The term ILLITERATE carries a very negative connotation. I heard a talk show host on an Omaha radio staion last week talk about a woman whose child had committed a crime. He said that she was probably illiterate. He said this in a very derogatory manner.
If you were to ask anyone on the street to describe an ILLITERATE person, you'd probably get a profile of a homeless person or a single mom on welfare with a bunch of kids. We already know, from our own practices, that these stereotypes are rarely accurate.
JEFF STAFFORD, Executive director of the San Diego Literacy Council, wrote in his June newsletter, "The notion that illitereate people are poor and stupid couldn't be farther from the truth. Quite the contrary.most are quite smart.They have spent years learning how to cleverly cover up their secret. They have learned how to finely tune their other skills to make up for not being able to read or write. It is much like a blind person whose senses of smell, touch, and hearing become much more accurate to compensate for their loss of sight. Just think about how much intelligence it takes for someonw who is forty years old, employed, married, and a parent, to hide the fact that they can't read. Just think what it takes for them to blend in so well in society."
28 years ago, in 1966, the Federal government created the Adult Basic Education Act in an attempt to thwart the rising tide of illiteracy in the United States. The emphasis then was on the attainment of basic skills for high school equivalency completion. In 1978, amendments added, as the goal of the program, for all adults to acquire the basic skills necessary to function in society.
Ammendments in 1988 required states to:
1991 came around and President Bush signed the National Literacy Act of 1991, intended to be a significant step toward implementing the America 2000 strategy and attaining the National Education Goal of adult literacy and lifelong learning.
The definition of Literacy became "an individual's ability to read, write and speak in English, and to compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one's goals, and develop one's knowledge and potential."
Let's look once again at the 1978 goal of the program, "for all adults to acquire the basic skills necessary to function in society." This is consistent with the 1991 amendment, and highlights the very difficulties which we are dealing with today. Requirements to function effectively in society are evolving at a rapid pace.
In 1991, the estimated number of Illiterate people in the United States was 23 million. We saw the figure 23 million on all of the materials having to do with literacy. But this figure was based on a study done in the 70s whose percentages were applied to updated census figures as the years went by. Figures were actually very inconsistant, 23 million was all we had to go by, and the definition of Literacy continued to evolve.
In September of 1993, the results of the National Adult Literacy Survey were released. Known as NALS, this research has resulted in debate about the profile of Literacy nationwide. The definition of Literacy measured by NALS consists of three scales: PROSE, DOCUMENT, AND QUANTITATIVE. Each of these scales considers levels of ability in terms of tasks, and each task is assigned a score. The higher the score, the greater the complexity of the task within the scale. For example: A Level One Prose task involves locating one piece of information in a sports article. Level Three, by comparison, requires one to read a news article and identify a sentence that provides intepretation of a situation. In contrast, Level 5, the highest level of Literacy in the Prose scale, requires one to perform tasks such as summarize two ways lawyers may challenge prospective jurors.
In the Document scale, a Level One task involves being able to sign your name or being able to enter background information on an application for a social security card. Level Three involves being able to use a bus schedule. Level Five involves mastery of tasks like using a table depicting information about parental involvement in a school survey to write a paragraph summarizing the extent to which parents and teachers agree.
The Quantitative scale ranges from Level One - totaling a bank deposit entry, to Level Four - using information stated in a news article to calculate the amount of money that should go to raising a child, to Level Five - determining the total cost of carpet to cover a room, using a calculator.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with these scales, and as you can see, the Levels represent a range of ability, which indicate a Level of Literacy.
No longer an ability to have or have not, Literacy is now measured on multiple levels in multiple areas. Literacy has become CONTENT SPECIFIC.
For example:
I worked for two years as a computer sales consultant. A good part of my job was to teach highly literate professionals how to speak and understand the language of computers. I worked with doctors and educators; CEOs and professors. Highly literate - awesome in some instances - but moving into the new technology required mastering a new language with new meanings. They were Illiterate within that context. Some even said so themselves. Other examples of CONTENT SPECIFIC Literacy are these pages from some books which I have at home:
Literacy is an evolving concept, developing even as society grows. Illiteracy is a matter of not yet attaching the correct meaning to words and concepts. The term FUNCTIONAL ILLITERACY is being used now, a level of Literacy which is not sufficient to function effectively in the workplace and to be a proactive participant in society. GOAL 5 speaks to the need for people to be able to function effectively within the workplace and participate in the democratic process.
