Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone Essay

Schools frequently cite a variety of social problems like poverty, broken homes, and bad parenting as excuses for their own poor performance (Greene, 289). In the article of The Myth of Helplessness it touches on a few reasons why it is believed that some schools have great reviews and others don’t. Greene talks about what others believe helps the school systems and what is believed that causes students to fail in school. I agree with author Jay P. Greene that, yes poverty, broken homes and other social problems pose a significant challenge but the evidence simply does not leave room for the conclusion that these challenges are insurmountable (290).

The statistics show that the kids that have been a part of this program are less likely to be involved in violent crimes when compared to their peers. It provides these kids with a safe environment to be in where they have the opportunity thrive and grow into mature adults that will be active members of the society. The Harlem Children’s Zone helps to address the issues that families face within their communities in order to work on providing better outreach programs and ways to modify the problems that people are facing within that zone. They have almost 20 different centers that serve a little over 13,000 children and adults each year. As of 2003, HCZ had reached almost ninety percent of all children in the twenty-four-block service area

After viewing the videos on Geoff Canada, I was greatly astonished not only by the amount of passion Canada showed towards fulfilling his goal of providing underprivileged children with a quality education, but the level of discipline he took towards achieving it. This is so as Canada displays a strong level of servant leadership by treating each of his students with an equal sense of dignity regardless of their past and views them as an opportunity for greater success. In addition, Canada keeps his ultimate goal of ensuring that every student graduates and succeeds in college at the forefront of his endeavors, which demonstrates his persistence towards achieving it. One instance of this is the fact that Canada would willing to fire teachers

Coming to an end, it can still be identified that Ira C. Herbert remains most effective due to his direct and optimistic approach by seemingly expressing his feelings in a contemplative tone and obtains his willing to cooperate with Grove Press. Richard, however, as he tightens loose ends, cuts to the point and can best be described as cynical for his defensive outback. Seaver complicates the situation by further adding that, “...no one here or in our advertising agency, I am sorry to say, realized that you owned the phrase”(Seaver 4). He also is seen as convoluting by stating (in his opinion) that he never plagiarized the brand from the start, that he was merely quoting Peter S. Prescott’s book review on Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher, one

Geoffrey Canada was born on January 13, 1952 in New York, NY (Biography.com). He grew up in a poor, violent neighborhood to a single mother. His mother highly valued education and instilled those values in Geoffrey at a very young age and since he highly valued education he went on to receive a bachelor’s degree and then went to Harvard and received a Master’s Degree from the Graduate School of Education (hcz.org). Having become a college graduate he decided to put his degree to use and he eventually became the President of Harlem Children’s Zone, abbreviated as HCZ. He was the president of HCZ for nearly a quarter of a century and received many accolades and widespread

The various essays comprising Children in Colonial America look at different characteristics of childhood in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Children coming to the American colonies came from many different nations and through these essays, authors analyze children from every range of social class, race, and ability in order to present a broad picture of childhood in these times. While each essay deals with an individual topic pertaining to childhood, they all combine to provide a strong argument that children were extremely valued in society, were not tiny adults, and were active participants in society.

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world” and “the beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you”. Education is a valuable thing to have and Canada has come a long way with it’s different methods of education. In the early 1900’s, not many people attended school long enough to finish their elementary education. At the time, girls did not “need” school since they were later to be housewives and not need the education and boys from poor families would only expect to work laborious jobs that required little education. People all over Canada needed better education.

Canada like Laurence, was forced to face the hardships involved with growing up. However, the black marks in history does not define Canada , it is how Canada learns from their mistakes and moves forward. Laurence explains through her microcosm of a prairie town that along with growth comes the formation of perspective that will forever affect one's future decisions .

