Or simply admit we're hopelessly outmoded and outnumbered?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502897.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502897.html
Shall We Rise to Combat Illiteracy?
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Maybe if the stupid media would stop trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy by coming out with one of these stories every week, it wouldn't be such an inevitability.
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It was a waiting room in juvenile court, not a crowded library, bookstore or commuter train.
It sounds like a problem there in the court waiting room - but like the Post writer, folks should bring their own.
We are neither outnumbered nor outmoded. We are the literate class - you know, the one that rules, that makes change, that dictates what happens. We can put reading materials in juvenile court waiting rooms - but I'll bet they will not survive an evening of the rage and defiance that goes on there.
We can fight for literacy - as many of us do - in the schools and through adult literacy programs.
The desperate, irritating and desparing souls in a juvenile court waiting room is no more a cross section of the reading public than a Washington Post reporter with a current best-seller is respresentative of that same reading public.
When all the bookstores, libraries and schools disappear and reading becomes - for whatever reason - an archaic or forbidden or just outdated activity, then maybe I'll think we are outnumbered.
Good article - thanks for posting it! It tells me more about the reporter than the story...
It sounds like a problem there in the court waiting room - but like the Post writer, folks should bring their own.
We are neither outnumbered nor outmoded. We are the literate class - you know, the one that rules, that makes change, that dictates what happens. We can put reading materials in juvenile court waiting rooms - but I'll bet they will not survive an evening of the rage and defiance that goes on there.
We can fight for literacy - as many of us do - in the schools and through adult literacy programs.
The desperate, irritating and desparing souls in a juvenile court waiting room is no more a cross section of the reading public than a Washington Post reporter with a current best-seller is respresentative of that same reading public.
When all the bookstores, libraries and schools disappear and reading becomes - for whatever reason - an archaic or forbidden or just outdated activity, then maybe I'll think we are outnumbered.
Good article - thanks for posting it! It tells me more about the reporter than the story...
I believe Serbia made the greatest contribution towards combatting illiteracy a few decades ago. It changed the spelling of the language to phoenetic. America has gone a short way in that direction. They've pulled up their sox (we pull up our socks, if we do it at all). Just think how much more attractive reading would be if it was not necessary to go through a long an painful process of learning to spell. As writers we should understand this (even though the spell-check is only used by us for locating typos!).
A group of people waiting around in juvenile court have made choices over and over again in their lives not only not to "read" (which in itself is not an activity that somehow makes us "better" just by doing it), but not to THINK. PROPERLY. I'm sorry, but a few picture books for the kids is not going to pull them back from the brink of crime.
As for the comparison between the women who risk their lives to read in an opressive environment, and America... it is ALWAYS the case that freedoms are taken for granted wherever they are common. I don't see the author of this article trumpeting her ability to:
1) Choose her own line of work
2) Get her mail with an assurance of personal privacy
3) Have uncensored internet access
4) Get a response when she calls the police or 911
5) Have her trash picked up simply by putting it out on the curb
Okay, I could go on. The point is, there are thousands and thousands of freedoms we take for granted every day. Reading is just one among them. I am not going to feel condemned because I don't consciously remember each of them every single day.
I just count myself lucky to be living in a free country like America.
As for the comparison between the women who risk their lives to read in an opressive environment, and America... it is ALWAYS the case that freedoms are taken for granted wherever they are common. I don't see the author of this article trumpeting her ability to:
1) Choose her own line of work
2) Get her mail with an assurance of personal privacy
3) Have uncensored internet access
4) Get a response when she calls the police or 911
5) Have her trash picked up simply by putting it out on the curb
Okay, I could go on. The point is, there are thousands and thousands of freedoms we take for granted every day. Reading is just one among them. I am not going to feel condemned because I don't consciously remember each of them every single day.
I just count myself lucky to be living in a free country like America.
The reason spelling isn't phonetic (completely) is because pronunciation changes over time. If we changed our spelling every time a pronunciation changed, we'd have to reprint all of our books every couple of decades. Not to mention the arguments about regional dialects. Shall we spell it "kreek" or "krik?"
Not to mention the fact that in a generation or two, we'd be so divorced from our own history that children wouldn't have a chance at reading, say, Shakespeare. It would literally be another language.
Oh, but as long as we're changing all the spelling rules, why don't we change the grammar, too? Chinese grammar is so much simpler, let's use that.
I don't call this combatting illiteracy, I consider it lowering the language to the lowest common denominator.
