"you are illiterate because I'm going to expand the meaning of the word until it includes 99.9% of the population. I'm going to continue to assert that this is a legitimate definition of literacy by stating, without any evidence whatsoever, that this is how it was understood historically. I am not going to be specific about which time period. I will claim that people can no longer understand the words they're reading without saying why I think this, because I know that the literacy crisis meme has done the legwork for me, and the reader will approach my essay believing half-remembered tweets about college students struggling to read Bleak House. I will not at any point explain why reading Thucydides in Greek etc. is beneficial on a societal level. I will not talk about how, 'historically', only a small percentage of the population was able to read at all. Finally, I will continue to hand-wring about the current state of affairs, but without explaining why it's better to have a hyperliterate minority instead of a basically literate majority.'
Also everyone I went to school with would pass the 8th grade test (albiet not in the 8th grade), but the 1912 students would have failed my grade 8 (they weren't taught french, computer science, trig, chemistry, physics, geology, literature or social sciences). And that's fine: curriculums differ over time.
Your assessment is missing a lot of social realities of the time. Child labor laws were not enacted, poverty segregation, and sexism were still rampant. Institutions were educating for the elite and wealthy. As access increased, and diversity grew, education systems had to make it accessible and realistic for the average human being. We also have to mindful of the human being classic education was trying to produce. It was producing an elitist class dissociated from their human instincts and structured to hold up European culture as the civilizing force against an archaic and primitive humanity. This education produced the world we live in today, and clearly much was still missed.
The imperative of understanding the world we live in and its roots is hard placed on an education system. Because it's cerebral, it misses the embodied reality. We need a culturally literate society, but that cannot be mandated with culture. And the coercion, force, and brutality that classical education imposed on young children, does not build whole souls. Unfortunately, neither does modern education. Comparing one with other misses all the cultural advancements we've made, ignores the problems we have still not solved, and promotes eurocentrism, elitism, and intellectualism over a truly well society.
this is a strong counter. the requirements were high - that’s great, who was testing? oh, these rural alabaman kids had higher expectations- how many passed and who was testing? certainly not anyone beneath a particular economic status, i’m sure.
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
I find the odd bit about our educational system is how fundamentally arbitrary it is. You have to stifle thoughts left and right. You get a warning should you not stick to the preset answers at the preset times. It is upon facing these times that I haven’t the slightest idea if further education will follow the same pattern. Logically, it shouldn’t. Practically, I fear it may.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
This traces back to Horace Mann’s importation of Prussian educational practices, which mandated classical education for the elite and, yes, just enough reading and math to make good employees for the rest. And obedience. Always obedience.
Wow, some people really didn’t seem to like this… apperantly if *they* feel they are literate, it doesn’t matter that nearly half of Americans literally can’t read their children a bedtime story. The idea of snobbish modern superiority is so engrained in some, it lashes out at anything challenging it without prejudice.
I’m still reading the article but on of the striking things to me is how practical most of this is. “Use a map”, “spell words, and define English” “calculate what this would cost” “name government workers in your area”
The practical knowledge of the past has been replaced with abstracts. Humans are inherently lazy. When it is no longer required to stay warm, we forget how to build a fire. Which is fine… until the heat goes out.
Thank you for saying this! I have been trying to explain this to my husband and lacked the words. Perhaps because when it comes to trying to change the mind of someone you love does create some inevitable tension, I shall now share this post with him, however.
Great post! I definitely agree that literacy has become stagnant, but there are a few reasons for why that is in our modern society, such as groups of people choosing specialized work that doesn't typically lean into being literate beyond understanding instruction, as you mentioned. You also pointed out the responsibilty of literacy falls on the person, and I agree with that too. However, I disagree with the idea that having "background knowledge" is required to develop or have the cognitive ability to discern and interpret literary texts. While learning things about the past may unlock a certain literary heritage, it's not necessary. There's great literature being written today that may be easier for youth to digest first, especially literature that connects more to modern times or the future. Maybe today's literature can be a doorway for youth to read literature from the past without forcing it. Anyway, again, great post!
Yes. It is most easily seen in the depth of conversation that can be held. When schools became controlled by business the need to understand went out the window.
Not only do moderns not know the answers to the test, not only have they never heard of not just the authors of classical works but even what they wrote, they could not even identify the _value of knowing_. They would deny it outright.
Ignorance and crudity are “celebrated”, paraded publicly as badges of honor. Moral decay is a virtue. Ugliness is beauty.
Fixing this mess is a long-term project. An honest examination of the cause of social retrogression must be had first. But not even that reality is widely recognized.
It will be from the ashes that the phoenix arises.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
If you think it's important for people to know what "the scarlet letter" means then teach them that. But don't force them to read the whole bloody boring novel; that'll just teach even enthusiastic readers that "literature" is something to be avoided at all costs.
Tastes differ, it certainly wasn't as bad as what's being pushed now. Point being, we are losing a common set of ideas and references- in one generation.
