December 9, 2005

  • COMMUNICATION 101


    “THE FUNCTIONAL ILLITERATE”


     


     


                    Research results reported in 1993 by the U.S. Department of Education categorized between 40 and 44 million American adults as “functionally illiterate.”  The Department’s National Adult Literacy Survey (ALS) evaluated the skills of adults in three areas: prose, document and quantitative proficiency.  The survey also concluded that 50 million American adults, though more varied in skill than those classified as “functionally illiterate,” were getting along with a “repertoire [that] was still quite limited.”  Alarming numbers for a ‘first world nation’ (loosely used), no doubt.


                    Understanding the implications of illiteracy requires more than alarming statistics, however, and a keen sense of what it means to justify a class structure long since denied by the minor majority hurts none either.   Furthermore, if 23 percent of the country’s adult population does in fact function as illiterate, shouldn’t there be a simpler way to do things?  Yes.  


                    Take a moment and imagine waiting in a line at the local Department of Motor Vehicles that doesn’t require a fold out chair.  Or perhaps fiscally finalizing federal financial forms a preschooler could handle.  Better still, imagine matron medicare quietly knitting a grandchild’s sweater while secure in her paltry prescription plan.  No, wait.  Imagine an election, free of prejudice and vice, where


    poor, black Floridians are not only allowed, by law I might add, to vote as they please, but are encouraged to do so...without fear of failure (or reprisal).  Restructuring our governmental agencies dedicated in service to the Republic in order to make their required releases (informed consent?) more user friendly would not only make moot these staggering statistics, but would in effect eliminate the need to define a difference between the functionally illiterate and the functioning illiterate. 


                    But perhaps the question that must be asked is this: Why is there a literacy problem in America at all?  It has been said that we are, after all, “the most affluent and technologically advanced of all the industrial nations on earth.  We have “free” compulsory education for all (more like most), a network of state-owned and-operated teachers’ colleges (poor enrollment and outrageous tuition keep many hidden from view), strict teacher certification requirements (pay the man!), and more money and resources dedicated to educating our children than any other nation on earth.” To answer this question would require more time than I have, but to at least think on it I propose we take into consideration Robert W. Sweet, Jr.’s response.  The co-founder and former president of The National Right to Read Foundation stated that “if we are to seriously reverse the increasing number of illiterate adults in America and prevent the problem of illiteracy, we must swallow the medicine, as quickly as possible, and reject the instructional methods that have resulted in the widespread illiteracy [the U.S. Department of Education says] we have today.”      


                    But how to reject the instructional methods in place that Mr. Sweet claims to be the source of illiteracy in this country?  Restructuring our public school system would mean an even greater disadvantage to those already in need of assistance because of the nature of those in power, and their “prime directive.”  And while I am in certain favor of educational reform, shifting things around in the American educational system too much would undoubetdly lead to curricular cancellations, redistricting, budgeting concerns and perhaps even more severe segregation.  To spell it out, rejection of conventional teaching methods would not only fail America’s future adults, but it would require an undertaking of proportion that no functioning illiterate in our democratic degree could possibly perform.


                    I propose there is little difference between those who say they are literate and those whom they say are not.  The Department of Education’s numbers only serve to prove.  And while I do believe that illiteracy, in the purest, philosophical sense, is a problem, I have to ask myself what literacy is and then follow with an examination of how it differs from orality (illiteracy?).  The division and interplay between oral and literate media in historical and cross-cultural perspectives requires a focus on understanding the social, cultural and religious implications of different technologies for preserving and transmitting images and ideas via speech, writing, print, photographic, electronic and digital media.  We must develop a theoretical framework and methodology for understanding different media in terms of the way our brains process that which is placed before our eyes and, even more so, the way we are perceived while doing so.  Making things easier to understand for those so-called illiterate millions would not only clarify the caste, but it would ensure that those who lack representation have their own opinion on exactly how illiterate they are.  G. K. Chesterton said it best: “The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.”  Put that in your book and read it.