School Without Eating In Their Homes example essay topic

Field Project To start off my discussion about inequality in the world I asked my sister four questions. 1) What is your American Dream? 2) Do you think there is an exit for children who live in poverty? 3) What is your idea of "mak in it"? 4) As a citizen what do you feel you can do to help? I wanted to get an idea of her overall thought before telling her the brutal truth if she doesn't already know.

Answers: 1) My American Dream is the quote " Happiness is positive cash flow". It symbolizes having a good job that provides me with plenty of money so I can have most of what I want. With a lot of work and perseverance, I think it would be possible to provide your children with a better life than you had. 2) The majority of children who live in poverty will remain in poverty. The way you are brought up is the way you " re going to stay.

3) My idea of "mak in it" is to become successful and happy. 4) As a citizen and as my job I feed the children everyday and make sure they eat and that they are happy. I asked her to explain to me what she does everyday. My name is Suzanne Michelle B oily and I am a Food Service Manager for the Board of Education. I work in Williamsburg Green point, Brooklyn. Previously, I worked in the South Bronx in District 7 at PS 29.

I work in the school's cafeteria. I was the only white girl in the area. When I first got the job I was very intimidated to be the minority. The children screamed to me "Hey whitey what are you doing here". After a couple of months of getting used to it the children offered me to walk me to my car when school was out because they new it was dangerous. There used to be all kinds of pornography fly ers left on my car.

The neighborhood is called the projects. There were many open fields with rats running around and I always saw packs of stray dogs in the neighborhood. The children in school sometimes, which was usually never, came to school; they would drop out or come stoned. They didn't care about school; they would just come into eat as far as I saw.

I asked, Could anyone off the streets come in and eat? She replied not during the school year but there is a program during the summer that feeds almost anyone. How do they determine who comes to school and eats for free? Two districts out of 32 in New York City pay full price for their food, Douglas ton and Bayside. As for the rest of the children the school sends home an application to the parents from the Federal Government.

The parents fill out how much their total income is and that determines the student's eligibility for either free, reduced, or full paid lunch. Some children pay but the majority of children don't. There are children that come into school without eating in their homes. They eat like their eating for a whole herd.

They eat everything breakfast, lunch and dinner. Majority of the children stay for the after school program called the Latch Key Program. This program starts at 3: 30 and it is for the children that can't go home. Throughout my conversation with Suzanne, I was talking about this class and all the issues that we have talked about. Particularly, about Jonathon Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities, and his horrific descriptions of the conditions in the schools. Kozol describes a school in the South Bronx set in a windowless skating rink next to a mortuary with a class size up to thirty- five.

The school contains a library of only seven hundred books and no playground. This school is ninety- percent black and Hispanic. Only a few minutes north of that school Kozol visits another school in a more affluent part of the Bronx with an overwhelmingly white and Asian population. Flowering trees, two playing fields, and a playground surround this public school. The school has a planetarium and a library with over eight thousand books. She wasn't that shocked because she sees the children who live in it everyday.

It just made her more aware of her surroundings. Kozol believes that by depriving our poorer children of their basic needs we are forcing them into lives of crime, poverty and a never-ending cycle of inequalities in education. I asked Suzanne her opinion on the thought. She replied, absolutely. Give these children one reason to do well in school, one reason not to be angry at society.

It seems as if the odds are against them, why wouldn't they want to turn to substance abuse and somehow make them feel good about themselves. I totally agree. She sounds exactly like me. She asked, does society have an interest in equal opportunity for all children?

I answered we the people of society can become more aware of these problems, hopefully by becoming more aware things can only improve. So, what can we do then? Respect can be the first step. A simple gesture of human kindness is the first crucial step to solving this injustice. They are people too, and just like you and I they would love to be treated just the same as a man in a business suit asking the time, with respect. This won't be easy, as there are a whole lot of thickheaded people in the United States.

But if we work together to bring these people back up, then we can indefinitely make a difference. It has become necessary for all people, not just educators, to be more aware of the problems. Although some intervention programs have been implemented and in some cases are very successful, it is becoming more apparent that these problems are going to continue and will have a direct consequence on our future in this country. Unfortunately, we as a society tend to look for the 'quick fix' to our problems without realizing the consequences for the future.

We need to collectively work together if we are ever to make progress toward resolving these problems in the long run. I believe that we can change things, and with time maybe equal education for everyone won't be such a far away dream!