You wish they knew but they don't. The kids, especially the poor ones, want worksheets, not problems. They want to pass but not learn. They want a degree without the competence. They want a job without possibility of advancement and if you don't provide that they resent you because you are in the way.
No, they want out, for both right and wrong reasons, or they want school as a refuge from an even worse home situation, or they want and seek out problems beyond the worksheets, and learn how to extract value from a flawed system. Or...well, lots of other things, kids, even poor ones, not being homogenous, but “thet want worksheets, not problems” is pretty rare. Wanting to pass but not learn is maybe sometimes an epiphenomenon of other motivations (school as refuge plus adverse consequences at both school and home for not passing, for instance.)
> They want a job without possibility of advancement
No one specifically wants wants that, though many see “possibility of advancement” as illusionary for people of their background.
Both as a student myself and later as a long-term sub in a high school for a while in a poor district, I met lots of students who rejected whatever you might want to (rightly or wrongly) characterize as “the culture”, including many who adapted to what they saw as the incentives in the system while still rejecting the culture and attitudes they perceived as setting those incentives.
The only encultured attitude I see here is the modern western delusion that the average child (or person) intrinsically wants to make the substantial, multi year effort required to learn complex subjects.
The vast majority of people do not enjoy learning. No one wants to spend their time on math problems (outside of a tiny minority).
This is also tied to the nonsensical idea that we are all equally capable of everything; the ability to learn (both in general and by specific subject) is randomly distributed and probably normally so like many biological processes. That itself ensures that given equal curiosity, not all children will make the varied effort required to learn.