I really love her book program, the child I take care of recently got their last book. The selections are great and diverse, and reading tips have been really helpful in getting children engaged (I wouldn't have thought to go letter fishing or have a word scavenger hunt without them.). Getting books into homes and getting parents to read to their children is such a massive issue that we tend to overlook.
She aslo made a version of the communist manifesto accessible to anyone in 9 to 5. I read the manifesto,and you really aren't missing a lot by just listening to the song mostly just stuff about fake kinds of communism.
When my son was little, we lived in a neighbourhood with very low literacy rates. Our son struggled with reading and writing, but when we met with the teacher he told us he simply didn’t have the resources to help - our son wasn’t at grade level, but there were kids in his class that didn’t understand that every letter makes a sound - let alone that you could combine letters into new words. The teacher sent us home with a packet of materials; when we read it we were shocked at the things that were ‘tips for parents’: - don’t make fun of your child for reading (don’t call them a geek or a nerd) - don’t punish them for reading instead of doing something else (like playing outside) - don’t call them dumb if they’re struggling/ask for help - don’t take away books as a punishment It really shone a light on the problems of systemic illiteracy. If you can’t read well, and your child comes to you for help, are you going to admit you struggle? I can see why you’d just tell your kid to go do something else.
As a kid finding out an adult struggled with the same thing was actually deeply encouraging to me. Seeing that I could be an adult without something made not being able to do stuff feel a lot less damning, and if I could do something better then I felt empowered, like I could help. That said in my perspective admitting your struggle seems to me like a good thing to do. It lets the child know it's okay that it's hard, and that can be a net positive; it can even lead to the adult learning more by trying to help as best they can.
Damn. Those rules made me kind of cry... it shows how as much as we like to “laugh” at the “dumb” people, were actively ignoring a culture that is the negative product of anti-intellectualism. It’s more tragic than something to be proud of, or shallow entertainment. It has real outcomes that perpetuate negative outcomes for not only those affected, but society as a whole. Glad this video was posted... such a great topic to broaden my compassion for everyone and myself.
Do the tips in that packet your received really prove that the illiteracy in that neighborhood is a systemic issue, or do they show an unfortunate cultural problem? If you are having to tell people "don't make fun of your child", those are not systemic forces that are coming from local systems or institutions. Those are bad cultural habits that people have to willingly learn are counter to their well being. It's far different and a MUCH more difficult problem to solve than a systemic problem.
@@BunScholar I think your confusing systemic and systematic. The first refers to what you described, a cultural issue. The second, systematic is the one that means "part of the system". So for example, rape culture is a systemic problem, but the thousands of unexamined rape kits are a systematic problem. It's also why you often see people referring to systemic racism. Sure, their arent laws anymore that enforce racism, but there is still racism. Redlining is an example of systematic racism. The fact that because of that original practice black people have less generational wealth is a systemic problem.
On a somewhat related note: For all of Reddit's faults, at least subreddits dedicated to helping people out with seemingly menial tasks actually do so. Everytime I've seen a post by an autistic or socially anxious person asking for help regarding grocery shopping or whatever, people actually help out and explain it in as much detail as necessary. Even when neurotypical people ask questions that are immediately clarified by a 5 word answer and realise how obvious it was, there was still someone who actually responded withiut judgement or disdain. I really appreciate that side of reddit.
@@orrinsalton829 I too would like to no what the subs are. I don't know any specifically for help with menial tasks but there is /r/nostupidquestions and /r/internetparents for more general help, and /r/findareddit to look for more specific subs.
I feel like that's a result of how content is filtered on Reddit. Things aren't pushed up to the top as a result of how many reactions it gets. They're pushed up by the number of upvotes and the ratio of upvotes to downvotes. Combined with Reddit impressive sort of social obligation to vote appropriately, posts and comments that the majority like and find helpful are pushed to the top. Negative comments that would normally get pushed up by arguments are instead pushed down to the bottom. As much as Reddit is.... Reddit. I do like how it's voting system works above all other social media.
