Amazing Grace

I was struck with the weight of this week’s reading. I grew up in New Hampshire, in a fairly nice area. When I read Kozol, I was just dumbfounded that children have to grow up under those circumstances. We see commercials on television to help children in third world countries, but the way that this area of New York was described, did not sound much better.  Kozol paints a grim picture with his writing. And it is simply fact. He immersed himself into incredibly impoverished areas and gets to know the children and learn their struggles so he can help solve them. In the case of Amazing Grace, he spends much time in learning of the healthcare system that the children and adults have to use in the area. Honestly, it sounded like something from a horror film. Patients having to clean their own hospital rooms of blood before they are admitted and often wait days in the waiting room to be seen. If it were not fact, it would be almost unbelievable that this is America. In my opinion, and I think Kozol would agree, this is leaving people to die because they are poor and society has not placed enough value in these people’s lives.  

Reading Kozol is very eye opening. He records the injustices of the poor in an honest approach. He was criticized for not having enough statistics in his work, but to me, statistics don’t give you the same sinking, sick feeling that hearing of these accounts of what people have to go through first hand. I implore everyone to take the time to read this Amazing Grace piece. It did leave me with the question of, what can be done? And I think it really starts with changing your mind about poverty, and trying to change others. Calling out injustices when we see them, and not supporting those who are part of the wage gap. Also, as educators, we need to get rid of any sort of predisposed notion we have of poverty, and educate every child with same investment.