Wyoming Arts Council

Jonathan Kozol to deliver Ellbogen lecture


From a UW press release:

Award-winning author Jonathan Kozol will deliver the 2008 John P. “Jack” Ellbogen Symposium for Teaching and Learning address at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10, in the University of Wyoming College of Education auditorium in Laramie. He will sign his book, “Letters to a Young Teacher,” at 5:30 p.m. in the College of Education Classroom Building Student Center (formerly the Education Annex).

Driven by the civil rights campaigns of 1964 and 1965, Kozol moved from Harvard Square to a poor neighborhood of Boston, where he began teaching fourth grade at a local public school. He devoted the next four decades to the issues of education and social justice in America.

Kozol’s writings chronicle his experiences. His first published nonfiction work, “Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools” (1967), won the National Book Award.

Kozol’s most recent publication, “Letters to a Young Teacher,” addresses many controversial issues, including high-stakes testing, corporate involvement in public schools and re-segregation of urban schools. It also reflects on “curiosity and jubilant excitement children bring into the classroom at an early age, and their ability to overcome their insecurities when they are in the hands of an adoring and hard-working teacher.”

Book group follow-up discussions will be hosted throughout Wyoming during the 2008-09 academic year.


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