Definitions of many things change over time. Literacy is something for which the popular definition really has not changed much even though the academic definition has. I would wager that most people, when asked about literacy, think almost exclusively about reading and writing. Clearly, a person who cannot read is illiterate as is a person who cannot write and a person who can do neither is still illiterate. But what about a person who can read and can write? Is that person automatically considered to be literate just based on those two skills? And at what point in the development of these skills would a person be considered literate? Shouldn't our definition of literacy have something to do with the ability to communicate? And if so, why only include the two written forms of communication?
The traditional definition of literacy basically says that if a person can communicate through reading and writing, he/she is literate. If a person knows how to spell a lot of different words, but is unable to use that knowledge to communicate through writing, he/she is illiterate. This makes sense to me, but what doesn't make sense is that we traditionally only define literacy in terms of the two written forms of communication.
If literacy is a measure of a person’s ability to communicate with other people, then many different forms of communication should factor in which have not traditionally been thought of as factors of literacy. It seems to me that literacy is something more along the lines of the ability to understand various types of communication as well as the ability to articulate one’s thoughts through those forms of communication.
One thing I think of as a non-traditional form of literacy is something often described in terms of "social cues." I hear people described often as “socially awkward,” but I would be tempted to say that a better description of these people would be “socially illiterate.” People described as socially awkward are normally people who do not pick up on normal social cues and do not use those cues themselves. This, to me, is an issue of being illiterate within a certain subject area much as many people are scientifically illiterate.
With that being said, I'm now off to call the White House and let some people know that NCLB needs to be modified to include my revised definition of literacy :)
Go, man, go!
ReplyDeleteI think 'social literacy' applies better to extra-ordinary situations; I think "SQ" (social quotient) applies better to ordinary situations.problems/solutions; are we saying the same thing?
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I think we are basically saying the same thing. I think what you are saying about social quotient is exactly the same as what I am saying about social literacy, just using different terminology. I prefer social literacy because of what quotient implies. I think it would be more accurate to talk about social literacy and literacy quotient rather than social quotient. IM(H)O
ReplyDeleteGood observations, Peter. At CTS, we also talk about "cultural literacy" in terms of being able to "read" a culture. Its basically the idea of knowing your audience before preparing a sermon, speech, etc.
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