"Helping others is not limited to providing food, shelter, and so forth, but includes relieving the basic causes of suffering and providing the basic causes of happiness. "
- Dali Lama
Reading... learning to read, being able to read, and reading to learn are essential life skills in our society.
Our children, and our society are suffering due to the effects of illiteracy. The ability to read provides a foundation for independence and confidence for young learners. They can explore their interests, master new concepts, and learn skills that will eventually lead them to the future they will pursue.
We have public schools that we entrust to educate our children. We have state departments of education we entrust to provide guidance and resources to our schools. We have state and federal funding to ensure our schools are able to provide appropriate education to our children. However, we are failing millions of children across this country (and world), we are not relieving the basic cause of so much suffering for our children and the adults this broken system has failed for generations. The ability to read affects our entire society from individuals to families to communities, from elementary to higher education systems, from our service workers to our top executives, our economy, our workforce, our justice system, the list is endless. The ripple effects of illiteracy and the damage it causes in each individual affects us all.
So why is our educational system not ensuring ALL STUDENTS LEARN TO READ?
Listen to Sold a Story @ https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ , Emily Hanford has provided a 6 episode podcast that shares the history of how we have arrived in this dilemma. Gaining this understanding of how we arrived here, also provides insight to how we can move forward.
The quote above from the Dali Lama, "Helping others is not limited to providing food, shelter, and so forth, but includes relieving the basic causes of suffering and providing the basic causes of happiness.” When we think about reading and we think about how a reader, as they grow and develop they gain independence, confidence, abilities, skills, and success, we can easily start to generalize how the not acquiring the skill of read could cause suffering and deny individuals the basic skills to achieve their own wellbeing and happiness.
I also find it powerful to look at the research that has been done where adults are taught to read and the changes that happen even later in life due to acquiring the skill to read. A study published in the UK showed when persons incarcerated were taught to read the rate of recidivism dropped from 55% to 5.9%... this is SIGNIFICANT! Think of the lives changed and the ripple effect of this one statistic… for the individuals that learned to read, for their families, for their children, for their communities, for their employers. Big picture, think of the cost savings of our tax dollars no longer needed at the same rate in the prison system and could be allocated to support our children, their families and our communities in other ways. Think of the increase in available workers, literate workers. Think of the effects on our economy with a more literate workforce, a community with confident, independent, and proud citizens.
I know, I know… “idealistic thoughts,” ”you can’t save the world,” “the problem is more complex than that.” Is it more complex, or could it be that simple? I have been thinking about reading and education of children for many years and I have yet to find a challenge our children, our families, our communities, and our society is facing that couldn’t be improved with our citizens being able to read. I am not saying we would experience a challenge-free life, but the effects and symptoms of the challenges we and our neighbors face could be improved with literacy.
So let's brainstorm the obvious areas we would see improvements; Education- graduation rates, level of education, trade schools, higher education; Health care - mental health, addiction, suicide; Justice system - school to prison pipeline, recidivism rates, mental health; Economy - labor shortage, skilled labor, sufficient wages, employment rate. We can go deeper into all of these areas and as we peel apart the issues involved we can see how if we improve literacy we can help on an individual as well as societal level and we all will benefit. If you're reading this you have overcome one of the most difficult challenges so many face in our society, and we must work together to ensure that others have the opportunity through their schools to learn to read. We must ensure that our teachers receive the training and the materials they need to support our learners.
Call to action:
In the comments share your thoughts on a challenge you see our children, families, or communities face. How could literacy improve the symptoms or effects of this challenge?
Comments