@@orrinsalton829 /r/explainlikeimscared is one of my favorites for this - i think the original audience was probably for anxiety disorders (hence the title), but they welcome people with ASD and other social disorders that make doing new things scary or difficult.
I can read in four languages and two scripts and I couldn’t put my son’s car seat in after reading the directions and watching a video tutorial. Those things are tricky little buggers.
Haha, this reminds me of a time my friend was struggling with a manual and said “I’ve read this thing in 5 different languages, and I’ve STILL no clue what to do”
I got called illiterate a lot as a child because I have dsylexia. I dont think people understand how hard people work to not appear as such. I would cry almost any time I had to work on reading or wrighting, because I didn't want people to think I was stupid. Thank you for this very good video.
I have a similar experience. I have dyslexia, ADHD and a visual processing disorder. I could not read until I was 8 years old. I tried so hard to read, and it just wouldn't click. Now as an adult I still have a hard time spelling. People assume I can't spell correctly because of a lack of focus, lack of time or lack ov intelligence. Last week I was even accused of forging a signature on a contract at my college because my professor had approved the contract with spelling errors.... I try to not be self conscious about my spelling. Its just a part of who I am. But sometimes the Neurotypicals in my life make me feel like I have to be self conscious about my spelling.
@@Sophia-Sews Oh yeah, I have an ASD and visual processing issues too, they weren't diagnosed during my school year though. I had teachers accuse me of "just being lazy" all the time. It took me years to start typing shortened words in text or online, I would triple check spelling before I sent messages to my friends, spent lots of time drilling into myself the difference between to, two, and too, or your, and you're. I refused to "look stupid" infront of anyone, which was funny because when other people made the same mistakes it never bothered me.
I had the same issues. whenever I would pick books from the library I would dread it cuz I would prefer the children's books cuz the adult ones were too hard. I read pretty proficiently now and I love audiobooks and comics even though i utterly hated reading as a kid/teen.
My parents were divorced, my mom schizophrenic, and she was in the mental hospital... The kids knew... They made me cry. lulz Interesting fact! Kids are shallow vicious cruel selfish things... They will find any weakness of their classmates and attack! Atleast I didn't have to go to school wherein EVERYONE has a smartphone... Or the demand to keep up with forrnite skins 🖖
@@Allups that is so relatable, I used to always check out non fiction cat books with cool photographs at the library so that instead of attempting to read I could draw pictures of cats on bookmarks instead.
Also I’m not saying this is the case but it is possible that woman is entirely literate and just has trouble with instructions in the abstract. For example I have ADHD and I taught myself how to knit via a book but regardless of the instructions and the diagrams I couldn’t fully comprehend them until I watched a few videos of demonstrations. And even after 5+ years when knitting patterns of items I haven’t knitted before I have to first do a pattern via a video because even though I fully comprehend the instructions they don’t translate in way where I can envision them. The same thing with piano, I’ve played for almost 20 years and can read music, etc and I could learn a piece just via sheet music but it would take me like 3x’s as long if I have no conception of what it sounds like, how other people have their hands positioned, tempo, meter, etc. which is all info I can get from sheet music but doesn’t translate in a way where all that info comes together, but ends up filtering in separately. But I continue to read for fun and I don’t have trouble in other areas of literacy it’s more of a processing issue than a literacy one.
I came to the comments to say something about ADHD. I’m nearing the end of a reading heavy college degree and have been reading dense texts for much of my life but in moments where my adhd is poorly managed and circumstances are aggregating symptoms, i’m sometimes functionally illiterate. I struggle with the executive functioning to literally even just pick up the book in large part because I get sort of anxiety about it after days of trying and failing focus on one line for long enough to comprehend anything.
@@heyyotayo I can completely relate to the overwhelming anxiety that can overtake any motivation to start or complete a task. Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, as a young adult, I always had real difficulty with bureaucratic paperwork (I still do but it’s much better.) So much so that I had failed to do things like apply for insurance or pay an overdue excise tax, once I even filed my taxes a year late. And that would be overwhelming to the point where I would just shut down completely.
