Letters to a Young Teacher

Kozol thanks Francesca for sharing a poem by the 20th-century Soviet Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the evils of telling lies.

Schools routinely lie to children through their curriculums, especially in social studies courses. Kozol criticizes the commonly taught idea that “if great injustices exist, our nation’s mode of governance provides an avenue of redress through the legal process” (152), which ignores the countless times the system has failed and justice has not been served. For example, students who are plaintiffs in lawsuits regarding funding inequality in public schools often never receive justice even after courts decide in their favor because states ignore these verdicts with impunity. In Florida, Governor Jeb Bush ignored a constitutional amendment requiring smaller class sizes; he instead introduced legislation to increase class sizes in the state.

Kozol supports being honest with children about failures in political and legal systems “to empower those we teach to understand that this democracy is very much a work in progress” (155). Teachers should share their actual views to help students form their own beliefs, being careful to always present them as opinion rather than fact. Kozol enjoys when children vehemently disagree with his positions because it means they’re thinking about the subject.

Kozol discusses “The Hortatory Lie” (160) that states that a student’s success in school is entirely their own responsibility, and that external factors, like funding, the government, and the school board, have nothing to do with student success or failure. This is a subset of “The Ultimate Lie” (162) that equal opportunity actually exists for students. This lie fails to take into account extreme inequalities of resources within the public school system and between public and private schools.

Kozol rejects industry-embedded schools and programs in which children as young as ten years old are required to choose career tracks that affect future academic prospects. Usually, children in less affluent schools are tracked into “lower-level, less remunerative job-slots” that “are regarded as appropriate for children of their economic class and racial origins” (166). The author concludes this letter by insisting that a teacher’s loyalty should ultimately lie with her students and their future prospects.