inspirational readings

Right at the beginning of my career, and I have read my share of inspirational volumes on why great teaching matters. Shall I be brave and admit that the first reform minded education writing I stumbled upon, in the beginning of high school, when I was browsing through nonfiction at the local library, was Savage Inequalities, THE Jonathan Kozol book to end all Jonathan Kozol books?

I wonder about my reaction then, since now that I look back upon it, I find that text quite depressing. Kozol is a moving storyteller, and the stories of the schools and students that he profiles are tragic ones; it was written in no way that a teenager might suppose would call a society to action.

Right.

But, maybe what is beautiful is that it moves individuals to care, even just a little bit more than they used to, about what is happening to public schools in the United States. It certainly have that effect on me. Enough to motivate me to go to college planning to study education reform...

More to come.

not an arbitrary interest

When I was in the eighth grade, I thought that grown-up work was going to be filling out worksheets and making decisions involving multiple choices. It would be a place where you were denied resources and respect because of your race, class and gender, since that was what happened year after year as well-to-do white folks voted down the school budget of our tiny district and shipped their kids off to Catholic school.

Unfortunately, in the eighth grade, no one was talking to me about race and class and gender, so I spent most of my time pissy and alienated, scribbling in my journal about how foolish folks were screwing up the environment and taking away the rights of animals.

It is a radical leap to be a public school student and really understand and accept that your school is lying to you, filling you with toxic fear and laziness, turning you into a ready consumer, an employee, a soldier, a criminal -- anything but a freethinking, active mind.

Well, now I know the truth.

And don't they say, the truth shall set you free?