@@sarahwarnock2707 I absolutely second what Falcon fern said, I could also possibly recommend checking out r/ADHD and r/ADHDwomen if use Reddit at all, there’s a lot of people on there that haven’t, can’t, or are in the process of being diagnosed. Women are often under diagnosed with ADHD as our symptoms can sometimes present different than men. So if you need support or coping skills in the mean time those subreddits and howtoADHD are a starting point.
Literacy is a privilege that many take for granted. Where you are born, economic status, and ability to learn (which you have no control over) greatly influence your likelihood of becoming literate.
I'm lucky to have been born in my situation, my mother grew up having literacy issues while my father did not; he went to college (although, hadn't completed), my mother was abused in more ways than one plus was intentionally held back because of her own father. I learned how to read and write because of my father, in my case, the schools choose not to teach me how to read and write on my own instead used my autistic meltdowns as an excuse to not give me a chance. When I got pulled out I had to relearn these skills that I already learned before going to that grade school.
If I had been born in a poorer family, I probably wouldn't be nearly as literate since my vision is so poor, the correction for my eyes is pretty expensive
I always try to remind myself of this. Despite everything, I’m lucky that I can at least read and write decently. I struggle with maths, but I continually try to keep learning to get better. I’m thankful that I live in a country, and I’m at a stage in my life, that allows me to be able to use the Internet, access books etc to learn maths.
Literacy is useless. Unless you are dyslexic, you have complete control over your language learning ability. But you should choose to become illiterate by unlearning reading and writing.
You can become literate in a year no matter how dyslexic you are if you have an internet connection. But I would not recommend doing that because text-to-speech software is a thing.
When I was in my teens I met a friend of my brother's, a twelve year-old who was illiterate. He was a victim of parents who pulled him out of school for their religious beliefs despite not having the time or money to properly homeschool him, and his education was extremely lacking as a result. He asked my brother to help him with extremely basic things, like reading the right options on a video game start menu. Twelve years old may seem young, but in my area that was around the age that children start to have a bit of freedom, from walking to school to doing basic grocery shopping. This kid was completely helpless in so many small tasks. I cannot imagine being an adult and being unable to read.
Honestly I don't think I've ever seen instructions that were clear and well written. I don't know if it is deliberate or if companies just don't bother to hire people who could do the job well.
@@atlantahunter4401 Part of the problem comes from one set of instructions needing to be translated into many different languages. Instruction writing pays pennies. Often less than minimum wage because they pay you per job rather than per hour and some jobs obviously take longer than others. It was a pretty common thing for us to earn 60 cents for a job that would take 2 hours to complete. Usually you'll get one person to write the instructions (often that person is not an English speaker) and then the company will hire other people to translate that one set of instructions into all the other needed languages. Often the initial instructions don't have clear equivalents in the destination language and the person doing the translating almost never has the actual item in front of them or any familiarity with the item, so it can be very difficult for the translator to think of a different way to phrase things that would actually be helpful to the end consumer when trying to assemble the product. My mom spent a few months writing directions for large companies and proof reading math textbooks when I was a teenager and my youngest sister was a newborn. Often she would be too exhausted to get everything done, so I would help her. The company wanted to hire me to translate their instructions into other languages (I'm fluent in 3 and good enough for most things in 2 more) but their usual rate was 20 cents to $1.50 per job, with each job taking 30 mins to 3 hours and minimum wage at the time being around $6 per hour. The whole industry is flawed on almost every level honestly. Keep in mind, those rates are for my mom and I who are native English speakers and US citizens. At the time my mom had a masters degree and I was in high school. We're both multi lingual. It's honestly a joke and I hear it's even worse now that the gig economy is bigger than ever.
Not just on a corporate scale either tho - the world of indy boardgames is an interesting example. Terrible useless instructions are kind of a running gag but also a chronic gatekeeping problem? A lot of people - even people who are capable of designing brilliantly complex asymmetrical resource management and territory control games - are *really truly bad* at explaining their own mechanics. Almost any game is easier to grasp with a face-to-face demo than an instruction book (remember how nintendo games used to come with instruction books but now tutorials are built in?) - and even then, it often takes multiple plays before really starting to understand the construction of the thing. Technical writing is difficult, it's underpaid, it's not made especially accessible, it's not taught and it's not really something we have to navigate regularly enough to develop naturally.
