Enough preaching, put literacy into practice

Defects in the administration of public education described in Niki Taysom’s recent Spectrum are just the tip of an iceberg of fundamental corruption in American society.

Here’s a self-evident truth to view the area with: The average educational standard reached by a population is directly proportional to an average degree of prosperity and success at living enjoyed by that population. A productive or competent person — one who effectively applies/uses what’s learned and willingly uses literacy to continue to learn more — is the natural result of an effective public education.

This is because the pressure of life is forever unforgiving to incompetence, regardless of excuses and propaganda. By this measure — in consideration of our country’s current conditions — past and present school boards, school administrators, educators, elected officials at all levels and all the adults who helped put them in power are now collectively ineffective failures.

Let’s look at some supporting reality.

Per the U.S. Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, American adult literacy dropped or was flat across every level of education, from high school dropouts to people with graduate degrees. Advancing education had absolutely no effect at raising adult literacy. Fourteen percent of Americans are basically illiterate — unable to read or understand hardly anything but token English. Twenty-nine percent of Americans are functionally illiterate, or unable to read or understand more than the simple English in simplified instruction pamphlets, and TV/radio/entertainment vocabulary. Forty-four percent of Americans are minimally literate, which means capable of moderately difficult activities such as finding and researching information by topic in libraries or on the Internet, and reading recommended texts with effort.

Only 13 percent of Americans are proficient literate — capable of complex activities such as comparing viewpoints in two different editorials or evaluating the relative accuracy of news and jury trial testimony. This report is supported by the current United States ranking in population education standards at 24th in the world.

A century of U.S. military induction rejection records show a steep decline in American literacy.

Basically, literate men are needed to be trainable and capable of following orders and regulations necessary for the military to function.

For World War I, 98 percent of inductees met what was then a fourth-grade literacy level. By World War II, 96 percent of inductees met this standard. By the Korean War, only 81 percent of inductees were sufficiently literate to meet this standard. By the Vietnam War (1970), just 77 percent of inductees were sufficiently literate. That’s one in four rejected!

Following this trend, if the U.S. reinstituted the draft, at least one in three inductees wouldn’t be sufficiently literate to function in our high-tech modern military.

Jesus Christ referred to the “blind leading the blind.” If you have progressively illiterate people guiding the instruction of educators and the administration of public education, this metaphor becomes totally accurate. Here are some examples:

1. Based on the testing strategy of the No Child Left Behind Act, it’s clear that most education “experts” and their government lapdogs think “to educate” means “to indoctrinate,” which is basically forced memorization. Well golly gee, memorization of material for tests is more or less easy for most kinds. However, since comprehension of material — learning — is not really necessary for memorization, you get the phenomenon of little or no retention. Retention is necessary for application, the object of education. So a lot of powerful somebodies don’t know what “educate” and “learn” mean.

2. Per the United Nations, U.S. consumption of Ritalin (a drug legally classed with cocaine for addictiveness) has risen to 92 percent of total world consumption.

It is prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the mental pandemic allegedly retarding successful education in the U.S.

But 23 other countries aren’t drugging their kids, yet achieving consistently higher levels of education for their populations by treating attention deficit as student boredom — a condition all long-term educators know stems from poor teaching technique. Therefore, why are functionally illiterate or ignorant people allowed to force drug dependence on our kids as a substitute for teaching?

What can be generally done? First, the greatest barrier to learning is being convinced that there is nothing more worthwhile to learn in a subject.

Practice mental honesty. Second, recognize that your active study for using the English language must be for your entire life. Did you know there are 21 legitimate definitions of the word “to?” Consid er how much personal illiteracy is driven by just that one under-comprehended word alone! Third, use the excuse of helping your children or young relatives with their school assignments as a vehicle to remedy your own literacy weaknesses and ignorance. Setting a good example for the young and fellow adults is the most ethically powerful technique for change there is.

Stuart Thompson lives in Wasilla.