The other day, I've got from my headquarters an inspiring message that the central government this year set a challenge to help each dire-poor student with the tuition.
Teachers consider learning two languages to be too overwhelming for children from poor families, believing that the children are already burdened by their home situations.
Since children from poor families often are identified as at-risk for academic failure, teachers believe that advising families to speak English only is appropriate.
In the meantime, the ulcer-inducing, high blood pressure-causing worry and stress of imagining a future of poverty and homelessness will only ruin the time between now and then.
The family's increasing poverty forced Dickens out of school at age 12 to work in Warren's Blacking Warehouse, a shoe-polish factory, where the other working boys mocked him as "the young gentleman".