Jonathan Kozol

Last night I went to see Jonathan Kozol speak at St. Thomas.  Here is a man that has known privilege his entire life, but has committed his life to justice and equity.  I often wonder how people who have only known the best,  and been exposed to the best, develop a heart for making our world a more equitable place.  He said some things that were not new to me, but are always shocking every time I am reminded of them.  He talked about the fact that our schools are more segregated now than any time in our history since Martin Luther King Jr.  That is a travesty!  We all know that separate does not mean equal.  Test scores will show us who is getting enriching, questioning, inquiry based education and who is being taught militantly to a test that is inauthentic to begin with.  It would seem that transient children and children of poverty can not afford to waste one minute to things like art, music and play.  I left the meeting with a heavy heart.  I have two children who are three and one.  What is my role in this unequal world as it pertains to my children?  I would like to be part of the solution rather than the problem, but at what cost?  There's a group of us "northsiders" that meet and struggle through these questions together.  We don't want to ship our kids out of our neighborhoods to schools with great test scores.  One of the women in our cohort just started her white son at Hall elementary because it is her neighborhood school.  She loves the school and the programs therein, but she worries about the fact that her son in kindergarten is the only white kid in his class.  He will certainly be empathetic to what it means to be a minority.  One thing is certain!  It is not good for our nation to have such grave inequities, but what are we called to do and at what cost?