Differences

As I read my way through Amazing Grace, I spend time thinking about children and the influence of one’s upbringing on one’s future.  I’ve always had a love for learning and increasing my knowledge about the world and myself gives me a seemingly weird sort of satisfaction, but one that is, I am sure, not foreign to many of my peers who have grown up in environments similar to mine.  I have dreams, many of which center around my future and my vocation, and I have been taught that if I have the right drive and ambition I will most likely be able to achieve these goals. 

I suppose that the reason I have the luxury of pondering things like these is that I grew up in an environment supportive and conducive to these kinds of ends.  I’ve always lived in a comfortable home with access to food and healthcare.  My attendance in school is what first sparked my interest in learning, and it is what continues to foster the support and encouragement I need to continue my education.  It is a common fact that personality and identity are a mixture of both one’s internal, biological self and one’s environment, so I wonder how different I would be today if I had grown up in a different atmosphere. 

Kozol implicitly suggests that I could be completely different.  He heavily emphasizes physical descriptions of the places he visits in Mott Haven in contrast with the more affluent section of New York City only a few subway stops away.  Some of the schools Kozol describes face rat infestation, high risk of fire, and unpleasing aesthetics.  The general tone of those interviewed by Kozol suggests that schools are some of the last places that possess the ability to convince children of the importance of education.  I definitely would not possess a positive attitude toward academics if my academic institution was a run-down building with bathrooms too waste-infested to use and a lack of textbooks.  The difference between myself and some of the children currently in this school system, however, is that I can read about or even witness situations like these and still believe in the importance of education because of my own experiences in school.  These kids see images of “normal” schools on TV, but then attend ones with so few resources that they are forced to believe that the concept of this kind of education is either not a reality or unattainable for them.  When children learn this at such a young age, I imagine that it destroys their ideas of positive self-image, confidence, and worth. 

Education is one of my top priorities, yet one of the last on the lists of some of the kids in the Mott Haven neighborhood.  I suppose this difference lies in the fact that growing up, I never had to worry about my health or safety; these were things that I considered inalienable rights.  It makes sense that kids who up witnessing murder, drugs, and suffering on a daily basis have a different idea of what is important in life.  For the most part, I have only accessed experience with places like Mott Haven through books and television, and a great injustice in my opinion is that many kids in places like this have the same sort of limited knowledge about my “life on the bluffs,” as Kozol puts it in his novel Savage Inequalities.  I think Amazing Grace has been a humbling reminder to me to think outside my own experiences and remember that everyone faces different challenges, ones with which I may have little to no experience. 

Source: Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol, Chapters 4-5