http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwghwsgZ5AY&feature=fvwrel
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm
With such startling statistics and a harrowing testimonial, where did the system go wrong? Off the top of my head I can pick out two possible reasons, correctional institutions and the inadequacy/unwillingness of teachers. I do not think that education is stressed in places like juvenile halls (I don't have firsthand experience) but I am sure that prisons and jails do not stress education (Don't get me wrong I still don't have firsthand experience). Because of this it is simple for people to get lost in the cracks. The evidence supports this, as the illiteracy rates of prisoners are shockingly high. Some point to this as proof that illiteracy is correlated to crime, which may be correct, or perhaps the prisoners in the survey were repeat offenders who spent much of their life in correctional facilities and never received a proper education. Another cause could be inadequate/unwilling teachers. I watched a clip from a speech last year where a grown man discovered he is dyslexic in his 30's. He graduated from high school by behaving so badly that the teachers passed him so they didn't have to deal with him another year. A similar situation happened in my high school. A student was held back for several years, I am not sure if he didn't understand the material or was lazy, but he was graduated simply for the fact that he was nearing 21 and the administrators didn't want him buying other students alcohol. To remedy the problem of adult literacy in the future we must educate all of the children, regardless of their capabilities or behavior. But how can we go about fixing the epidemic of adult illiteracy?
2 comments:
I feel that for every heart felt story of some kid who acted out because he was secretly ashamed at not being as smart as other kids, and it eventually caught up and made him or her illiterate, there are about 10 jackasses who truly don't care. I feel a lot has to do with factors that teachers can't control though, such as the persons family life. Some parents/people in general just don't put a stress, or care much for education, and some even outright despise it. Maybe the persons parent got made fun of at school for not being able to read or write well or do math. This then manifests into the student, whether they are smart or not, and will eventually catch up to them to the point where they fall so far behind they don't have a realistic chance to catch up.
As for the juvenile detention centers, I think a major issue with them is that they have so many problems to begin with such as keeping kids in line, and kids just trying to survive day to day that education must take to the backburner.
Kyle writes that "Some point to this as proof that illiteracy is correlated to crime, which may be correct, or perhaps the prisoners in the survey were repeat offenders who spent much of their life in correctional facilities and never received a proper education." Why would we correlate crime and literacy?
And why do we think of illiteracy as an "epidemic"? Is it really a disease? Is it really spreading? What are the implications of calling illiteracy an epidemic? What is the cure?
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