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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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As a school psychologist who completes academic assessments when identifying students with learning disabilities, COVID skyrocketed these numbers. There's just not a lot of motivation for kids anymore. The future is here and is making our population slowly illiterate.
That 'motivation' bit is so important. Former educator, currently still working in education, and I'm always wary of anything that makes a sweeping statement about 'the kids' not being 'all right'. But there are important, substantial contributors to undesirable outcomes that need to be acknowledged. Poverty being one, as well as the cycle of poverty and abuse which is deeply tied to white flight and de-industrialization (which we might collectively assign to the death of the American dream if we aren't too concerned with being precious about the the notion of patriotism).
Saying 'iPads' or 'TikTok' is the culprit doesn't help anyone. But iPads and TikTok are contributing factors because they both exacerbate the feeling that being entertained is enough to scrape one's way through life at the bottom of the barrel of expectations...as well as over-informing young people (and adults) that there is positively nothing left to look forward to. Industry is collapsing, housing and transportation are unaffordable, everything you once expected to purchase (and let's not get lost talking about purchasing as a metric for determining whether one is living a good life) has now moved to an ever-bleeding subscription model; inflation is compounded by corporate greed (and maybe we should talk about how the business incentive of endless growth contributes to every other problem) and corporate greed (something no one but the executives and their shareholders can influence, let alone control) is raping all the natural splendor, wealth and even health and stability of the very ground we walk on and air we breathe.
Why the fuck wouldn't some young person whose future job prospects (which were shit to begin with) are being devoured by AI, just turn toward the boundless font of readily accessible entertainment rather than going uphill toward seemingly fruitless self improvement? Why would they bother to rise to the level of literacy that allows them to appreciate a 19th century classic translated from the original Russian, or to parse the dense theming of some modern masterpiece? What's the reward, to someone whose entire life to this point has been flavored with instant gratification? To them it's all just 'content', and there's plenty of content more accessible than literature. Art may mean nothing for many reasons, not least of which is it can be falsified to a level of acceptability (AI songs by dead artists, for example).
It's a Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Brave New World living nightmare. But what is the alternative? What systems or entities or organizations are coming to save the day? There are none. This moment is a gruesome forbidden experiment: it is a post-Reaganite, neoliberal race to the cultural bottom, and the youngest generation are the lab rats.
An uneducated population can't educate itself.
The weird part is because a lot of people don't know what illiterate means...
They think these people can't read a fast food menu and words just look like chicken scratch.
The definition of illiterate is "unable to read or write."
That pretty much sounds like what you just said. What do you think it means?
There isn't much nuance in the definition.
Illiteracy in developed countries usually refers to functional illiteracy, not a complete unfamiliarity with letters and words.
Functional illiteracy means your ability to read and write is insufficient for you to function effectively in society. Functionally illiterate people may be able to read to some limited extent, but might read too poorly or slowly to process the types of written information they encounter on a day-to-day basis. These people would not be able to understand forms at the doctor's office, the instructions on their taxes, the terms of credit card agreements, the contents of important mail, and other material that might be important for them to understand.
Yeah, I was going to ask if that's the number for functional illeteracy. I know it's shockingly high in the US but it's not the same as being illetirate.
There are levels of illiteracy. Most everyone has some literacy but the classifications are not very detailed, so completely illiterate may include being able to read a menu and choosing simple items.
Following an instructions manual for assembling/mounting something is much harder. Because of how frowned upon illiteracy is people who are illiterate get good at hiding their illiteracy.