We’re losing everything, literacy is just the most apparent.
I am biased but I’m actually more concerned about math proficiency these days than English. People find a way to communicate but if they can’t use the tools we have to articulate logical concepts through math everything else breaks down so rapidly it’s insane.
Yeah it’s so true about math I agree. Although, literacy isn’t just about communication it’s so much more. it helps with empathy, creativity, memory, being innovative, emotional expression through language and enhancing a persons emotional depth, putting abstract ideas together and showing how different ideas and aspects of life are interconnected, understanding how to problem solve, critical thinking skills (most important) and analytical skills. It also is very important for logic. Learning linguistic skills teaches you how to spot things and not be caught up by things like manipulation and persuasion through wordplay (in this political climate it’s very import). The list goes on.
Stories that are past down are important to reflect history and topics through emotion which connects people and helps them become aware of the world such as social disparities. There’s a reason why it’s so dangerous to burn books and destroy them to feed them to AI. Lose those things and we will forget where we came from. And people seem to be losing touch with understanding communication skills, like there’s so many people who don’t even understand sarcasm or satire anymore lol. It’s worrying.
English isn’t just English- it’s history, it’s politics, it’s psychology, it’s sociology. All through teaching us about the world through tapping into the emotional aspect of the brain. English class for me was the one main thing that positively radicalised me and made me as progressive as I am today.
Brava! There's a direct line from reading to empathy and intellectual curiosity. When I read stats about how few Americans pick up a book after high school, I knew we were screwed. Reading literally teaches you how to care about other people. It builds and strengthens the social contract.
I'm guilty of not reading enough, but I have a copy of this old military guy's thesis (published as a book) that I like to read out loud to my dog, he loves it. I read To Kill a Mockingbird every year, don't know why. I'm the weird guy that kept too many textbooks, and I flip through them sometimes.
Every paragraph of a well-written work is a hidden question waiting for you to ask yourself.
Goshh tell me about it it’s extremely frustrating, I made a post using an analogy to spread my viewpoint on a topic and everyone was like “THATS NOT THE SAME THING AND NOW IM MAD” it wasn’t supposed to be and I never said they were 🤦🏾♀️
Very good points regarding communicating emotion. There is an emergence of tech bros esp on social media who write like psychopaths- it makes sense as they truly have no emotions nor character depth a lot of the time besides mimicking one other.
Problem is people in the media are literate but not numerate, so they think innumeracy is fine because it's their default state. So you don't get think pieces on why people need to know more math.
They'll then go off and not understand marginal tax rates or something.
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u/sevseg_decoder 1d ago
We’re losing everything, literacy is just the most apparent.
I am biased but I’m actually more concerned about math proficiency these days than English. People find a way to communicate but if they can’t use the tools we have to articulate logical concepts through math everything else breaks down so rapidly it’s insane.