Kozol Chapter 3&4

Quote 1- "... but I found no references to any child's traits of personality or even physical appearance... the uniform activities and the teacher's words controlled my own experience perhaps as much as they controlled and muted the expressiveness of children" (Kozol pg 71)


       Children need to learn from one another and visa versa the teachers need to learn from the students. With this type of authoritarian dictatorship these children true beings are hidden away and lost. Kozol referring to  his notes not including any traits from the students he observed was so surprising to me. Whenever I meet or observe new children I always notice one or two children at least that have bold personalities that stay fresh in my mind. This tells me that these children are being suppressed a great deal which can only result in less meaningful learning. If you are unable to express yourself as a learner how can you reach your potential. And the point of this type of strict structure specifically in schools heavy populated with black and hispanic children is to  keep order and kids out of trouble by providing no opportunity of freedom. To me, type of environment does not promote independence and self learning. Overall, creating zombie robot children and teachers is so harmful stifles their identities and creativeness that people naturally possess and want to exude. 


Quote 2 - "The listing of objectives in a lesson....it isn't the practice in itself, it's the remorselessness with which the practice is applied to almost every little possibility for natural discovery, and pleasure in discovery, the many teachers in these make clear that they dislike." (Kozol pg 76-77)


The requirement to have to prove and specify the exact purpose according to state standards can only be exhausting and redundant and hindering the students experience of learning. It is almost as if musicians or singers had to tell us what chord they are using after each note they sing or play. Wouldn't that completely ruin the beauty of the music being created. Yes! To me, that is no different from teaching. In the cases that Kozol explains these students are being interrupted  by these objectives and jargon that they should not have to understand. Children are children and no harm comes from speaking and using language that is more understandable to them.  This requirement is also draining to the teachers without  the rewards that should come with all the effort that is being put into the preparation for the lessons. 

Quote 3- " So a curriculum that was imposed, in part, to compensate for staffing needs of schools that had a hard time in recruiting teachers ends up by driving out precisely those well-educated men and women whom school systems have worked so hard to attract into these neighborhoods." (Kozol pg 85)

That is so aggravating to read about how the opportunity for significant improvement was wasted. When the school is in such desperate need for help and change it is hard to believe that these teachers were driven out by this curriculum. Of course you can't blame the teachers for leaving such an environment but what the reality is these children do not have that option to leave for something better. People that work with children need to be devoted to the children and their ability to constantly make steps forward for the children they commit to. Not to blame these well-educated teachers that decided to leave, no one's philosophy no matter how different it is, would be to create an environment that these students and teachers live in everyday. 

Quote 4- " Shorn of unattractive language about "robots" who will be producing taxes and not burglarizing homes, the general idea that schools in ghettoized communities must settle for a different set of goals than schools that serve the children in the middle class and upper middle class has been accepted widely." (Kozol pg 98)

Thinking about the amount of school systems that accept and continue to exercise this type of curriculum and the number of teachers that follow through with something that is so clearly racist and unfair adds up to a very large number of people just going by the examples and information that Kozol provides in the book is gross. Then that next step further the even larger number of students that must be involved and affected should be at least raise some kind of commotion against this. But people are silently protesting within their minds but do not make steps to improve or stop it.