
Prudence L. Carter argues that too many schools are in poor condition when it comes to programs, resulting in a lower success rate. Carter states “we cannot expect all students to achieve when far too many are climbing stairwells with broken handrails and missing steps, tripping and falling as they work to keep up, while others are zooming up on elevators,” in reference to the opportunities children are given at school. Families living in low-income communities do not have the same access to school programs that children in high-income communities do. “Those struggling with poverty and family instability cannot be expected to succeed at the same rate, on average, as those who will never know hunger and who have little to no exposure to unemployment, homelessness and/or
Jonathan Kozol, an award winning writer, wrote the essay “Still separate, Still Equal” that focuses on primary and secondary school children from minority families that are living in poverty. There is a misconception in this modern age that historical events in the past have now almost abolished discrimination and segregation for the most part; however, “schools that were already deeply segregated
Redemption can be explained as gaining possession of something in exchange for payment. In order to achieve something, one must do something in return. The end result of redemption may be unknown to the person and what their payment is may be a sacrifice. This motif is relayed in the short story, “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, by a man who gains new vision from an unlikely source.
Research tends to show teachers that students living in poverty will under-perform academically, causing teachers to lower their expectations. However, just because a neighborhood isn’t well off doesn’t mean that there is no hope for the students. An elementary school in Alabama has transformed from a school in “an area of Mobile notorious for high crime rates and intergenerational poverty” with low scores to a school with “achievement rising to a level more often associated with white, middle-class students.” The article points out that schools that successfully change their path have some common characteristics, starting with a main goal of “helping students learn a great deal.” While many schools assume that students have all of the prior know...
Growing up in South Los Angeles, I had to battle to prove that we are not all thugs or that we do not all smoke, steal, gang-bang or are ignorant. It seems as though no one expects individuals from South Los Angeles to be successful. Not everyone here fits these stereotypes; however, I am nothing like that. I am fortunate enough to have a strong and independent Mom, who has paved the way for me to pursue my dreams. As a result, I have surpassed her in academia by graduating high school. I have not stopped there. I am continuing to pursue my education and will obtain a Master’s degree in College Counseling. I am proud to have overcome the barriers that I have of this tough neighborhood. I always knew that life had more to offer than going to
A young 12 year old african male lives in South Jamaica, New York City, New York with his hard-working single mother. He lives in a “not so good” neighborhood, where there is violence that happens everyday around him. He goes to school everyday, but is tempted by his peers to skip class, do drugs, and join the neighborhood gang. He declines their offers and continues to study hard everyday, so he can make something of himself. By the time he graduates, he is accepted to NYU to study business. He is now CEO of a big corporation and makes more money than he can even handle. This is what so many lower-class and middle-class Americans dream of happening to them. They are considered the “underdogs” and dream to one day work hard in order to succeed
Growing up, the word “father” was a correlation to the man I knew in my life. I knew I came from somewhere, yet I could not put my finger on why things were not like how they were on TV. A white picket fence, a mother and father in this average sized house, but that was far from my reality. I lived a life that was filled with joy, yet, there was always an empty part that I was constantly searching for. My parents were high school sweethearts and soon after they met I was born. My parents had a debate on what my name should be. My mother wanted my name to be Elizabeth, and my father wanted my name to be Grace. When my mother gave birth, they both agreed on Elizabeth Grace.