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Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, is the well-known and respected author of a number of other books on the injustices and shortcomings of the social-educational system of the United States, including Death at an Early Age, his first book and a National Book Award winner. His work is based on his career as both a teacher and a researcher into that system, and, aside from his thorough research and unique insights, the great strength of this and other books is his passionate sense of the failure of the system to adequately and meaningfully educate the poorest of the nation's children. Instead of taking a scholastic or theoretical approach to the subject, Kozol focuses on the children themselves:

It occurred to me that we had not been listening much to children in these recent years of "summit conferences" on education, of severe reports and ominous prescriptions. . . . I decided . . . to listen very carefully to children and . . . to let their voices and their judgments and their longings find a place within this book. . . . (Kozol 5-6).

It is the thesis of this study that Kozol's book is effective and significant primarily because he succeeds in his intention to let the children themselves serve as the heart and soul of his examination of the "savage inequalities" of the American educational system, wherever possible. In addition, Kozol succeeds because he recognizes that school is not primarily a competitive, grade-oriented enterprise, but instead is an extension of the nation's spiritual reality. If we continue to fail to fairly and fully educate these children, we will not only suffer socially and economically, we will also, even more importantly, increasingly become an inhumane and unjust nation.

This is not to say that Kozol does not provide statistical information and documentation, for he does. The point is that Kozol, unlike too many other "experts" on the educational system, r...

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Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:30, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702060.html