Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace

Words: 554
Pages: 3

Izaak Simar
11/10/15
Intro. to Education
Mrs. Collins
Jonathan Kozol “Amazing Grace”
Jonathan Kozol born on September 5th 1936, and then grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, as the child of Harry and Ruth Kozol. As a child he attended one of the best private schools in the area, from where he then went to the University of Harvard and practiced writing. Kozol studied under the poet and former assistant secretary of State Archibald MacLeish. He then enrolled at Oxford after receiving the Rhodes Scholarship. Kozol would leave early to become a novelist, and spend the next four years living in Paris.
In 1963, Kozol returned to the United States, at which he wanted to become a lawyer. The years to follow the civil rights campaign was going across the nation. In the passion of it Kozol gave up the prospect of a promising and secure career within the academic world. He moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood of Boston. By the fall of 1964 he found himself in Roxbury Massachusetts, as a fourth grade teacher. The school district was primary all black, the school itself was in pretty dismal shape, with crumbling classrooms and raciest low quality teachers.
…show more content…
After about six months later Kozol was fired, because he kept deviating away from the course of study. By this time his diary had reached the length of a book. It was published soon after with the title “Death at an Early Age”. The book happened to be a bestseller, winning the National Book Award and launching Kozol's career as an author. Kozol from there went on to write a couple more books “Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America” and “Savage Inequalities: Children in Americas Schools”. Both of Kozals following books would go on to achieve