We'd all love to see everyone reading and enjoying the written word as we do. But we have to accept that literacy is largely based on socio-economic conditions - the "haves" read, the "have nots" don't (a generalization, but most often true). Like any artistic enjoyment, reading is best enjoyed when a person's basic needs are being met. The only way we'll "solve" the illiteracy problem is to ensure everyone has enough. It's not likely to happen.
I think the reporter made this part up. After all, todays kids are internet savvy and were raised with computers like previous generations were on radio and television. They have to be able to read to navigate cyberspace or they won't go anywhere.
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I don't think that will ever happen - I do think the language will change, and that literacy will drop on the whole, but I don't think people will stop reading.
I think how we read will change - there will always be bound books (if only for their wonderful smell), but they may become secondary to how we absorb a lot of our reading.
...and as to the article, a waiting room in juvenile court yes. That is the perfect place to curl up with my copy of Lord of the Rings, or have a drink while reading Neverwhere for the millionth time. For the love of cookies, it's not the kind of place where a love of literacy expresses itself!
I don't think the problem is as bad as the media makes it out to be.
The way we tell stories morphs. Look at the English literary tradition -- a thousand years ago it was all oral heroic poems, five hundred years ago it was religious-themed poetry written in latin or mystery plays performed at religious festivals. Then four hundred years ago, drama (in English!) reigned supreme. Two hundred years ago 'the novel' was seen as a corrupting influence on society. Today we have novels written on cellphones. Not my bag of donuts, but can we really say -- without an indepth analysis -- that one medium is superior to another?
Just an example: I read a ton when I was little -- my little brother plays playstation. What I think a lot of people don't give the gaming industry credit for is that games -- especially the RPG types -- are FANTASTIC storytelling media. I still think that the story behind Final Fantasy VII trumps most fantasy novels I've read.
This is not to say, of course, that I think libraries need to be converted into GameStops. I just think that people who've decided that books are the ONLY legitimate storytelling medium would be surprised if they actually took the time to play something like God of War, anything in the Final Fantasy Series, or even something like Oblivion. Heck, even WoW or Diablo has some pretty awesome moments.
I DO think that there's a problem with literacy in this country, and that parents/teachers/society needs to do a better job of emphasizing the importance of books to kids (which is why I heart Harry Potter, the Spiderwick Chronicles, etc). But I also think that the way we tell stories is going to be almost unrecognizable even 100 years from now. The WAY we tell stories is always going to change; THAT we tell stories won't ever.
Just my 2 cents.
The way we tell stories morphs. Look at the English literary tradition -- a thousand years ago it was all oral heroic poems, five hundred years ago it was religious-themed poetry written in latin or mystery plays performed at religious festivals. Then four hundred years ago, drama (in English!) reigned supreme. Two hundred years ago 'the novel' was seen as a corrupting influence on society. Today we have novels written on cellphones. Not my bag of donuts, but can we really say -- without an indepth analysis -- that one medium is superior to another?
Just an example: I read a ton when I was little -- my little brother plays playstation. What I think a lot of people don't give the gaming industry credit for is that games -- especially the RPG types -- are FANTASTIC storytelling media. I still think that the story behind Final Fantasy VII trumps most fantasy novels I've read.
This is not to say, of course, that I think libraries need to be converted into GameStops. I just think that people who've decided that books are the ONLY legitimate storytelling medium would be surprised if they actually took the time to play something like God of War, anything in the Final Fantasy Series, or even something like Oblivion. Heck, even WoW or Diablo has some pretty awesome moments.
I DO think that there's a problem with literacy in this country, and that parents/teachers/society needs to do a better job of emphasizing the importance of books to kids (which is why I heart Harry Potter, the Spiderwick Chronicles, etc). But I also think that the way we tell stories is going to be almost unrecognizable even 100 years from now. The WAY we tell stories is always going to change; THAT we tell stories won't ever.
Just my 2 cents.
The WAY we tell stories is always going to change; THAT we tell stories won't ever.
Just my 2 cents.
I think that sentence summed it up perfectly. I'm probably going to borrow it in the future.
I have something far more depressing:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZaN6Rx8X6_I
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZaN6Rx8X6_I
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
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http://www.proliteracy.org/
Formerly Literacy Volunteers of America. As an 18-year vol, I highly recommend it.
Formerly Literacy Volunteers of America. As an 18-year vol, I highly recommend it.
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