Signs Taken for Wonders

This is going to sound bad, but I've wondered if the apparent "decline in literacy" isn't attributable to the rise in the number of people going to college; which is to say, I've wondered if it isn't that people are getting dumber, it's that more dumb people are going farther in terms of their education, and so it shows more. Like, over all, literacy is probably much higher on a basic level than at any point in the past (except perhaps the recent past). I do also think some of this is a problem with our education system; it blows my mind how illiterate even supposedly intelligent/well educated people are...but I do wonder...

How was Good Night and Good Luck? I've wanted to see it for some time now...

And the prescription bottle thing is just frightening...maybe some "survival of the fittest" will kick in and the people so dumb that they accidently overdose because they couldn't understand "two doses twice daily" will be weeded from the gene pool....

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Well, be fair. There's a difference between dumb and uneducated. It's really unkind to label people that way because they have trouble reading. Maybe they are stupid, but maybe it's more due to poor education. The public educational system is (and has never been) the greatest about keeping people from falling between the cracks. For instance, my father is one of the most intelligent people I know; he is well-education, informed, and very smart from the get-go. But he's also dyslexic. When he was a kid he scored 99th percentile on everything but reading, which he almost failed, and the teachers just said he was stupid and lazy. Granted, this was in the '60s when dyslexia was not exactly common knowledge, but problems like that happen all the time. Yes, some people are stupid. And goodness knows there are people that do things SO stupid that maybe we'd all be better off without them. But people that have trouble reading aren't (necessary) that.

That said, when I was at Ivy Tech I grades some really, really sad tests. Mostly people with nigh-nonexistant spelling and grammar skills, but there were also a few who a)obviously had just recently learned how to write, or had not written much in their entire lives, and/or b) would leave answers blank because they had trouble understanding the questions/weren't sure how to write in a good answer. So it's not just college level literacy that's the issue, basic literacy is also an issue in this country.
My personal opinion is that literacy has been given a backseat in the educational system in an era when math and science are the big deal. Just look at how peopel value different majors in undergrad. "Hard" skills like math, computing, accounting, management (can't think of better examples, but there are some) are viewed highly because they offer good, well-paying jobs in the future, whereas "soft" skills like literature, theatre, and art are derided as leaving one without a future. And literacy is not a priority with technical jobs, though of course to have a really good job literacy is important; it is just not emphasized in the educational system or viewed well by "end results" people, people who want a degree not for the educational value but for the job. Which is also a class issue. So... yeah. It's complicated. And I think everyone would benefit by 1) more emphasis on literacy in school, and 2)literacy programs for adults, which do exist but are not always that strong.

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Yuck, that's full of typos. *facepalm*

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I'm not trying to say that sometimes it isn't the systems fault; I just think it's also important that it be kept in mind that some people ARE stupid and/or lazy. The system sucks, but to blame everything on it is to ignore the achievements of those who succeed despite the system, ie the people who are intelligent and/or hard working and motivated.

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I know. I'm just saying you can't blame it all on them, nor do they deserve to die just because they are stupid.

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ITA. Keying to the LCD is all too common in American education, and maybe in American culture in general. I despair at the mindset that says "Oh, let's just keep lowering our standards so people who aren't bright or motivated can still succeed/get what they want regardless of accomplishment or action." By removing all possible incentives to improve, the system literally stultifies the mainstream population and creates an ultimately untenable sense of entitlement.

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gollumgollum.livejournal.com

And the prescription bottle thing is just frightening...maybe some "survival of the fittest" will kick in and the people so dumb that they accidently overdose because they couldn't understand "two doses twice daily" will be weeded from the gene pool....

I call Not Fair. Medicine has a long-established tradition of using obtuse and difficult to understand language that "ordinary people" aren't supposed to be able to comprehend. It's part of how those of us in the medical profession justify all those years we spent learning our elite information; it's also part of how we keep our superiority complexes thriving. As the article points out, most doctors don't go over how to take medications. A lot of times nurses do, but keep in mind the people that i see tend to be sent home from the hospital on several different prescriptions. We do what we can to get people on a schedule that makes sense, so they can take their meds at the same time as much as possible, but sometimes you have meds that can't be taken together.

Not to mention that many of the people who make errors tend to be older and on several different kinds of meds. That's not necessarily poor literacy, but confusion--due to multiple meds (or their side effects), long and difficult to pronounce names of medications, poor eyesight, or not wanting to ask for help because they don't want anyone to think they're stupid, for example.

