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Inequalities in the education system
Essays on racial gap in education
Inequalities in the education system
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A Race to the Finish Line When I think about Education what comes to mind is a track field or the movie hunger games. The reason why is because my education has felt like a race to the finish line or having to survive the unfairness of the curriculum my schools have for me according to the social class of my parents. In “Still Separate, Still Unequal” by Jonathan Kozol an American writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the U.S., explain in his article how schools are still segregated and unequal. His article describe the different school he visited and observed, how they differ from inner cities school districts which student where mostly underrepresented to school in urban areas where students …show more content…
In Ted Talk, “Grit: The power of passion and perseverance” Angela Lee Duckworth a professor of Psychology at the university Of Pennsylvania Spoke how grit scale can let student know how gritty they are. Duckworth argues, “ Grit is passion and perseverance for very long term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint”(75). According to Duckworth students can succeed no matter the circumstance the student may be in. They just need to focus on their goal and do what is needed to reach it. It makes sense to believe that if students are struggling because of the inequalities if they are gritty enough they can over come it all by just focusing on their goal. However, Duckworth leaves out that more is needed to reach that goal which means that having grit is not enough. In the end, the logic of having grit will close the gap in education between social classes is outrageous the only way that would be true if every school was created equal and all students have the same
Savage Inequalities, written by Jonathan Kozol, shows his two-year investigation into the neighborhoods and schools of the privileged and disadvantaged. Kozol shows disparities in educational expenditures between suburban and urban schools. He also shows how this matter affects children that have few or no books at all and are located in bad neighborhoods. You can draw conclusions about the urban schools in comparison to the suburban ones and it would be completely correct. The differences between a quality education and different races are analyzed. Kozol even goes as far as suggesting that suburban schools have better use for their money because the children's futures are more secure in a suburban setting. He thinks that each child should receive as much as they need in order to be equal with everyone else. If children in Detroit have greater needs than a student in Ann Arbor, then the students in Detroit should receive a greater amount of money.
Why do children graduate high school without fully understanding concepts that relate to the core subjects of Math, English, Science, and History? Because education is unequal in America. Sociologist Doctor James W. Loewen and award winning writer Jonathan Kozol agree that classicism is to blame. Loewen also believes that history textbooks take some of the blame, for the student’s ignorance of inequality within education. Loewen and Kozol make great points on classicism, and it is important to understand how classism and textbooks affect education, and also to think of solutions to the problem.
statement, “Really? No antipoverty tool- presumably including Medicaid and public housing- is more valuable than an effort to train poor kids to persist at whatever they’re told to do” (par.23). As this is Kohn’s only response to Tough, it requires more than sarcastic questioning to deliver a clear message on his own thoughts. Kohn comes off a bit non-academic. As authors Pedro A. Noguera and Anindya Kundu explain in their article “Why Students Need More Than ‘Grit’”, that this concept of grit is forgetting about other components that can affect academic achievement.
In dealing with a generation that has become increasingly motivated by instant gratification, grit has been brought to the forefront of desirable character traits. Duckworth mentions, “grit is the single trait in our complex and wavering nature which accounts for success; grit is the strong current of will that flows through genetic inheritance and the existential muddle of temperament, choice, contingency-everything that makes life, life”. As Duckworth previously stated, grit is different for each child and relies on the traits they are given. Your temperament, willingness, and motivation are chosen for you, but can be practiced upon. If the concept of grit was taught in schools, it would show tremendous academic progress and help develop a strong mindset for all students. Students who are dedicated to the long-term goals they have set are great examples of the application grit has in schools today. As Angela Duckworth put it, “Grittier spellers practiced more than less gritty spellers.” She is telling us that students who persevere and thrive can achieve their goals. Even so, the effects of grit have lessened due to the increase of poverty and the decreasing in moral standards because of the negativity in today’s
Nowadays, it is easy to be put in a group because that’s how we get viewed depending on who we socialize. If we hang out with blacks, we are automatically viewed as gangs, if we are seen with Hispanics, we may be viewed as poor or if we talk to whites, it is possible to be viewed as rich and successful. In the upcoming paragraphs, Beverly Daniel Tatum and Jonathon Kozol each explain to us how each race is viewed in a differently perspective as everyone else, specifically in education. In the article, “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Tatum identifies her research from experiences of the roles of races in education and how they identify many of us including black students.
Allen, Brenda J. "Difference and Other Important Matters." Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity. Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2004. 1-22. Print.
