When I began reading Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace (1995), I was struck by a quotation early on that described the South Bronx area of New York City he would further explore throughout the book:
The houses in which these children live, two thirds of which are owned by the City of New York, are often as squalid as the houses of the poorest children I have visited in rural Mississippi, but there is none of the greenness and the healing sweetness of the Mississippi countryside outside their windows, which are often barred and bolted as protection against thieves. (p. 4).
As a native Mississippian, I am not surprised that my home state was used as a barometer of poverty, but what interested me was Kozol’s interpretation of the different kinds of poverty that exist. According to Kozel, there is extreme poorness in Mississippi, but perhaps the destitution is offset some by the environment; there is no such hope for encouraging surroundings in the Bronx. The veracity of this is obviously debatable, but the question that Kozol brought up for me is this one: what does it mean to be poor in different areas? And more importantly for me as an educator, what do these different …show more content…
The Mississippi Teacher Corps teacher noted that as an outsider (a white teacher in a 99% African American school) teaching Spanish, he often finds it difficult to relate to his students. He understands that they have little exposure to other cultures and may not understand the importance of foreign languages, so he does his best to make the subject interesting to them. He writes, “I try to expose them to my travels and adventures that the language has given me. I try not to force my values upon them. I choose to show them the benefits of learning another language and let that stoke the fire. Sometimes it really works.” And these times that it “really works” are what we are aiming for as teachers, whether we are in South Bronx or the Mississippi
The houses in which these children live, two thirds of which are owned by the City of New York, are often as squalid as the houses of the poorest children I have visited in rural Mississippi, but there is none of the greenness and the healing sweetness of the Mississippi countryside outside their windows, which are often barred and bolted as protection against thieves. (p. 4).
As a native Mississippian, I am not surprised that my home state was used as a barometer of poverty, but what interested me was Kozol’s interpretation of the different kinds of poverty that exist. According to Kozel, there is extreme poorness in Mississippi, but perhaps the destitution is offset some by the environment; there is no such hope for encouraging surroundings in the Bronx. The veracity of this is obviously debatable, but the question that Kozol brought up for me is this one: what does it mean to be poor in different areas? And more importantly for me as an educator, what do these different …show more content…
The Mississippi Teacher Corps teacher noted that as an outsider (a white teacher in a 99% African American school) teaching Spanish, he often finds it difficult to relate to his students. He understands that they have little exposure to other cultures and may not understand the importance of foreign languages, so he does his best to make the subject interesting to them. He writes, “I try to expose them to my travels and adventures that the language has given me. I try not to force my values upon them. I choose to show them the benefits of learning another language and let that stoke the fire. Sometimes it really works.” And these times that it “really works” are what we are aiming for as teachers, whether we are in South Bronx or the Mississippi