Christ on a cracker, what a bunch of duplicitous legerdemain. First of all, conflating literacy with education is downright villainous. But the real topper was throwing in quotes from Aristotle and Aurelius et al that have LITERALLY nothing to do with education (or reading). Fucking hell, you arrogant prick
"you are illiterate because I'm going to expand the meaning of the word until it includes 99.9% of the population. I'm going to continue to assert that this is a legitimate definition of literacy by stating, without any evidence whatsoever, that this is how it was understood historically. I am not going to be specific about which time period. I will claim that people can no longer understand the words they're reading without saying why I think this, because I know that the literacy crisis meme has done the legwork for me, and the reader will approach my essay believing half-remembered tweets about college students struggling to read Bleak House. I will not at any point explain why reading Thucydides in Greek etc. is beneficial on a societal level. I will not talk about how, 'historically', only a small percentage of the population was able to read at all. Finally, I will continue to hand-wring about the current state of affairs, but without explaining why it's better to have a hyperliterate minority instead of a basically literate majority.'
Also everyone I went to school with would pass the 8th grade test (albiet not in the 8th grade), but the 1912 students would have failed my grade 8 (they weren't taught french, computer science, trig, chemistry, physics, geology, literature or social sciences). And that's fine: curriculums differ over time.
Ahhh yes finally an excellent comment
Your assessment is missing a lot of social realities of the time. Child labor laws were not enacted, poverty segregation, and sexism were still rampant. Institutions were educating for the elite and wealthy. As access increased, and diversity grew, education systems had to make it accessible and realistic for the average human being. We also have to mindful of the human being classic education was trying to produce. It was producing an elitist class dissociated from their human instincts and structured to hold up European culture as the civilizing force against an archaic and primitive humanity. This education produced the world we live in today, and clearly much was still missed.
The imperative of understanding the world we live in and its roots is hard placed on an education system. Because it's cerebral, it misses the embodied reality. We need a culturally literate society, but that cannot be mandated with culture. And the coercion, force, and brutality that classical education imposed on young children, does not build whole souls. Unfortunately, neither does modern education. Comparing one with other misses all the cultural advancements we've made, ignores the problems we have still not solved, and promotes eurocentrism, elitism, and intellectualism over a truly well society.
this is a strong counter. the requirements were high - that’s great, who was testing? oh, these rural alabaman kids had higher expectations- how many passed and who was testing? certainly not anyone beneath a particular economic status, i’m sure.
Well said
Thank you for sharing.
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
Spot on, we spend more than ever on education with worse results.
I find the odd bit about our educational system is how fundamentally arbitrary it is. You have to stifle thoughts left and right. You get a warning should you not stick to the preset answers at the preset times. It is upon facing these times that I haven’t the slightest idea if further education will follow the same pattern. Logically, it shouldn’t. Practically, I fear it may.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
Consider, that you may attract the wrong teachers, because the salary is low?
Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
Good for you!
Thank you for a great article. I have said for years that putting your children in public school is child abuse. What is America going to do about it?
Thank you! We’re going to fix this.
This traces back to Horace Mann’s importation of Prussian educational practices, which mandated classical education for the elite and, yes, just enough reading and math to make good employees for the rest. And obedience. Always obedience.
Read! Read everything! When you can no longer see, get talking books from your library and listen!
Amen!
Wow, some people really didn’t seem to like this… apperantly if *they* feel they are literate, it doesn’t matter that nearly half of Americans literally can’t read their children a bedtime story. The idea of snobbish modern superiority is so engrained in some, it lashes out at anything challenging it without prejudice.
I’m still reading the article but on of the striking things to me is how practical most of this is. “Use a map”, “spell words, and define English” “calculate what this would cost” “name government workers in your area”
The practical knowledge of the past has been replaced with abstracts. Humans are inherently lazy. When it is no longer required to stay warm, we forget how to build a fire. Which is fine… until the heat goes out.
Thank you for saying this! I have been trying to explain this to my husband and lacked the words. Perhaps because when it comes to trying to change the mind of someone you love does create some inevitable tension, I shall now share this post with him, however.
I hope it helps!
Great post! I definitely agree that literacy has become stagnant, but there are a few reasons for why that is in our modern society, such as groups of people choosing specialized work that doesn't typically lean into being literate beyond understanding instruction, as you mentioned. You also pointed out the responsibilty of literacy falls on the person, and I agree with that too. However, I disagree with the idea that having "background knowledge" is required to develop or have the cognitive ability to discern and interpret literary texts. While learning things about the past may unlock a certain literary heritage, it's not necessary. There's great literature being written today that may be easier for youth to digest first, especially literature that connects more to modern times or the future. Maybe today's literature can be a doorway for youth to read literature from the past without forcing it. Anyway, again, great post!
Thank you!
Yes. It is most easily seen in the depth of conversation that can be held. When schools became controlled by business the need to understand went out the window.
Not only do moderns not know the answers to the test, not only have they never heard of not just the authors of classical works but even what they wrote, they could not even identify the _value of knowing_. They would deny it outright.
Ignorance and crudity are “celebrated”, paraded publicly as badges of honor. Moral decay is a virtue. Ugliness is beauty.
Fixing this mess is a long-term project. An honest examination of the cause of social retrogression must be had first. But not even that reality is widely recognized.
It will be from the ashes that the phoenix arises.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
We truly are diminished.
If you think it's important for people to know what "the scarlet letter" means then teach them that. But don't force them to read the whole bloody boring novel; that'll just teach even enthusiastic readers that "literature" is something to be avoided at all costs.
Tastes differ, it certainly wasn't as bad as what's being pushed now. Point being, we are losing a common set of ideas and references- in one generation.
Christ on a cracker, what a bunch of duplicitous legerdemain. First of all, conflating literacy with education is downright villainous. But the real topper was throwing in quotes from Aristotle and Aurelius et al that have LITERALLY nothing to do with education (or reading). Fucking hell, you arrogant prick