I thought the article Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol (1991) was very informative. I would like to first start off by addressing the question Kozol offered at the beginning of the reading: How can we achieve both equity and excellence in education? In the article it reads that the solutions that have been proposed to achieve such matter are approximate but not reaching equity. It justifies by saying there’s no such thing as being able to reach fairness, but being close to through the means of justice. However, in some circumstances were not even close to having justice, in fact were way from it. Kozol then begins discussing the differences between school of different classes and races he faced in his observations that make it impossible to reach this much desire equity and
It is their opinion that students would not be taught principles like caring for the greater good and having compassion towards others. As a direct result, they would be devoid of crucial moral characteristics that help define us and our society. Another problem with this movement, in their opinion, is that, as Snyder states, “Character is treated as a kind of fuel that will help propel students through school and up the career ladder.” Here, the journalist brings up a decent point. Those who support the teaching of grit in school can often sell the characteristic as if it were just a tool to survive their education, rather than a quality that would define us. In any case, the skeptic’s main concern with the development and teaching of grit is that it can destroy or replace crucial moral values that define us as
In Jonathan Kozol’s essay titled, “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Kozol touches on how racial segregation has not disappeared in big cities’ urban public school systems. In this essay we can see how both types of judgements; racial and academic come together to form a stereotype about intellectual success in our current educational system. On the other hand, he brings to our attention that it is the American citizen’s common belief that racial segregation in public schools doesn’t exist anymore. In Kozol’s work he discusses various schools in major cities he has visited and offers the reader personal anecdotes from interviews with students. One quote from a student that I found remarkably interesting is “we do not have the things you have. You have clean things. We do not have. You have a clean bathroom. We do not have that. You have Parks and we do not have Parks. You have all the thing and we do not have all the thing. Can you help us?” (Kozol). This little girl is begging and reaching out to a white man because she thinks that he can help her. I am curious as to why she thinks that white schools have more than children at her school and if this is from first hand experience or from hearing from others. Does she think this way because her school demographics are composed mostly of one race? More importantly, I hope that someone did not teach her to think that
Savage Inequalities written by Jonathan Kozol allows individuals to understand the conditions of several public schools in America. Kozol visited many school in approximately thirty neighborhoods between the years of 1988 and 1990. During his visits he found that there was a wide difference in the conditions between the schools in poor internal city communities and schools in the wealthier communities. It becomes clear that there is a huge contrast within the public school system of a country which claims to provide equal opportunity for all. Many children in wealthier communities begin their lives with an education that is far more advanced than children in poor communities. Therefore the lack in equal opportunity from the start is created.
Until the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his life’s work was dedicated to the nonviolent actions of blacks to gain the freedoms they were promised in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. He believed that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King, 1963). These injustices had become so burdensome to blacks that they were “plunged into an abyss of despair” (King, 1963). The nonviolent actions of the sit-ins, boycotts, and marches were so the “individual could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths…to help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism” and ultimately lead to “inevitably opening the door to negotiation” (King, 1963). Not only was King’s approach effective with the older black generation, it was also successful with white people. They did not feel threatened when approached by King. White people gained a sense of empathy towards the plight of black freedom as King’s promise of nonviolence did not threaten their livelihood. Malcolm X viewed the world similarly to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., however; his beliefs to changing the status quo were slightly different from his political counterpart. Malcolm X realized that “anger could blind human vision” (X, 1965). In realizing this, X knew that in order to achieve racial freedom blacks had to “forget hypocritical politics and propaganda” (X, 1965). While Malcolm X was more so an advocate for violent forces against white people than King, X merely used force when it became necessary for defense. According to X, “I don’t go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution. I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to American black man’s problem” (X, 1965). However, this le...
If an individual wants to become successful at anything, he/she must engage to preventing distractions and proceed when exams are scheduled. Students should determine anything that distracts them the most to keep away during study times. Duckworth stated that “Some of her highly intellectual students weren’t performing well enough”(1). Activities that are outside of study times may cause the intelligent students to be left behind, so students should put more effort for success. According to Ethan Ris in The Problem with Teaching Grit to Poor Kids, “Children raised in poverty show plenty of grit daily, and they don’t use it more often in school”(7). Ethan Ris explains about children in poverty will use the most amount of grit possible to fulfill their success in school ahead of time. I agree with Duckworth because students in lower class neighborhoods would struggle with certain distractions through rough environments and debts that left them behind in school. If grit is not used much in school, lower class students will have trouble dealing with social distractions at
The article titled “Order in the Classroom” goes in depth into the education system; its flaws, strengths, and what needs mending. Author Neil Postman, an educator of New York University includes his perspective on the education system. One remark by contributor William O’Connor, explains that the education in our schools is not inferior, the schools have been getting inferior students (Postman, 309). The students are not inferior in our education system. If we were to look in depth at some of the issues we hold, maybe that mindset would change. What makes us inferior is the fact that we do not teach our children things they need to know before beginning school, we have a horribly structured school day, we believe that socioeconomic status will change a student’s learning and ability and we believe in punishing students who cause disturbances. These are all very low and hurtful perspectives to hold when discussing education.
By focusing on equality in the school systems we overlook the deeper problem of unequal education opportunities because of a lack of resources. Adequate funding isn’t the definitive solution to public education’s problems, but it is a necessary determining facto...
The problem is that there is a difference in goals depending on which social class you belong to. Many of these children from the lower classes are less likely to graduate or to belong to a different social class than their parents. The districts are divided by social classes: working, middle, affluent and executive classes. These social classes are separated by income, occupation, and students and parent’s characteristics. Schools receive different funding depending on the school 's neighborhood, thus location plays a big role on how money is use for resources. Anyon observed the schools used different curricular and pedagogical assessment that emphasizes different cognitive and behavioral skills in each district. As a result, the segregation of these social classes education gets affected; lower class gets less education and has less opportunities to improve and succeed in school. These districts differ quality in their curriculum system, which leads to either help or harm the development of education in