The type of education you receive
will depend on your environment 

When you are living in our society, at one point in time you gain the ability to learn. Many people have an idea of what an education is, and have gotten it at one point in their life. However, many people have differing ideas when they think of education because everyone has had different lessons and different ideas of teaching. In some environments, it is very hard to succeed if you are not taught at the correct time or in the right form. My idea is that you cannot succeed in a school setting if you are faced with certain obstacles, these obstacles including living areas and financial situations. 

Many urban areas are very unfortunate with their school systems and struggle every day to create ways to get students to enroll. The struggles they face include gang life, single homes, and children that are stricken with starvation. This is seen in cities like Harlem, the Bronx and other parts of the city. 

The debates that other people try to make have the idea that people are able to make it in life, attend a good college, and work a good job as long as they work hard. I believe that is untrue because there are people in certain unfortunate situations that are unable to make it into a good school because of where they come from. People’s environments naturally change and form the person you are if you live there long enough. I think many people carry disadvantages while navigating their education because of this.

Because of the good education and upbringing I was fortunate to have, it was easier for me to be successful and be able to attend a university. This article by the Georgia Library claims that, “the findings that overcrowded areas contain many chances and have an easier access to depression but it doesn’t affect their education or the level they can contain,” (Lanus). He says that everyone is capable of succeeding because everyone is physically able to do so in this country. The issue I have is people thinking everyone has an equal chance in that success, and the truth is that cannot possibly happen for the unprivileged. 

I found an article on the subject about a Rowan student who visited a middle school and highschool principal located in one of the bad parts of the Bronx where there is a lot of crime and poverty. He found that the principal (who did not want to be named) believed that, “Students in this area may gain no hope in the future because of how our system has been running,” (Marone). In the article, he mentions how many children under the age of 14 are afraid to go into school. The reason behind this deals with the amount of gang life in the area. Students tend to see people before walking to class being harassed, beaten, robbed or even worse to be forced into a gang because they think they will have a better chance at life. 

Another thing taken into account is that many of these students in areas like New York will not have the ability to eat everyday; the starvation causing them to be unmotivated and simply unable to learn anything. The principal from the Bronx believed that students would have a better chance of coming into school at all if there were more free lunches for the unfortunate children. The kids would then want to go to school to eat, and in return, learn some valuable information that could potentially help and benefit a child’s life drastically. Many of the kids that go to these schools are often complaining about being hungry. 

The National Library of Medicine had their own experiment to see if poverty changes the education of students. They believed that, “The results indicate that enduring exposure to neighborhood poverty relates to educational attainment, while timing does not,” (Lanus). They go on to say that it could affect your ability to learn, but it would affect many more children than adults trying to learn at a university. This is relevant because in the experiment they state that children would have a much harder time gaining an education because of the stress and other factors that they have to deal with in their daily lives. This shows that it will affect the kids life a lot more than an adult’s life.

Many children are receiving education around the world; however, that type of learning can be dramatically different from others. Just like New York, there are people that attend public schools in dangerous areas who may not learn anything in class. At the same time, a few blocks away at the private schools nearby, there are students learning and receiving help that will benefit their futures. The idea is that regardless of where you’re from, you’ll learn things differently from other people. There are people that can receive more help and guidance with the reason being they were born into the right family at the right time of life. 

There are many ways of finding solutions in urban areas like this to get children to attend schools and gain a sufficient education, but it would need to be a whole debacle that would entail many different sides of people joining together to help our future youth. The ideas that I feel make the most sense are to have safer routes to school so kids feel comfortable, free lunches for the children so students would have the motivation to go to school, and to find and hire a team of nurturing teachers that give good quality learning in these dangerous areas; many teachers in that area do not care for their students. More solutions that would aid in attacking the root of the problem would be to be vigilant of children who may be victims of malicious parenting, and help to get these children away from their home abuse.

Also, having the cities be more aware of their gang violence and rising up to combat it could make a drastic change not just for the young students, but for everyone. The whole idea in itself can not be possible because of how many of these cities have been living with these problems for years. The idea can be tragic, but many people are able to succeed in this world. I truly believe everyone can and is capable of doing so. The thing that becomes conflicting is: if everyone could achieve these goals, even if they had obstacles like these, why can’t everyone succeed? I believe many people would not gain the same knowledge, therefore everyone would not gain the same standard of education making it much harder to succeed. 

References

Do poor housing conditions affect educational attainment? : An analysis of the impact of poor housing conditions on educational achievement, a study based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (n.d.). https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/553803 

Marrone, C., & Bullimore, M. A. (n.d.). A Case Study of Secondary School Leaders’ Perceptions of Attendance Policies and Procedures Used to Increase Attendance. https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/66143 

Nieuwenhuis, J., Kleinepier, T., & van Ham, M. (2021, May). The role of exposure to neighborhood and school poverty in understanding educational attainment. Journal of youth and adolescence. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8043918/#:~:text=The%20results%20indicate%20that%20enduring,stronger%20impact%20than%20later%20exposure 

THE THIRD REFERENCE, REVISED TO HIDE THE URL:

Nieuwenhuis, J., Kleinepier, T., & van Ham, M. (2021, May). The role of exposure to neighborhood and school poverty in understanding educational attainment. Journal of youth and adolescence.