I just read “Fifth of Scots Have Poor Literacy,” from the BBC News channel website.
The “Literacy Commission,” a group set up to “tackle literacy problems in Scotland” found that almost one in five Scots have difficulty reading and writing and are unable to meet the literary demands of daily life. The commission suggested that the solution to the problem will need to be focused around “problems caused by social and economic disadvantage at an early age.”
“The commission found that 18.5% of children in Scotland leave primary school without being functionally literate - some 13,000 youngsters a year.”
Interesting that today in Scotland we find only 42% of the population adhere to the Church of Scotland while 27.5% profess “no religion.”
I’ve been involved in teaching for most of my adult life and have seen the deterioration of American literacy first-hand. The last thirteen years of my career was spent at a new, neatly kept, suburban middle school, near a small, middle class Southern city conveniently located near government housing. One in five students in our school of 600 was “specially” classified. 85% received free-lunch. The school was conceived, designed, and staffed with these demographics in mind. We were special.
The teachers with whom I taught were truly dedicated professionals and the finest, hardest working group of teachers I ever had the privilege of working with. The principal and his staff were totally encouraging, cooperative and open to new (or old) ideas. But it was a constant struggle to attempt to overcome the baggage the students brought into the classroom. We began to measure our successes in individual student achievement. At teachers’ meetings we would discuss our little successes and find some sort of satisfaction. In my last year before retirement we had a full-time “resource officer” (on-duty and armed city policeman ready to cuff and haul away). Arrests were at least weekly. One of our special education teachers, a soft talking and gentle old lady, while assisting a disabled student in the restroom was beaten and left unconscious on the restroom floor. The student was in class the following day. The teacher, after extensive therapy, never returned.
Bush’s “No-Child-Left-Behind” stated that if any school did not achieve a specified academic percentage level in three years, the principal would be replaced. With our demographics, there was no way in the world that we could ever meet the desired level. Our principal was as good as could be had, superior to any I ever taught under. But the law was laid down and we could see the wave coming. His departure coincided with my retirement.
In my last year of teaching I was privileged, so I thought, to teach a class of G/T (gifted/talented) State History. I looked forward to it. Around November, I surveyed the class and was taken by surprise with what I noticed. Our hard-working school librarian, in an effort to promote extra-curricular reading, used a program called “Accelerated Reading.” In it students check out the book of their choice, read it, take a simple comprehension test and are awarded points which are saved in their file on the computer. After a certain number of points they were awarded a gold colored name tag cord and initiated into the “Gold Cord Society.” Later awards included parties in the library at lunch and at the end of the year a down-town pizza party. As I surveyed my G/T class, I noticed no gold cords at a time of year when most were showing up and noted my observation. A few looked around in curiosity, maybe a little surprised that I had mentioned it, then one boy finally said, “Mr. D, we don’t read!” Those words still sound in my head. Others then joined in with the same matter-of-fact reply.
I thought that if the ones we call gifted and talented don’t read, what hope is there?
Evidently things are not going so well in our country as a whole. It is common knowledge that we have graduated high school seniors who go on to college and have to take remedial reading before entering the college program.
“According to the literacy fast facts from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), literacy is defined as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential." "One measure of literacy is the percentage of adults who perform at four achievement levels: Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, and Proficient. In each type of literacy, 13 percent of adults were at or above Proficient (indicating they possess the skills necessary to perform complex and challenging literacy activities) in 2003. Twenty-two percent of adults were Below Basic (indicating they possess no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills) in quantitative literacy, compared with 14 percent in prose literacy and 12 percent in document literacy."
In addition to our decreasing literacy percentage, our country is keeping pace with Scotland in the world of faith.
“The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million "Nones." Northern New England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country, with Vermont, at 34 percent "Nones," leading all other states by a full 9 points.”
In 1521, as the great reformer and scholar William Tyndale began to be noticed as “controversial” in his beliefs and was being called before the magistrates, his determination to translate the Bible into English became stronger. He was convinced that the way to God was through His Word and that Scripture should be available even to common people. Tyndale is most famous for his often-quoted “ploughboy” statement. According to John Foxe, an argument developed between Tyndale and a "learned" but "blasphemous" clergyman, who had asserted to the reformer that, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." With incredulous disdain, Tyndale responded: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!"
After the publication of the Holy Bible in the English language it became the textbook most present in every country cabin. So very many great men learned their first course of reading at their mother’s or father’s side searching the Scriptures. As the early immigrants reached and settled these North Carolina hills, a well-stocked home library would include at the most three books; these being Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Pilgrim’s Progress and the Holy Bible. But if they were only able to bring along one book, it would be the Bible. Governors, Senators, Judges, Farmers, and Merchants alike began their childhood studying the Book of all books, the greatest textbook in the history of the world.
And like our Scottish forebears, we were literate.
Just wondering. Could it be that our declining literacy rate is directly related to our apathy toward the Holy Bible?
