We've been talking about "literacy and illiteracy rates"... fact or fiction?... for several weeks in class now and I've surrendered my theory-forming to mere fortune.
I'll refer to the familiar adage to help explain myself: We play with the cards we are dealt. This is our Discourse. From our environment--physical, emotional, mental--we gather information and eventually begin to form our own worldviews. Socially, I have been more fortunate than a streetwalker in the slums of a city, but perhaps we both started out on the same path and each of our decisions subsequently landed us where we are presently (and maybe not). If not, then where is the fallacy? The home? Maybe. The parents? Probably. Education systems? Most likely. Socioeconomic status? Yep. The list really could go on forever. So now where do we start replacing excuses with answers? The trial and error method is a bit annoying, but is the most effective approach we've got for tackling these issues. For example, Trial: No Child Left Behind Act... Error(s): There will always be errors because each person is pre-wired with his or her capacity to gather, maintain and extrapolate information in constantly evolving areas and ways. Answer: there is no one way to teach and learn. Obviously.
Coming back to square one, I'd like to reiterate the idea of each person's own fortune. These are our cards; this is our Discourse. And consequently, how a literate (or illiterate) person develops relies heavily not only on his or her God-given Discourse, but the ways in which he or she uses that (among other things). I found an article on Indigenous Discourse that I think helps to explain these ideas a bit further. It was written by Richard Darville at Carleton University and can be found at this link:
http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/darville/theory.pdf
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