NALS has identified a population of approximately 90 million individuals in the United States, 90 million voters or potential voters, who may not be able to decipher the language of the politician, or read a ballot. Who among the representatives of the people, represent the illiterate population in their districts? If the low literacy constituant was considered with equal representation within the levels of government, the 2-year welfare-to-work measure never would have seen the light of day, and adult basic education programs would not be struggling for funds. These people must have the skills to participate in the process.that affects their lives.
There have been thousands of studies this century trying to clarify the nature of Knowledge and Intelligence, trying to perfect teaching methodology. 14 different cognitive learning theories have been identified, from which the concepts of higher order thinking and critical thinking have emerged. I'm not going to get into a lengthy discussion of cognitive theory here, but some are familiar. Piaget, for example, has been one of the most creative and profound thinkers of the century, providing a framework of stages of cognitive development for children to adulthood. In contrast, Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is gaining rapid awareness in the ABE classroom.
Gardner speaks of Seven areas in which people are intelligent -
Each of these Intelligences responds to special learning strategies and teaching methods. Gardner suggested that our society has focused so heavily on the first two, the verbal and logical math skills, as desirable for successful living in this country, that the other five Intelligences have been devalued. The educational ramifications of this are profound, especially in light of the realization that people learn differently from one another. Practitioners in literacy programs and adult basic education work with adults every day who have experienced failure as children in the schools. Could a misconception of the nature of intelligence have resulted in the huge percentage of the population affected by low literacy. FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I'm giving you these two examples of cognitive theory as a means to illustrate the range of thought that has emerged as a result of decades of cognitive research - research into the way the human mind works.
The queston remains, then, in light of all of this research, all of these thinkers, Why are nearly 90 million Americans deemed functionally illiterate? Why do 700,000 high school students drop out annually, and another 700,000 graduate with literacy skills below the functional level? There is no single reason, obviously, but consider, once again, the evolving definition of literacy within a changing world.
Technological requirements for employment are evolving faster than the planners of 30 years ago could imagine. The Washington Post published an article on May 15 of this year, describing Motorola's difficulties with finding enough qualified workers to fill positions in its new cellular phone manufacturing plants. Motorola is a prime example of the nature of change that we are seeing, and the nature of the changes that our students are facing.
I'd like to read to you a bit of the article:
Motorola spends $30 million in the past 5 years on Literacy Training alone.
It's easy to talk about THEM, those welfare moms, gang members, dropouts, homeless people, as ILLITERATES. Poor things, WE can help THEM. Get them their GEDs and get them off welfare, off the public dole. Let's talk about US. We all vote-right? We all understand everything we read -we understand the difference between Truth and the exaggerations of advertising. We all can figure price units in our heads in the grocery stores. Right? Wrong. WE are never unemployed. WE all have wonderful health insurance coverage. WE all have a strong personal financial base. What really is the difference between US the LITERATE and THEM the ILLITERATE.
Reflect again on the evolving nature of LITERACY. Just as our forefathers of not so very long ago changed from being Literate, able to write their names, to Illiterate, not knowing the new languages and new meanings, each of us, (if we are growing) faces the reality of becoming illiterate within a new or changing context. Literacy now, in the context of changing technology, in science, in the workplace, in medicine, with artificial intellingence, will probably mean illiteracy in 20 years. As the concept of CHANGING Literacy comes closer to us, affecting us, our children, our parents - then ILLITERACY will no longer be an US/THEM issue.
None of us in this room looks like the stereotypical illiterate person. We are all leaders in this field, or we wouldn't be here. Practitioners and supporters in the Literacy arena are leading the effort to explode the traditional paradigm that perpetuates MYTH that ILLITERACY is in someone else's home, and establish the NEW PARADIGM of the value of Lifelong Learning for all citizens. When our legislators understand that the value of the NEW PARADIGM strikes to the heart of their constituants, we may see LIFELONG LEARNING become a societal value, and Adult Basic Education a priority for state funding as well as Federal.
To grow and develop as adults in our technologically changing society and world means that we must become aware that our knowledge becomes outdated and must be updated or replaced with new information.
The challenge is clear. The AMERICA 2000 initiatives for creating a "nation of students" became the responsibility of adult educators. Matching training to needs, developing uniform standards, and identifying skills to carry the labor force will into the future are only some of the needs. The rationale expressed clearly in AMERICA 2000: "For those of us already out of school and in the workforce, we must keep learning if we are to live and work successfully in today's world."
Literacy is not just about getting a GED; it is also about making a life!
Workplace Literacy - Motorola story
Family Literacy - Teach the Mother, reach the child
Children from literacy rich environments approach schooling more reacy to make meaning from the reading they do