Growing up in an affluent society has led me to live life floating in a bubble, which is frankly the worst way to go and experience the world. Like so many of the people that surround me, I was never aware of the power of privilege and how it has shaped me as an individual. It was not until I started tutoring at a local elementary school on the outskirts of my college town when I was realized how different my childhood was from the kids who attended this school.
Tutoring kids who come from low-income families is an uphill battle, full of challenges that you would never expect to encounter, but it is one of the most empowering things I have done thus far with my life. The children who attend the program I tutor with are the ones who consistently rank the lowest on standardized examinations and learn at a slower rate than the rest of their class.
They are the kids who come from families that make up the minority population of their town and who often are uncomfortable with speaking in English because it is their second language. They are still ignorant to the hardships their parents must have faced to provide them with necessities that I often take for granted, like food and a safe place to live, but at the same time, they are not sheltered from the difficulty of growing up without a sense of stability.
Like most kids their age, they are unaware of how the education they are receiving will benefit them in the long run and what we as tutors are trying to do for their future. They will still complain about doing their homework assignments and try to get out of them. While they may act like they don't explicitly appreciate what you are doing for them, weeks of working with the students has shown me that they are grateful, even if they can't quite express it to you.
The greatest gift you can give a child is an education because it opens up the world to them. The power of knowledge is immeasurable and transformative, especially for a child who does not have easy access to a proper education. It is the sole thing that will give them the ability to not only improve their own lives, but also the lives of their families and the society around them.
