Arnisha Jones
University of Michigan-Flint
While reading the book “Fire in the Ashes: The twenty-five years among the poorest children in America”, I gained understanding of why the book was chosen to be read within my sociology class. The author, Johnathan Kozol, gave a very good detail and needed story about the issue of poverty and children and families living in it. In today’s generation everyone has a chance to be blessed in a variety of ways, but yet poverty is still a huge issue. I think that many have gained this attitude of “do better for yourself and leave to a better environment”, and forgot about those that are left behind; Instead of staying and helping change for the better.
I believe that the purpose of Kozol writing this book is to gain the world’s attention back on poverty within the United States. …show more content…
Kozol has said to have spent most of his career working in improving education so it’s not surprising this is a theme of the book. Something that stood out to me was how quickly kids are lost if they never get a confidently established literacy and sense of sureness in their ability to learn. When the kids start getting held back a grade or began to fall below grade level, it is very easy to become hopeless and turn to what appears to be an easier life of crime. And it’s not the kids’ fault that they are struggling at school. The class sizes was too large, the teachers are regularly inexperienced or were never even trained as teachers at all. There is numerous teacher turnover, they were too focused on just getting the kids to pass the achievement tests and not form real learning and
University of Michigan-Flint
While reading the book “Fire in the Ashes: The twenty-five years among the poorest children in America”, I gained understanding of why the book was chosen to be read within my sociology class. The author, Johnathan Kozol, gave a very good detail and needed story about the issue of poverty and children and families living in it. In today’s generation everyone has a chance to be blessed in a variety of ways, but yet poverty is still a huge issue. I think that many have gained this attitude of “do better for yourself and leave to a better environment”, and forgot about those that are left behind; Instead of staying and helping change for the better.
I believe that the purpose of Kozol writing this book is to gain the world’s attention back on poverty within the United States. …show more content…
Kozol has said to have spent most of his career working in improving education so it’s not surprising this is a theme of the book. Something that stood out to me was how quickly kids are lost if they never get a confidently established literacy and sense of sureness in their ability to learn. When the kids start getting held back a grade or began to fall below grade level, it is very easy to become hopeless and turn to what appears to be an easier life of crime. And it’s not the kids’ fault that they are struggling at school. The class sizes was too large, the teachers are regularly inexperienced or were never even trained as teachers at all. There is numerous teacher turnover, they were too focused on just getting the kids to pass the achievement tests and not form real learning and