44 pages • 1 hour read
Letters to a Young Teacher
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Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “A Life among Schoolchildren”
Jonathan Kozol is responding to letters from Francesca, a new elementary school teacher in inner city Boston who has invited Kozol to visit her classroom.
In this first letter, Kozol explains that children need to be recognized. He also laments the condemnation that out-of-touch experts and politicians heap onto teachers. The magic of a good student/teacher relationship is difficult to achieve in a corporatized school context where “technicians of a dry and mechanistic, often business-driven version of ‘proficiency and productivity’” (4) set the expectations. For the author, teachers are “ministers of innocence” and “practitioners of tender expectations” (4-5). Children from less affluent families and their conceptions of the world are especially ignored in such a setting.
At the end of the letter, Kozol agrees to visit Francesca’s classroom soon.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Establishing the Chemistry (First Days in the Classroom)”
Kozol began his career when Boston Public Schools accepted him for a teaching position in the Black community of Roxbury despite his lack of qualifications. Different classes in Kozol’s assigned school shared a shoddy auditorium learning space, and some children acted out because of the rough conditions.
Kozol was assigned to a difficult fourth grade class that was unstable due to a string of substitute teachers coming and going. He did his best to set up a good foundation in the classroom early on by providing happy energy and theatricality for the students—something all teachers should do to ease student self-doubt.
Kozol spoke honestly to his students regarding their difficult situation and refused to teach from racist texts, instead choosing to plaster the classroom with articles of personal interest. For example, when the children became interested in Paris once Kozol explained that he used to live there, he hung up a map of that city. This shows that a teacher’s enthusiasm is contagious and that children’s capacity for learning is often greater than cynical educators give them credit for.
The remainder of the letter is dedicated to answering a common question teachers ask when confronted with a difficult classroom: “How do you break through the lethargy you find?” (14). Although there is sometimes no great advice for “breaking through that first and frozen moment of encounter” (15), Kozol stresses the importance of establishing trust and chemistry with students as soon as possible. He also explains how identifying what the school administrators value and fulfilling those requirements (by, for example making a deal with the class to behave themselves when walking single file through the corridors) can often make up for a teacher’s “[dissenting] from certain of the pedagogic practices established in the school” (17).
Kozol finishes the letter by recounting his experience visiting Francesca’s classroom for the first time, and complimenting her on her approach, including her refusal to behave coldly toward misbehaving students and her ability to create a situation of trust and tenderness in the classroom.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
In the opening chapters, Kozol creates an us-versus-them dynamic, aligning himself with teachers who have the best interests of children at heart and opposed to education experts he describes as overcomplicating and needlessly abstracting the realities inside a classroom. Out-of-touch politicians misdiagnose the problems in public schools and recommend useless or even harmful action, while teachers should counter this tendency with simple insights such as the need for children to be seen and recognized by adults. Teachers should similarly resist the impractical rules of school administrators by researching and fulfilling administration values, thus buying themselves space to pursue their own pedagogical instincts. Knowing what the administration wants to see and providing that while maintaining the educational integrity of the classroom is presented by the author as one of the defining challenges of the modern educator.
The second letter introduces the theme of racial segregation in American public schools and the inequality of conditions for schools in poor neighborhoods, two of the most severe problems Kozol will revisit throughout the book. Public schools in poor neighborhoods disproportionately serve children of color, while public schools in more affluent areas and private schools are whiter institutions. Mandatory texts and other learning materials often lack representation or even feature outright racism; for example, one assigned text described Africans as savages and Europeans as beautiful.
The importance of speaking honestly to children is another theme that will be revisited later. Kozol holds the potentially controversial view that a good educator speaks openly to young students about the failings of their school and administration. His students at the Roxbury school trusted him in part because “they could see that I did not condemn them for the chaos and confusion they’d been through, because I told them flatly that they had been treated in a way that I thought unforgivable” (11). This open and honest communication, paired with a teacher demonstrating her own interest in the subject matter, is key for young educators trying to set up a new class for success.
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