Illiteracy

[Zee09]

Watching a movie now where a young lady
walks around with a bunch of books but it is revealed that she is illiterate.

My aunt passed away over 20 years ago but I remember her doing the same. Then I had no idea.

It's a bit depressing to think how isolated you are if you can not read or write.

 

[simple_gifts]

An interesting list is the countries that have 100% literacy; it will surprise most.

To quota a 1960s commercial "Reading is fundamental" (RIF)

 

[Passport1]

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

attribution--->

 

[BMW Dom]

Kind of off topic, but I hate that a capital "i" looks like a lower case "l"

I had a hard time reading the title at first because of that

 

[ron17571]

I had a friend in high school who could barely read. I remember wondering what he would end up doing for a living.

 

[Krieg]

Watching a movie now where a young lady
walks around with a bunch of books but it is revealed that she is illiterate.

My aunt passed away over 20 years ago but I remember her doing the same. Then I had no idea.

It's a bit depressing to think how isolated you are if you can not read or write.

Not to long ago, only priests were allowed to read & write. Knowledge is power!

 

[Zee09]

Kind of off topic, but I hate that a capital "i" looks like a lower case "l"

I had a hard time reading the title at first because of that

Agreed.
I don't like it either.
Thought the same when I typed it.

 

[Motu]

Watching a movie now where a young lady
walks around with a bunch of books but it is revealed that she is illiterate.

My aunt passed away over 20 years ago but I remember her doing the same. Then I had no idea.

It's a bit depressing to think how isolated you are if you can not read or write.

Dyslexics use a lot of tricks to disguise the fact they can't read. We have probably all met a dyslexic and never known they couldn't read, and in fact may have even helped them read something, without realizing you had helped someone with a disability.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Education is key. Education is exciting. Education is for life.
I am on an education project right now. I have grand nieces who need to go to college.
Workin' on it...

 

[javacontour]

I was listening to a local NPR program talking about literacy ENTERING Kindergarten. If parents don't read to kids prior to K, the kids often show up with vocabularies measured in 100s of words. Those who are read to by their parents typically have vocabularies of a few thousand words entering K.

All learning and thought is ultimately language based. Kids with a small vocabulary start off way behind when it comes to learning.

 

[Motu]

All learning and thought is ultimately language based.

If that were true, primitive man wouldn't have invented the wheel. Intelligence isn't language based.

 

[vavavroom]

Bob: Jimbo, what are you doing?
Jimbo: I'm writing a letter to Josephine.
Bob: But Jimbo, you can't write!
Jimbo: That's okay, Josephine can't read.

 

[JeffKeryk]

All learning and thought is ultimately language based. Kids with a small vocabulary start off way behind when it comes to learning.

I think is is more logic based; numeric based. But yes, we think in language because words allow us to assign names to objects; assign order.
And of course humans like base 10, for an obvious reason...

 

[Wolf359]

Bob: Jimbo, what are you doing?
Jimbo: I'm writing a letter to Josephine.
Bob: But Jimbo, you can't write!
Jimbo: That's okay, Josephine can't read.

I like those illiterate billboards. Those would be good next to those If you were homeless you'd be home now ads.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d4928d66b3afa38a847c5d60df1810f3

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url...ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCOjHiJPm3PICFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

 

[MrStamper]

I had a friend in high school who could barely read. I remember wondering what he would end up doing for a living.

Our HS valedictorian is a lowly teacher. My boss was an F student, rotted in detention as he was always getting into fights. He now owns an electric company. Guess who flies around in a Cirrus SR22? These days college is indoctrination. That's why I abandoned my History degree and entered the trades. Got tired of the propaganda. Much happier now.

 

[Anon9283]

Dyslexics use a lot of tricks to disguise the fact they can't read. We have probably all met a dyslexic and never known they couldn't read, and in fact may have even helped them read something, without realizing you had helped someone with a disability.

Let’s be clear people with dyslexia CAN read but they have trouble or take longer. But yes it is a disability like many others

 

[Motu]

That depends on their education. In my era dyslexia was unknown, kids with difficulty reading were just ignored and put in lower classes, they often missed years as they were so far behind. So yes, most can read, if they can take their time and use their own methods, but a lot, going to earlier eras, never learnt to read, left school early. My parents never went to highschool, they were working at 13 or earlier...yes they could read, but I bet some of their class mates never did.

Written language has only been used by the general populace for the last couple of hundred years, before that people could lead a life without having to read or write....but they could communicate by spoken language. Same with mathematics, it's only a recent thing for most people to use.

 

[Wolf359]

Our HS valedictorian is a lowly teacher. My boss was an F student, rotted in detention as he was always getting into fights. He now owns an electric company. Guess who flies around in a Cirrus SR22? These days college is indoctrination. That's why I abandoned my History degree and entered the trades. Got tired of the propaganda. Much happier now.

Don't take the exception for the norm. I think only about half the people who graduate got jobs in their field. When I was in IT, pretty much no one really had a degree in it and the ones that did knew the business side of it, but weren't good at the technical side of it.

 

[greenjp]

Our HS valedictorian is a lowly teacher. My boss was an F student, rotted in detention as he was always getting into fights. He now owns an electric company. Guess who flies around in a Cirrus SR22? These days college is indoctrination. That's why I abandoned my History degree and entered the trades. Got tired of the propaganda. Much happier now.

Nice anecdotes but the reality is a college education is highly correlated to greater lifetime earnings, and for a great many careers is a minimum requirement. Of course there are exceptions on both ends but on average it's indisputable.

I would never describe a teacher as "lowly", it's as noble a profession as there is. "Underpaid" or "underappreciated" maybe. And you're not getting a teaching job without a degree.

I'm not sure what kind of indoctrination I was exposed to in engineering school

jeff

 

[Wolf359]

Nice anecdotes but the reality is a college education is highly correlated to greater lifetime earnings, and for a great many careers is a minimum requirement. Of course there are exceptions on both ends but on average it's indisputable.

I would never describe a teacher as "lowly", it's as noble a profession as there is. "Underpaid" or "underappreciated" maybe. And you're not getting a teaching job without a degree.

I'm not sure what kind of indoctrination I was exposed to in engineering school

jeff

Yeah, it can go either way. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were both college dropouts. Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos are both college graduates.