Learning and personal growth in To Kill a Mockingbird Conflict is an inevitable part of life. In many cases, these conflicts are between two individuals arguing about a specific topic. It is often difficult to declare a winner when both people believe their argument is the correct one. Scout and Jem learn the tools necessary to overcome conflict through personal experience and the experiences of the other characters in the novel. As a person ages, conflicts in life become a more regular and more real occurrence. Through experience, knowledge and courage any situation can be controlled and overcome, as seen in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. As life progresses, a child gains a great deal of experience through his own actions and those of others. With each new situation, this child is better able to navigate his way in life. Scout grows up in a small town in Alabama and is between two houses in her neighborhood: Mrs. Dubose's house (2 doors north) and Radley Place (3 doors south). She and her young playmates start out as blank slates, then act out the experiences of others to make up for the lack of their own. “He (Dill, an out-of-town friend) played the character parts I normally get: the ape in Tarzan, Mr. Crabtree in The Rover Boys, Mr. Damon in Tom Swift” (Lee 8). This game becomes the first sign in the novel that Scout is ready to enter the adult world. The Scout's first learning experience away from home is at school. “I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I illicitly wallowed in newspapers,…, reading was something that came to me” (Lee 17). She is an intelligent child and has no problems with school-related educational learning, but for the first time she experiences conflict due to differences among her classmates. As Scout grows, she becomes more curious. He even goes so far as to enter the world of blacks and go to church with Calpurnia. “The First Purchase African M.E. Church was located in the neighborhoods outside the southern limits of the city” (Lee 118). Calpurnia's church is very far from the original barriers of the neighborhood, but thanks to Scout's new experience, it will not contain the prejudices of many white citizens.