Education In To Kill A Mockingbird

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education.” -Martin Luther King, Jr. Not everyone during the Great Depression had a valuable education. White families were typically the ones who evoked an education. Blacks had a more difficult time being accepted to have a valuable education. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the Finches, Cunningham's, Ewells, and the Black community all live a different stance in education.

The Finches live on the highest caste in the community. Being rich, white, and having a favorable reputation. The Finch’s started school at the appropriate age and are moving through school at the appropriate rate. Jem and Scout go

Cunningham was a poor farmer and part of the mob that seeks to lynch Tom Robinson at the jail. They have their kids go to school, but they don’t have a bunch. His son, Walter Cunningham was a classmate of Scout’s but he has not passed first grade yet because he skips school every spring to help his father on the farm chop wood. Mr. Cunningham was really poor, but he worked firmly to keep his farm which was right outside of Maycomb. Like most farmers during the Great Depression, he owed oodles of money and paid it off by bringing any crops or plants he could spare from his farm and giving it to Atticus. One night the Finches invited Walter to dinner and he devoured it all and he drenched his food in syrup that was on the table. This shows how the Cunningham family is not always able to access their food. The kids will always be wondering where their next meal will be and when they will have it. The kids don’t always have their lunch with them, too. Instead of paying people back by the money they do it by giving materials they

The Ewells are immensely poor, so the city gives them special privileges that not everyone has. They are allowed to hunt wherever they like and whatever they please. Another interesting concept about the Ewell’s that is unlike any other family in Maycomb is they only go to school the first day, then they are marked absent the rest of the year. This keeps them out of trouble because they have no manners and are highly underprivileged. Calpurnia, the Finches caretaker lived in the black community just outside the town of Maycomb. Most African Americans do not get to have an education. They are not allowed to go to school and aren’t remarkably smart and can’t read. In their church, they do not have bulletins or a music program because they are not able to read it. Instead, one man would go up to the front of the church and sing a verse and the blacks would repeat it. All the blacks live in the Quarters. The black community can only acquire exceptional jobs from whites. Calpurnia is the Finch’s nanny and