Additionally, Sider emphasizes the significance of racial segregation in school systems, which ignores the fact that racial equality in education does not necessarily mean racial integration (Sider 215). However, Harlem Children’s Zone is a school system that works with students from infancy until completion of a college degree. HCZ, as an institution, has been able to create a seamless pipeline of programs in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, counseling, and a child-oriented health programs, which ensure there are no gaps in-between one phase and the next. HCZ students are centralized by neighborhood, schools, activities, and churches in Central Harlem. The programs that are implemented by HCZ create a strong network and community for the students in school and out of school. HCZ provides alternatives to using suspension for disciplinary actions, and structures that foster enduring student investment.

It was a normal day in the streets of Harlem, New York. Men and women moving to and fro through the streets, but one situation involving the eviction of an elderly negro couple disturbed this everyday serenity. The policemen were forced to dodge fists from the old lady as they attempted to properly evict the old couple. A large crowd gathered around the corner building, watching in horror as the elderly couple had their all their possessions tossed out onto the sidewalk. Shouts from the couple could be heard throughout the ordeal, some including statements such as “It’s all the white folks, not just one. They all against us. Every stinking low-down one of them.” It was apparent that the old lady seemed to be especially triggered by the policemen

In addition to fulfilling the learning objectives that required my proficiency in online and campus services, the growth I attained through our readings and discussions became (although trite) my new educational foundations from which I deconstructed and/or reconstructed a reality aspiring to be bias-free. Starting from Adrienne Rich’s “Claiming an Education” where I became enraged by female oppression and exposed devolusive reality that despite this speech being near 40 years old, it still upholds presently. My dispassion for endemic public discourse continued immensely when reading Jean Anyon’s “ Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum Work” and Jonothan Kozol’s “Other People’s Children” that assisted perfectly with my Urban Youth course’s concurrent analysis and conceptualization of the school-to-prison pipeline. Both Anyon and Kozol, invited me to witness shameless discrimination, negligence and social stratification plaguing U.S education. This ideal of equal opportunity to quality education has exceeded my vain plight grappling with my white privilege by double, which I know will only continue to challenge every fiber of my being as these issues remain neglected ergo persistent. ‘Ed. Found’ reading of Henry Giroux’s interview “The Hope of Radical Education” also meshed with my

These shooting are just two examples of how unsafe Harlem, as a community, is. The funny thing is, while searching for examples of these two specific shootings, I struggled in being able to search them. I typed in general topics at first because I didn’t think it’d be that hard to find. As I continued to search, my searchings began to become more narrow. It wasn’t until I typed in “man killed in harlem staircase 80 E 110th Street” that I found two, and only two, articles on the shooting that happened in my building. I couldn’t find any videos on the shooting of Michael Lewis except for one on the article I found. And even within these articles, not much information was shared. In doing research for this essay I learned that the government could

Although the issues post-WW1 were very damaging, Canadians began to see hope for improved and exceptional quality of life between the years of 1946-1967. They felt stronger as they progressed rapidly in education, transportation and culture. Respectively, all these themes had played a crucial role in a better quality of life, for all Canadians as a population.

The common definition of public education in the U.S. is a system implemented to promise “equal education opportunities no matter race, religion or ability” (An American Imperative: Public Education). While all public schools are diverse in their own core values and principles, there is one underlying principle that makes a public school great - being supportive of their students. Furthermore, by following this principle, public education is paving the road to success for students. Although public education serves an irreplaceable role in society, it is not a right that is granted to everyone across the world. For instance, out of the 128 million school-aged children in Africa, an estimated amount of “17 million will never attend school,” (Fleet).

Over a significant time frame, African Americans have been forced to endure numerous hardships – one of which being the negatives stigmas that unfairly generalize their people, culture and way of life. Therese stereotypes of a whole nationality label Blacks as, “superstitious, lazy, ignorant, dirty, unreliable, (and even) criminal,” (“Stereotypes”). Such generalizations are products of the public’s perception, which has been diluted by rooted historic and current prejudice as well as the media’s conveyance of a well-known African American cultural center: Harlem. Despite negative connotations associated with it, Harlem stands as a community that strives to flourish and maintain its strong cultural status. George Canada, the founder of the