Jonathan Kozol
A Leading Voice on Public Education and Childhood Poverty
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Jonathan Kozol
Featured Keynote Programs
Joy and Justice
The Hearts of Children and the Dignity of Teachers in an Age of Punitive and Relentless Testing.
The testing mania has introduced anxiety and anguish to far too many of the schools that serve our poorest children and has often forced their teachers to renounce their creativity in order to appease the rigid mandates of standardized instruction. How can enlightened educators restore the sense of joy and spontaneity and critical inquiry that represent the heart of an enlightened education?
“Fire in the Ashes
Awakening the Spark of Motivation among Students in Low-Income Schools”
This keynote addresses the race gap and successful methods for preventing kids from dropping out before graduation.
The Shame of the Nation
Race, Poverty, and the Corporate Invasion of our Public Schools
The sweeping resegregation of black and Latino children in our urban schools betrays the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and Brown v. Board of Education. Intensive poverty compounds the challenges these children face. Courageous teachers struggle to overcome these problems every day. We need to empower them in every way we can and defend them from the pressures introduced by privatizing forces.
The Widening Gulf
Can We Reverse the Savage Inequalities of Our Public Schools?
The inherently unequal way we fund our public schools ought to be a national embarrassment. Mr. Kozol describes the toll this takes on children and asks if civic-minded citizens, and leaders and students in our colleges and universities, can combine their powers to bring about the transformation of the present system.
Child-centered Education
Learning for its Own Good Sake Alone. Is it Still Possible in this Age of Rigidified Instruction?
We degrade the acts of learning when we attach it to a draconian system of reward or punishment. And we lose sight of the individual character and motivation of our children when we give in to the uniformity of standardized instruction. Mr. Kozol describes the ways that imaginative teachers can resist this uniformity.
Curricular Starvation in Our Urban Schools
How Can We Restore Aesthetics and the Arts and Cultural Capaciousness to Children Starting in the Early Years?
The persistent focus on a narrow slice of skills that can be tested most efficiently is shriveling the course of study for low-income children. Not only the arts but the entire range of learning that lies beyond mechanical proficiency -- the humanities, the social sciences, the immersion of a child in the treasures of aesthetics -- are increasingly abandoned in test-driven schools. Mr. Kozol believes that there are ways to turn the tide.
The Theft of Memory
Coping with Alzheimer's
National Book Award winner Jonathan Kozol describes his fascinating conversations with his father after the onset of Alzheimer's and his father's slow descent into dementia. But he also raises questions that millions of other children of Alzheimer's victims are dealing with today: How do we obtain the kind of warm, attentive care -- medical and personal -- that the ill and elderly deserve? Are we losing the personal bond between physicians and their patients in an age of rationed care? To what degree are economic factors conflicting with professional ethics and determination of the end of life? Mr. Kozol addresses these and other aspects of Alzheimer's care according to the special focus of his audience.