*squee* Was catching up on my bestwishesfromnl videos, and I saw this one with sanne, and she was talking about schipol airport! And I transited in schipol airport when my family went to switzerland !! And um I remember that there were a lot of gift shops selling clogs and pretty china windmills and "weed is legal" tshirts. And there were noodle shops! Because they didn't exactly have a lot of asian food in switzerland, so I got very excited.
(heh. this is bordering on pathetic lol)

Topic of the day! Illiteracy.

So I was watching a show on bbc entertainment, and there was this prison inmate who couldn't read. The prison had an adult literacy programme, and his friend had progressed to reading newspapers.
Back to the point. As I was watching this, I could not believe that someone could live so long without being able to read! Not in a discriminatory you-are-stupid way but in a genuinely shocked way. I mean this guy was in his thirties, and he could have spent 25 or so years of his life not being able to enter the wonderful world of books! I've heard about adult literacy classes, but I never thought about illiteracy in such a personal manner before. I never realised that it meant not being able to read not only books, but signs, menus, brochures, advertisements--- things we usually encounter and take for granted in our everyday lives.

And then I didn't know how I could live without reading. I wouldn't have found out about nerdfighting, for one. I wouldn't have had my 10 year obsession with harry potter. I wouldn't even be able to experience all of the amazing books I have read since I was about three or so, that have influenced me so much as a person. Things like the Chronicles of Narnia, Roald Dahl, His Dark Materials, Nina Bawden, Julia Alvarez, Madeline L'engle... There are so many things that I would have missed out on if I was illiterate for all these years! And for someone to be illiterate for 25 years is unimaginable for me, because I know that I'm going to read so much more in the next 7 years of my life-- things by more influential and experienced authors. For someone to miss out on all this is unfathomable.

Additionally, since reading is such a big part of our lives, someone who was illiterate would be severely handicapped. He would not be able to fill in forms to lease a flat, get married, apply for a job, or even apply for identification papers. Most importantly, he wouldn't be able to sign up for welfare or cash his cheques on his own. He would need someone to read his divorce rights or rights as a citizen, if he ever needed to go to court. A illiterate person then is dependent on those who can read, and the self-consciousness of this being dependant would have to affect their emotional self in some way.

To be honest, governments do not exactly want to advertise their adult illiteracy rates, so this would be a hard problem to tackle. Sometimes, it is also hard to justify the time and money spent on educating these people, because they aren't going to be working for long due to their age, and the money would be better spent on childhood education. In my community, those illiterate are usually senior citizens, who were too poor to go to school when they were little. This number is dwindling, so authorities do not see a pressing need for adult literacy programmes. Usually it would be a Voluntary Welfare Organisation who would initiate a programme like this, but the public would be reluctant to donate if the cases of illiteracy were uncommon, and the rationale for education weak.

What do you think about adult literacy? Do you think it is necessary when these people have been able to survive in modern society all this while?