B-Break Poverty with Education
“In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program is a world-class education.”
-President Barack Obama
I worry a lot. I worry about how our current tumultuous situation will affect the following years. I worry right now, asking myself questions about how much I should let these worries affect my decision-making. I worry as a mother that I am failing at giving my daughter the best chance in life. I worry as an immigrant who grew up in one of the most dangerous and poverty-stricken parts of Manila, Philippines. I worry about the place where I am creating a home for my family.
My worries, though irrational at times, are part of the reason I restarted my educational journey in my late 20s, after having my first child, in a foreign country. I am passionate about learning. When I was a kid, my parents would always remind me to prioritize my education, because it is something that no one can take away from me. It will stay with me. It is mine. I cannot recall for sure when it became clear to me that education can be a ticket out of poverty or the moment I really understood the reason behind the pressure imposed by my parents to do well in school. My parents were probably worried that I would not get out of the poverty I was born into.
I have met talented and successful people who never went to school, and at the same time, I have met people with college diplomas who could have made better life decisions. I believe that providing every individual with an opportunity to pursue higher education can make a difference. While I know that every individual learns differently — meaning some thrive really well under our current education system, and some struggle with it — if we give every individual a chance to realize what they are passionate about, it will inspire them to better their outlook. Some people say that society provides ample opportunities for everyone, and it is up to the individual to utilize them or not. The fault in this narrative is that every society is built differently. The people have to acknowledge the fact that how much a society can support its population is dependent on how productive the population is. Following this, a family that is already financially limited does not have the means to integrate themselves into a society that is above their station, nor do they have the means to afford to invest in opportunities that can help their children have a better start in life.
Intergenerational poverty has been a problem for decades. If parents suffer from considerable socio-economic impediments, the likelihood that their children will be poor as well is very high (Durlauf). The effects of poverty extend to a child’s development, beginning at the earliest years of their life. A family in poverty can rarely support their children to go to school when they get to that age. A child living in poverty, does not show the same readiness to learn as those who belong to a family of higher socioeconomic status (Durlauf). In this case, even when education is available, the child cannot maximize its impact and profit from it. Sen Amartya is a Nobel Prize-winning Economist and Philosopher who worked and taught in the US and the UK. He focused on the ability of each individual to pursue a life that is meaningful to them in his poverty research. Sen believed that poverty is the byproduct of the individual’s capabilities being hindered by their life circumstances. “Unfreedoms” is the term Sen used, which refers to how oppression, exclusion, deprivation, and destitution hinder the poor from getting assistance with their basic needs (Odekon). Unemployment, poor sanitation, lack of health care, poor public facilities, lack of security, corruption, lack of shelter, and lack of education are a few forms of unfreedoms. This is not to say that it is solely the parent’s fault that a child is destined to live in poverty for the rest of their life. More often than not, the parent’s persistence is met with stacked barriers that limit their options to move forward. One conclusion of extensive research studies is that investing in early childhood programs is important in the highest magnitude. Studies support that these early-life interventions have a great impact on the child’s productivity and increase health and cognitive outcomes in disadvantaged children as they reach adulthood. When society supports its poor neighborhoods, it supports the future of our nation. Our society should be capable of offering assistance to these families when the parent’s resources fail. Being poor should not be punished, and instead, be aided. The people have to see beyond the life they live and see that they are victims of the society that seemed to have forgotten about them.
A poverty trap can be described as a child born in poverty remaining in poverty (Durlauf). In the US, ghettos and rural poverty are often categorized as poverty traps. There is a related concept, a “geographic poverty trap,” referring to the situation in which the social and economic characteristics of a place make it difficult for anyone from it to escape poverty. Some individuals can escape poverty, but the social group as a whole may be trapped and persist in keeping the next generation trapped. Situated in an intergenerational context, children who were born and raised in disadvantaged communities may potentially have lower academic and professional motivations, both because of negative peer influence and lack of positive community role models. A country has an existing poverty trap if a substantial section of its population lives in poverty, and if that poverty makes it resistant to positive changes. Inequality is one of the common problems that propagates poverty traps. Inequality hurts the entire nation, not just those who are disadvantaged by it. In 2014 the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a collective of the world’s 35 wealthiest countries including the United States, found that rising inequality in the United States from 1990 to 2010 knocked about five percentage points off of the cumulative GDP per capita over that period (Ingraham). The OECD concluded that “The main mechanism through which inequality affects growth is by undermining education opportunities for children from poor socio-economic backgrounds, lowering social mobility and hampering skills development.” Children belonging to the bottom 40 percent of households are missing out on expensive educational opportunities (Durlauf). These children then turn into less productive employees, which means lower salaries, resulting in lower overall economic participation. The term “human capital” refers to the impact of the quality education received by a person, and how it translates to the person’s economic productivity (Foucade). If each individual has the potential to contribute their human capital toward a nation’s success, why doesn’t the nation ensure that this capital is fully realized?
