Quotes: Choose three quotes from the text and explain what they mean and their relevance to the text.
“At the elementary school that serves the neighborhood across the avenue, only seven of 800 children do not qualify for free school lunches. ‘Five of those seven,’ says the principal, ‘get reduced-price lunches, because they are classified as only ‘poor,’ not ‘destitute’.” (Kozol 3)
Even though I read this quote a couple of days ago now, this quote has really stuck with me; I realized that the two remaining kids who don’t qualify for assistance are probably siblings. That would mean that one family in a school of eight hundred is considered wealthy enough to be able to feed their children without government assistance. What that kind of poverty must do to the climate of a school is unimaginable to me. I don’t know how I would even begin to teach a class where every single student didn’t know where there next meal was coming from. This quote vividly illustrates the destitute demographics of the neighborhood Kozal is describing.
“The bed is covered with blood and bandages from someone else. Flowers are scattered on the floor. Toilet’s stopped with toilet paper. Bed hasn’t been made. I’d been through this once before. Either you wait for hours until someone cleans the room or else you clean the room yourself.” (Kozol 15) Mrs. Washington’s description of her hospital room turned my stomach in disgust. I’d read about conditions like this before – in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns when the main characters seek medical treatment immediately after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This description of a hospital makes Kozol’s argument crystal clear: the conditions many of the poor of New York live in are inhumane and morally reprehensible. No matter who someone is, what they have done, or how poor they are, there is absolutely no justification for conditions like this. Poverty might be unavoidable, but conditions like this have no excuse.
“Some of these houses are freezing in the winter. In dangerously cold weather, the city sometimes distributes electric blankets and space heaters to its tenants. In emergency conditions…the city’s practice, according to Newsday, is to pass out sleeping bags.” (Kozol 4)
This quote further demonstrates the inhumanity that many of the poor are subjected to. Kozol does not argue in this article that those in poverty are entitled to any extraordinary luxuries; instead he pleads that the poor have the right to basic necessities: clean, safe homes, food to eat, medical care when necessary, and security as they go about their daily lives. Many of these things are not being provided, and it is a travesty.
In regards to your opinion on the first quote: I absolutely agree how terrible this is. I do not understand in any society how certain people are picked to get free or reduced things verses others. In North Kingstown RI, where I am from, I know several examples of this that do not make sense to me. One of them being a close friend of my sisters who had a baby out of wedlock. Her daughter is 4 years old now and the father is in and out of the picture with little to no support to the mother. This woman is hard working and has filed to get child support but the father hardly ever has a steady job so the state really can't "take blood from a rock". Although my sisters friend, the mother, is hard working, as a single mother she has struggled to simply afford to raise her child and pay for a place to live. In order to pay for survival she needed to work which also meant she needed to pay for daycare since she had little to no outside help. Everything go to be too much, she was on the verge of becoming homeless when she decided to lower her pride and as the state for help. She is half black and half white but and has dark skin, so maybe her race and gender were a factor but I don't know.
ReplyDeleteWhen she sought help she was told that in order to get any help from the state she needed to either loose her job (she made "too much" money at minimum wage) or have another child! This enrages me because it seems to send the wrong message in my opinion. It sends out the message to women that if you want help from the state then you have to be helpless....no job, no husband/wife and too many kids. She was absolutely horrified because she enjoys working and, although she loves her daughter, realized that she had her too young and wants to wait before having any more children.
Sorry that was long, my point is I guess that these government situation happen right in our own neighborhoods they just may not be as obvious as the one in Kozal's article. As future teachers we definitely will be faced with these challenges.
When I came across the part where Kozol talks about the lunches I didn't even think about it closely and didn't realize that those two are probably siblings and that does mean that only one family is wealthy enough to feed their children without government assistance. I also agree with you on how I wouldn't know how to teach students who didn't know where there next meal was coming from. I especially like your statement on how poverty is unavoidable and how the terrible conditions in the hospital have no excuse. This is 100% true because a hospital is supposed to be a place where you feel safe and you feel comfortable going to. Reading about the conditions in the hospital made me very angry because people like Mrs. Washington hate going to the hospital because of the conditions and this shouldn't be the case.
ReplyDeleteIt truly is a small world, because i am almost going through the same hardship with my mother. I attented Arizona State last year and due to finacal reasons i can not go back because my mother "makes to much" for me to be put on fincial aid, when she is a single parent.
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