Finally, "two doses twice daily" isn't nearly as cut and dry as you might think--it's easy to mistake as two doses, once in the morning and once in the evening, rather than two doses in the morning and two in the evening.

Sure, literacy is down, but most medical information is written at a very high level. It's only recently that we've gone "hey, maybe instead of being all snobbish and using big words, we should write things that our patients can understand." And not everyone's jumped on the bandwagon, yet. Either way, it's incredibly unfair to say "those people are stupid and deserve to die" when us medical types are jerks who aren't making the effort to make sure patients understand what the hell we're saying.

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I hadn't fully thought of it that way...I'll concede the point. I was partially joking on that count anyway; I find it tragic that people aren't well enough educated to be able to do something which, to me, is ridiculously simple. I dunno. And it is certainly the case that too often, doctors and nurses are too busy to be able to help everyone as much as they might need (not to imply anything disparaging on the doctors and nurses - quite the contrary, they are very overworked from what little I've seen in my visits to hospitals and the like...)

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I dunno. Based on that article, it doesn't look like hyper-sophisticated medical jargon that involves snobbishly big words is the problem. At least I don't see any big words or words with more than two syllables, except for "teaspoon" mentioned anywhere in that article.

If someone can't sort out "take one teaspoon twice a day for seven days" just how exactly would you suggest that sentence be simplified? Pictograms, maybe?

I think you're spot on with regard to the need to make things even more simple for the elderly and those who may have special needs due to side effects. Perhaps dispensing medications in daily packets (or morning/evening packets with days printed on them) would be useful in such cases, or right into parcelled boxes like day-of-the-week pill sorters.

Nevertheless, the point that is being made still strikes me as relevant. If people of "ordinary" intelligence and "ordinary" literacy (let's say an IQ which doesn't require you to be put into special ed as a child and a fifth grade reading level) can't wrap their heads around "take two pills twice a day" I'd say that there's certainly a problem. I'd say that it's not with literacy, personally (I mean, how simple can you make a sentence?) but with basic reasoning skills.

Do people deserve to die because they're puddingheads? No. But it does make you wonder if they weren't given an extra dose of ethanol before being decanted and raised in a nursery where they hear "I'm so glad I'm not an Alpha. Alphas have to work so hard..." played on a tape recorder 24x7.

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moonandserpent.livejournal.com

It was easily the best movie of '05.

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...must...rent... :)

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moonandserpent.livejournal.com

Yes! Must!

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I think that your observation that college enrollment has become far less selective and/or optional is very important. College is the new high school. Very few jobs of any desirability are available for high school grads, especially since most of our higher paying skilled labor jobs are now outsourced overseas. In theory, late-stage post-industrial capitalist societies have non-labor jobs for most -- but we've also sent our technology support roles and call centers overseas, and I think those jobs would have been the replacement for lost labor jobs. So kids who aren't college-capable or college-ready go to college when they might be better off going someplace like Ivy Tech and getting vocational training, and probably end up not bettering their chances of employment measurably in the process of getting the liberal arts degree. Doesn't make a whack of sense to me, but anecdotally, that seems to be the case. My last personal trainer was a weight-lifter who had a BA in History from the University of Kansas. He could neither spell nor write coherent sentences, and let's face it - as a professional bodybuilder, perhaps that's really not mandatory. Why on earth did he go to the expense of a college education and a degree in history when he had no ambitions related to either? Because that's just what people do, apparently. Mneh.

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Btw, is your icon the ruin of the oracle at Dephi, or is it something else? Because it looks like it.

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Gee, maybe if the composition courses taught students how to read and write instead of focusing on the loftier critical goals that might improve? You know. Just a thought. As university educators we can't control what happens before students get here and just go blaming everything on high schools. As much as it might be true that students ought to be better equipped before they get here, I'm equally appalled by the fact that college composition courses at IU don't teach the rudiments of writing (or correct assiduously for grammar and spelling), even when it's flamingly obvious that's what's needed in that class. Of course, you've heard me say all that before.

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akashiver.livejournal.com

IU *could* always choose to make the grammar course the dept offers mandatory instead of (or in addition to) the research skills, essay organization and source-use course. It's not like there aren't courses out there that teach those skills - it's just that the students aren't required to take them.

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