There seems to be an ongoing pattern here — the importance of education. I believe that when we give each other a fair chance to support our aspirations for a better future, it can happen. Being born poor should not dictate a person’s destiny. Everyone deserves to belong in a society that conspires to make them prosper. I wish for a society that lets a child dream and conspires to make it happen. I wish for a society that can assure worrying parents that this society is built to nurture their children. I wish for a society where each individual’s well-being is put first and not affected by another person’s greed. I wish.
Here are a few songs resonating with the message I am trying to convey. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did in learning about them!
This song is from someone who has had enough of being victimized by the society, and being punished for being born into poverty. It is about doing all it takes to get out of the depressing pit that is poverty. I feel and understand the angst behind the song. It was a song about making it to the top after overcoming many hardships along the way.
I chose this song because it shares the same worries I have. The song exhibits the same empathy I feel, and the same rhetorical questions I’ve been asking myself. I am trying to be mindful of the steps I take to somehow contribute something good to the future that is awaiting my kid. Sometimes it feels defeating that I cannot make an impact that is big enough to help more people in need. I find myself wondering all the time who else is thinking about it.
I thought this song was interesting, that it was about a third person, Mr. Wendal, that opened this whole awareness that makes us look at how we are living a bit deeper. Here is what the lead singer of Arrested Development has got to say about the song:
The song is not based on a person named Mr. Wendal at all, but it is based on some experiences that I have had in Atlanta, which is where I live, and sung to the homeless people that I had become friends with here, and just their way of looking at it. Some of them were more like hobos where they purposely were wanting to be homeless, they didn’t want to play to the way society was going, and they just decided to go off another beaten path. Others were hungry, had a run of bad luck, and just couldn’t survive with the competition of the real world. So they were out there. One of the people that I look to the most as the real Mr. Wendal, to me, died the year that that song came out. So he never got to hear the song and the tribute to him. We gave half of the proceeds of that song to the National Coalition For the Homeless in the United States, because of how closely all of us felt to the cause of the homeless, and the fact that everybody, whether they’re homeless or not, there’s some times in all of our lives when we need some help, we need a boost. (Songfacts)
When I was reading about how this song was received by the audience, there were differences in interpretation, which is always expected. The one that is similar to how I interpreted this song is the one that noticed how it talks about the gap between the upper and lower classes of society. The upper class, at least some of them, look down upon the lower class as if it was their own doing that put them in their unfortunate situation. The message here is coming from the lower class, that their minds, their intellects, that is their greatest weapon. It goes together with the message I am sending.
This song by Run DMC was a hit. The beat is pretty fun to dance to and the delivery is awesome. Run DMC here talked about how you owe it to yourself to do something that will improve your life, and one of them is to get educated. There is a sadness to it in the “it’s just the way it is” tone, that we cannot just wallow about being poor, or cry about not being qualified for high-paying jobs due to lacking education. You gotta do something, because that’s just the way it is!
In this song, LL Cool J talked about how getting a college degree could change someone’s life for the better. There is also the message that people have biases in such a way that we tend to associate with people who are more successful, leaving the unsuccessful ones behind. Kind of like the message of Run DMC, yes, it sucks, but you have to do something about it that is productive.
This song does the talking on its own, it does not even need an introduction. The release of this song was monumental. The message Duke Bootee and Melle Mel incorporated in this song was felt by so many people who are struggling with the disparities, the inequalities, and the discrimination that the underprivileged are subjected to. People just want better lives, they want no harm, they just want to have food on the table, a roof over their heads, and a society that welcomes them. Sometimes even with education, when times are rough, the struggle can feel undefeatable.
