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BELLINGHAM – Author, educator and activist Jonathan Kozol will speak on his latest book about segregated schooling in America at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29 at Western Washington University’s Performing Arts Center Mainstage. The event is free and open to the public but tickets are required. The lecture is now sold out. Unclaimed seats will be released to people in a stand-by line, on a first-come, first-served basis. Also, overflow seating and a live broadcast feed of Kozol’s talk will be available in Science Lecture (SMATE) 130. Those watching the lecture from SMATE 130 are welcome at a reception after the talk in the lobby of the Performing Arts Center, where Kozol will sign copies of his new book, "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America." Kozol, the National Book Award-winning author of “Death at an Early Age,” “Savage Inequalities,” and “Amazing Grace,” has devoted the past four decades to issues of education and social justice in America. In his newest book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America,” Kozol finds that inner-city children are more isolated racially than they have been at any time since federal courts began dismantling the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Millions of black and Hispanic students go to schools in which they make up 95 to 99 percent of the enrollment. “They live an apartheid existence and attend apartheid schools. Few of them know white children any longer,” Kozol writes. In the September edition of Harper’s Magazine, in an article adapted from “The Shame of the Nation,” Kozol writes that, “Schools that were already deeply segregated twenty-five or thirty years ago are no less segregated now, while thousands of other schools around the country that had been integrated either voluntarily or by the force of law have since been rapidly resegregating.” Kozol found that in their desperation to conform with the requirements of high-stakes testing, many inner-city schools have cancelled recess, instituted silent lunches and have compelled their teachers to use stick-and-carrot teaching methods that allow no room for creativity or independent thinking. A free shuttle will make trips to and from the PAC from lot 12A at Fairhaven College before and after the talk, beginning at 6 p.m. Sept. 29. Disability accommodations are available upon request and advance notice is requested. Please call (360) 650-3723. After his talk on Sept. 29, Kozol will sign copies of “The Shame of the Nation” (Crown Publishers, $25 hardcover) during a reception in the Performing Arts Center lobby. The book will be on sale in the Western Associated Students Bookstore after its publication date of Sept. 13. Kozol’s talk is sponsored by Western’s Center for Educational Pluralism at Woodring College of Education; the Teaching-Learning Academy, and the university’s American Democracy Project, which promotes student involvement in public life. Kozol was chosen by the Center for Educational Pluralism as its second annual distinguished speaker. His talk is part of a yearlong series of events by the Center on the theme “Does Democracy Matter: Questions We Are Failing to Ask.” Last year, the Center sponsored a yearlong series of events in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. For more information, please visit the Web site about the event at http://www.wwu.edu/depts/adp/kozol/#tickets |
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