Learning has always been a privilege and noble act engaged by both great teachers and students alike; however, learning is not a free commodity, like oxygen, it is a free right, but it comes with many variables and contingencies. Learning is a result of education, but education must coincide with many other factors that make learning possible, especially for elementary students. Children have stronger emotional and physical needs during the time they are in grade school, and if their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and support are not being met, learning seems almost irrelevant. The irony to this maxim lies in the basis of survival after elementary school has passed. These children follow the patterns of their parents, who for the most part are uneducated and illiterate, and thus don't see the need to make learning or education a priority for themselves or their children. Learning, to children living in poverty, becomes altogether "irrelevant" to them at a very early age based on it lack of pertinence to their daily life struggles with hunger, drugs, poor living conditions and all of the other ailments coinciding with poverty. Children attending poorly run schools with little government pecuniary support develop a perfunctory attitude towards learning and education, and their underpaid, underfed teachers reflect more or less the same attitude. Not only do these dueling forces of negativity compound the desire to learn, they are always present amid the children who seek to eradicate this attitude or change their approach by making it an important part of their life, over how much they have had to eat that day or how they will stay safe and warm during the night after they leave school.
Education is the life key to surviving and thriving in American Society; the problem is, there is little government support in terms of financial resources or capital to transition the type of thinking developed in poor communities and ...