This hauntingly beautiful song by Stevie Wonder reminded me so much of Tondo, Manila when I was growing up. I grew up in the slums — there was garbage everywhere, drug addiction was rampant, and there were no safe places for children to play. I remember playing hide and seek with my friends; having all the rusted jeepneys parked everywhere was a big advantage, because they make great hiding spots. This song reminded me of the challenges I overcame to get here.
This song talks about the history of racial economic oppression. It is why BB Kings sings the blues, he’s seen it, he’s lived it, and it’s lingering. I kind of have the same sentiment, because for as long as I can remember, all my history teachers labeled the Philippines a developing country. Being a kid, it was kind of inspiring that the Philippines, my country, was considered developing, and I got to witness it! The joke is on me. Decades later, my home is still developing, still poor, and people are still hurting.
This song talks about how the system is not on the side of impoverished people. Just like what I discovered researching poverty and its association with education. It is a very depressing cycle — the poverty trap. Impoverished people do not have much assistance, and do not have any residual physical and mental resources to invest in their future. They are barely making it every day — tomorrow’s problem is too much to account for today.
Going into this research, I had some idea of what materials I would be exposed to. I am no stranger to poverty, the poverty trap, and its repercussions; I lived it. As I am reaching the end of this work, I am occupied with conflicting emotions. I am feeling proud about where I am in my life right now. I definitely did not understand why things had to get really bad while I was living through them, but those challenges I had to experience, struggle with, and overcome, humbled me. I am also proud of myself for staying kind and gentle after all of it — that the hoops I had to jump over did not callous my sense of compassion. Here’s the conflict — I feel guilty. There is guilt in knowing that not everyone living in poverty will make it out as I did. There is also sadness in knowing that poverty still exists and that we have no one-stop-shop remedy for it. The sadness I feel is that of a mother and an aspiring educator. I dream of becoming an effective educator — I dream of becoming one of the many educators we have today who are the reason for so much of our successes. I know that education is one of the keys to succeeding in life, for many of us. Knowledge is power, some say, and I believe it. If I were, for some reason, end up with bountiful financial resources, I would make teaching appealing to those whose passion is like mine. I wish to provide educators with all the resources they need to empower them to implement the creativity they have, to become the educator they’d dreamt they would be. I have always believed, and still do, that every individual we help to get an education benefits our society as a whole. Education is how we grow to care for each other; education is how we effectively work together in making our world a better place.
- Durlauf, Steven N., and Irina Shaorshadze. “Poverty Traps.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty, edited by Mehmet Odekon, 2nd ed., vol. 3, SAGE Reference, 2015, pp. 1275–1279. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX6279800678/GVRL?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=c4d675c1. Accessed 30 Sept. 2022.
- “Education, Role in U.S. Economic Growth.” Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, edited by Thomas Riggs, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2015, pp. 364–367. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3611000267/BIC?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=f6d41895. Accessed 30 Sept. 2022.
- Foucade, Althea La, and Charmaine Metivier. “Income Poverty.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty, edited by Mehmet Odekon, 2nd ed., vol. 2, SAGE Reference, 2015, pp. 788–790. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX6279800419/GVRL?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=35507972. Accessed 1 Oct. 2022.
- “Income Distribution.” Current Issues: Macmillian Social Science Library, Macmillan Reference USA, 2003. Gale In Context: Global Issues, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3011400134/GIC?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-GIC&xid=402a3c23. Accessed 26 Sept. 2022.
- Ingraham, Christopher. “How rising inequality hurts everyone, even the rich.” Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2018. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A526922671/BIC?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=8022e2fa. Accessed 1 Oct. 2022.
- Odekon, Mehmet. “Poverty Research.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty, edited by Mehmet Odekon, 2nd ed., vol. 3, SAGE Reference, 2015, pp. 1269–1272. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX6279800676/GVRL?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=1c6f2b20. Accessed 1 Oct. 2022.
- Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Songfacts. “Speech of Arrested Development : Songwriter Interviews.” Songfacts.com, Songfacts, 2022, www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/speech-of-arrested-development.
