Spring forum Day Keynote Speaker
Jonathan Kozol, Author and Rhodes Scholar
April 4th, 2007
Ritsche Auditorium 9:30 – 10:30
Jonathan Kozol Author and Rhodes Scholar
In the passion of the civil rights campaigns of 1964 and 1965, Jonathan
Kozol moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood of Boston and
became a fourth grade teacher in the Boston Public Schools. A young white
teacher in the poor, black section of Boston, Mr. Kozol was fired for
reading a Langston Hughes poem to his fourth grade students. Hailed by the
The Chicago Sun-Times as ³today¹s most eloquent spokesman for America¹s
disenfranchised,² he has devoted the subsequent four decades of his life to
issues of education and social justice in America.
Death At An Early Age, a description of this first year as a teacher, was
published in 1967 and received the 1968 National Book Award in Science,
Philosophy, and Religion. Now regarded as a classic by educators, it has
sold more than two million copies in the United States and Europe.
After being fired from his first job, Jonathan Kozol did a short teaching
stint at a suburban school. The shock of going from one of the country's
poorest public schools to one of its richest never left him. From the start,
Jonathan Kozol combined teaching with activism. He taught at South Boston
High during the city's desegregation crisis. Working with black and Hispanic
parents, he helped set up a storefront learning center that became a model
for many others in the U.S. In 1980, the Cleveland Public Library asked him
to design a literacy plan for the nation's large cities. His plan became the
model for a major effort sparked by the State Library of California. The
book that followed, Illiterate AmericaM, was the center of a campaign to
spur state, federal, and private action on adult literacy.
A few days before Christmas 1985, Jonathan Kozol spent an evening at a
homeless shelter in New York. Nightlong conversations with the mothers and
children who befriended him led him to remain there for much of the winter.
Out of that experience came Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in
America, a narrative portrayal of the day to day life struggle of some of
the poorest people in America. The book was presented to state governors by
homeless advocacy groups. Jonathan Kozol gave them his full support and
founded The Fund for the Homeless, a non profit organization that provides
homeless families with emergency assistance. The book received the Robert F.
Kennedy Book Award for 1989 and The Conscience in Media Award of the
American Society of Journalists and Authors.
In 1989, Jonathan Kozol revisited America's schools. He went to rich and
poor schools in over 30 communities. This experience led him to write Savage
Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991), which received The New
England Book Award in non-fiction.
In 1993, Jonathan Kozol journeyed to the South Bronx. Two years of
conversations with the children, clergy, and parents led to write Amazing
Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (October 1995).
The book explores the lives of some black and Hispanic children whom,
although they live in one of the most violent, diseased communities in the
developed world, retain a soaring spiritual transcendence. Despite the
political conservatism of the 1990s, Amazing Grace became a national best
seller within three weeks of publication and received the Anisfield Wolf
Book Award in 1996.
In a stirring departure from his earlier work, Jonathan Kozol published
Ordinary Resurrections in May 2000. Like Amazing Grace, this work also takes
place in the South Bronx; but it is a markedly different book-we see life
this time through the eyes of children, not, as the author puts it, from the
perspective of a grown up man encumbered with a Harvard education. A work of
guarded optimism that avoids polemic and the fevered ideologies of partisan
debate, Ordinary Resurrections is about the persistent innocence of children
who are still unsoiled by the world and can view their place in it without
cynicism or despair.
In his latest book, The Shame of a Nation (September 2005), Mr. Kozol takes
a searing look at what he calls the "cognitive decapitation" of black and
Hispanic children in our nation's flagrantly unequal and rapidly
resegregating public schools. In a powerful expose of conditions he found in
visiting nearly 60 schools in 11 states during the last five years, the book
is a haunting journey through the classrooms in which children of color are
contained, concealed and isolated from American society.
A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard and a Rhodes Scholar, today Jonathan
Kozol lives in Massachusetts.
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has announced
that acclaimed author and Rhodes Scholar, Jonathan Kozol will be the Keynote
Speaker on Spring Forum Day, April 4 2007 at 9:30 AM IN RITSCHE AUDITORIUM,
In addition to his Keynote address, Mr. Kozol will offer
a workshop for SCSU faculty and staff and local school district teachers and
administrators on the development and enhancement of meaningful partnerships
between the University and local schools. PRE-REGISTRATION FOR THE WORKSHOP
IS REQUIRED. If you would like to attend the workshop, please DO NOT reply
to this message. Instead, please do send an email to cetl@stcloudstate.edu.
Many of you may wish to invite your students to attend Mr. Kozol's Keynote
Address. We would like to be able to accommodate students and, at the same
time, we want to make sure to reserve seats enough for interested faculty,
staff, and local school teachers and administrators.
If you would like to ask a class of students to attend, you MUST email me
with the course name and the number of students enrolled. Faculty whose
classes are attending the Keynote address will receive an email with a
"ticket" for the event. Those will need to be printed and distributed to
students so they can be admitted to the Keynote event. Students who come
without a ticket will need to wait until faculty and staff are seated so
that we can be sure there are enough seats available.
