Because it is our economic system. And sometimes the people that most need to understand how capitalism works learn the least about it.

The children of the wealthy and even the middle class learn about capitalism at home, in ways large and small. The skills and tools of accumulating wealth are easy to pick up if you are surrounded by wealth. But our urban students often don’t get this understanding at home. They lack the role models that would teach them not only the importance of accumulating wealth but also the skills and tools required to accumulate wealth in our capitalist system.

Urban students are also unlikely to learn about capitalism in school. Many educators, particularly those drawn to working with disadvantaged students, have an underlying unease with capitalism, a concern that somehow capitalism is responsible for much of the misery and pain in our society. They can’t necessarily point to what would be better, but many of them do believe that capitalism is somehow inherently flawed and that what we really should be doing is giving kids the skills they need to change the system, not work within it.

We risk creating a self-fulfilling prophesy, if we don’t teach our urban youth the skills they need to participate and thrive in the economy we have, in capitalism, then they are unlikely to succeed in our current economic system. We need to get beyond our unease with capitalism and this illusion that somehow we could have a different system without the flaws. We need to actively teach all of our children, and particularly our urban youth, how to be good young capitalists.