Re: Illiteracy in America

From: Padraic Brown (elemtilas.NOSPAM_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/30/04 

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:49:48 -0400

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 07:21:47 -0400, "alexV" <alexV7623@comcast.net>
wrote:

>It has been said that 20% of UAW members can neither read nor write. I
>cannot vouch for the veracity of this statement and will not be able to
>provide any quotes. I simply read it somewhere years ago and it stuck in my
>head.
>
>If it is true, I often think, 20% of the drivers on the road do not read
>road signs. Could it be true?

Could be. I saw a figure (online) in which 47% of Detroit residents
are functionally illiterate (which is a different beast). Anyway, US
roadsigns are pictograms for the most part. The most complex worded
road signs are things like "Opposing traffic has extended green" or
"Right lane must turn right beyond signal at River Street".

Doesn't take much to learn what they mean and how to interpret them -
even for illiterate persons.

>I know for a fact that between 5 and 15% of blue collar suburban population
>cannot fill out a readable application. They scribble.

So what? Doctors scribble too.

>I frequently think if
>this is because of their disrespect for what they are doing, sloppiness or
>out of illiteracy. They make numerous spelling errors where you can actually
>read the text. They leave many questions unanswered. You have to run it down
>with them to make clarifications.

Sounds a lot like doctors.

>How can one drive a car unable to read road signs?

See above - there's nothing to "read" for the most part.

>On the other extreme is a boy strapped to his car seat in the back telling
>his mother: "mommy, right lane closed ahead!" She gasps: he is only three
>and nobody taught him to read yet. He figured everything out by himself. It
>is a real story. It tells you that if we have brains we do not really need
>any teachers except to be depositories of knowledge.

I very much doubt he "figured it out". It's more likely his illiterate
mom had someone else in the car who said "Don't you know that sign
means the right lane's closed ahead!?" He then associated that sign
with the right lane being closed.

Of course, the humorous part is the mom's friend was also illiterate
and they were driving in the left lane at the time... ;)))

>I also think if I were driving in China where I could not read road signs
>could I get around? I've actually been to China as a tourist but do not
>remember now if they had Latin subtitles.

I beleive their road signs conform to international standards - which
means they look like just about everyone's road signs apart from the
US. I found a site devoted to international traffic signs. Most of the
links were broken and I couldn't access the Chinese area, but the
Japanese ones were fairly clear for the most part, even though I can't
read Japanese. <http://www.wbs.ne.jp/cmt/kenkei/e-html/yobu-1-h.htm>

>How can a person drive around being illiterate?

Same way people drive around being deaf or blind, I guess.

>I understand, there are
>other telltale signs like those heraldic shields with numbers, some signs
>seem to almost scream: "Ohio Turnpike Next Right." Configuration of certain
>words can be memorized without reading the meaning.

Yep. It really isn't difficult to associate certain symbols with
certain meaning. It's roughly the same process by which we learn to
read - associating a certain configuration of symbols with a certain
meaning.

>Some victims of strokes
>lose their ability to understand the meaning of written texts.

Strokes are funny things. They can affect certain portions of the
brain while leaving others intact. I suppose it's not impossible for a
stroke victim to have been affected in the part of the brain that
associated meaning with sign - while leaving intact the portion(s)
that could translate those signs into speech. In other words, you
could ask the person to read a passage which they would do just fine;
then when you ask what it was about, they wouldn't know.

>Still there is a lot of mystery in here for me.

The brain is still pretty mysterious.

Padraic.

la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu
ast meiyoer ke 'l andrext ben trasfu.

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