In To Kill a Mockingbird, what were three ways the education system limited Scout's learning?

It could be argued that one of the main problems with the school system that makes it difficult for the young narrator of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbirdto learn is the endemic poverty in Maycomb County, Alabama. Lee's fictional county in the Deep South of Depression-era America is desperately poor, and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch's new teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, is ill-prepared for the challenges such endemic poverty entails. As Scout suggests early...

It could be argued that one of the main problems with the school system that makes it difficult for the young narrator of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird to learn is the endemic poverty in Maycomb County, Alabama. Lee's fictional county in the Deep South of Depression-era America is desperately poor, and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch's new teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, is ill-prepared for the challenges such endemic poverty entails. As Scout suggests early in Chapter 2 regarding her fresh-out-of-college teacher's efforts at enlightening her students by reading to them,

"Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature."

Lee's town lacks the resources to provide a quality education. This problem is compounded by Miss Caroline's inexperience as a teacher. She is not only unprepared for the challenges posed by the meager resources allocated to this school, but she is equally unprepared for the effects of endemic poverty on some students' families commitment to education. The principal example of this is the Ewell family. Burris Ewell is in Scout's class and rejects Miss Caroline's efforts at assimilating him into the classroom's structure and curriculum. While the most extreme case of poverty challenging the educational process, Burris is not the only such case for which the young teacher is ill-prepared. Walter Cunningham's lack of proper clothing also puzzles Miss Caroline, whose more upper-class background apparently insulated her from the characteristics of this level of poverty, evident when she is frightened by a mouse that runs across the classroom floor.

Another obstacle to Scout's learning, discussed early in Chapter 4, is the State of Alabama's "fruitless efforts" at teaching "Group Dynamics." Scout's brother Jem had earlier warned his younger sister that the Dewey Decimal System was being introduced into the school system and Scout later complains that she had "no chance to compare it to other teaching techniques," a considerable factor for a child already admonished by her teacher for learning to read ahead of the system (courtesy of Atticus's attention to his children's education). Scout's discussion of the school system's shortcomings focus greatly on her teacher's inability to accept that a student has already learned to read through an ad hoc process involving her natural curiosity and her father's educated background.

In conclusion, one could suggest that three obstacles within the school system to Scout's ability to learn are the socioeconomic status of the community, the new and narrow-minded teacher's lack of preparation and experience, and the school system's adoption of a new program (Group Dynamics and the Dewey Decimal System) that is very different from what came before.