Shame of the Nation Discussion Questions (Chapters 1-4)
Posted November 17, 2008 · by kchurch · in Book Club
Here are the discussion questions for today’s brown bag.
1. What is one new fact you learned from reading this book?
2. What moved, captivated or infuriated you about the first four chapters?
3. Is there an outstanding passage that resonated with you?
4. How does the book portray justice, compassion, courage or wisdom?
5. To what motives does Kozol attribute the state of public schooling for the nation’s poor? Do you agree or disagree with him?
6. What do you think is Kozol’s motivation for writing this book? Was the point of the book to share an opinion, explain a topic, tell about a personal journey, or something else? Did the author do it well?
7. What does this book say about human nature?
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From our discussion on Monday, I think it’s clear that most of us were pretty shocked by how much non-public funding goes into successful public schools – and how little of it goes into public schools that serve low-income students. This issue caught my attention again when the recent issue of Edutopia landed in my mailbox. An article called “Cash Crunch” describes how “as public dollars dwindle, administrators must sharpen their money-raising skills.”
As Kozol points out, though, it’s the school districts that struggle the most that are least likely to have folks with the skills and connections to raise money. (Or, as Billie Holiday sang, “Them that’s got shall get, Them that’s not shall lose.”)
The article quotes a Tim Quinn, who says, “Somehow, we have to find a way to make fund development part of the K-12 culture.”
The article also links to a website: fundraisingskills.co.uk/schools.html – a British site that offers a certificate in school fundraising. Recognizing that this one issue can make a huge impact in the day-to-day effectiveness of educators, should we consider how we might provide ways for teachers to develop their fundraising skills? Or is that completely outside the scope of what we do?
Our conversation today kept coming back to community — having people invest in their own local worlds. I was reminded of a great website that Bill and I were trying to write up for Instructify. (http://onceuponaschool.org/) Once Upon a School is a pet project of Dave Eggers, and the idea is to get local businesses involved in volunteer projects in the schools in their neighborhoods. When I was exploring this site for the blarticle, I was really impressed with the *quality* of involvement that was being encouraged and enacted — not the monetary-based support I had expected to find. The site is intended for the businesses and doesn’t really have an angle of entry for the schools, so neither Bill nor I was able to make an effective Instructify post out of it. It seemed a worthwhile resource nonetheless, so I thought I’d mention it.