Kozol Amazing Grace

 

Quotes

1. "What do they think the world has done to them? (Kozol 5)"

This quote had me feeling so many emotions and I went back and read that part so many times because it was so sad. This quote is really sadly true because the conditions these people were living in were terrible and it was especially terrible for young kids to be growing up around things like drugs, dead bodies and prostitutes. 

2. "There are children in the poorest, most abandoned places who, despite the miseries and poisons that the world has pumped into their lives, seem, when you first meet them, to be cheerful anyway. (Kozol 6)"

The child who was showing Kozol around was very very cheerful and had a great attitude about life even though there had been so many things in his life that were not great for his upbringing. This quote resonated with me because the child did seem to be extra happy even though the neighborhood he lived in was pretty trashed and he made the best out of it. 

3. "Cliffie, who is listening to this while leaning on his elbow like a pensive grown-up, offers his tentative approval to his mothers words. (Kozol 11)"

I feel like this quote is pretty self explanatory in accordance to the text because of Cliffies upbringing and the neighborhood he lives in, I felt like he needed to grow up a lot faster then he should have and he show's that by being interested in adult conversations and being so intuitive and cheerful when it comes to even the bad things going on in the neighborhood. 

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/13/nyregion/left-to-die-the-south-bronx-rises-from-decades-of-decay.html

Lisa Delpit "The Silenced Dialogue"

 

Reflection

This reading was really dense and confused me at first but for the parts that I understood, it was shocking to see the culture of power written out. I feel like we all know these things exist but to see them in a reading with examples was really interesting. These 5 points that Delpit touched upon really made me think about my own schooling experience because there really was so much power that the teachers had over us and there was these rules that aren't really said put loud but everyone is just expected to follow them. This made me think back to a teacher I had in fifth grade who really enjoyed the power she held over us and was very mean and strict even though we were just children. She once wrote me up for something that was very stupid but she did it just because she was the one in charge and she was able to write me up.