@@MulberryDays "remember how nintendo games used to come with instruction books but now tutorials are built in?" That was more due to the memory limitations of the system. Most games literally didn't have enough room for a full-fledged tutorial until the PS1 and N64. Thankfully the good games back then like Mario, Sonic and Mega Man used a more intuitive design by making the beginning levels easy enough for the player to learn the game mechanics on their own.
Eh, it's not really a memory issue - look at jrpgs, who have tutorials built in dating before 64-bit tech. Increased memory just made it easier for other games to follow the trend - especially as spikes in tech and popularity hit at the same times, driving the data and incentivizing certain behaviors. And I can guarantee you that every game dev in the history of computing has discussed intuitive design at length, with varying results. The mario one does make a good Extra Credits video tho. So...thanks for popping in just to "correct" a smol parenthetical on a comment that wasn't really about the issue you felt the need to debatably explain? :/
My great grandfather was illiterate. He was raised rolling tobacco. He would soak his boots in a muddy puddle so that they would bend/stretch/soften because they were too small. I heard he was one of the kindest people my mom knew, he just never learned to read.
Same. My immigrant great-grandfather was a carpenter who signed his named with an "X". We even have documents of it. Unreal. He and my great-grandmother still lived productive lives and raised productive members of society.
My grandmother is illiterate and she also can't understand numbers. She was born in sexist-AF 1935 and grew up under Japanese occupation, so she never got the opportunity to learn. One of my mom's friends was born in the 70's and is also completely illiterate - this was very rare, unlike 4 decades prior.
My grandma was completely illiterate because she was born in a society where you had many kids and had the oldest kid look after the rest while you worked so she never had the chance to go to school, then as an adult went straight into working doing whatever low skilled jobs she could since my grandad died when dad was in his teens. I remember she couldn’t spell, John, my dads name on any cards for birthdays or Xmas. She never failed at anything, she was illiterate due to circumstances and managed to provide for her family until she died
I HATE it when I see people online point out a spelling or grammar issue in order to “disprove” (see: dismiss) the point they are making. I find it truly infuriating, and I will always call people out on it, even if it means I end up defending someone I fundamentally disagree with. Not understanding how to use a comma has nothing to do with being right or wrong.
yes. it's ironic too because it's a fallacy. in other words, the one using grammar to prove themselves right is actually hurting their own case even outside of just optics.
There is nothing that makes me happier than when I see that kind of person, and I somehow school the everliving SHIT out of them, while also stating things more eloquantly than they can. People are doing their best. Opinions are not to be discounted just because the owner of said opinion can't write a novel. Some of the smartest people I know can run a circle around you solving complex, life-changing issues, while those pathetic excuses insult them because they didn't capitalize an "I", or they used the wrong "they're/their/there".
As someone who doesn't remember ever being illiterate, who needed harder spelling tests in elementary school, and whose parents gave me basically a library of books to read, I honestly took literacy for granted and also flexed it pretty hard. Learning that 52% of US adults are adult literacy learners has made me realize even more how privileged I really am and how much I should be mindful of it when interacting with others.
Ok seriously though... does anyone know if this woman figured out her car seat in the end? Does anyone know how to contact her? Most fire departments will happily install a car seat for you, ensure it's set up correctly/safely, etc. No judgement and no fee. Sometimes they're even able to give you a free car seat if you need one, but that depends on the specific station. I'd personally be happy to help this person if there's a way to know if help is still needed. How horrible that she was treated this way! I'm Indigenous. My family has a whole host of issues around schooling/education (research residential schools for Indigenous kids if you don't know the history... but be warned, it's fucking bad and I know people who get re-traumatized when they have to think about it). I'm the first generation in my family who wasn't forced into these residential schools. A lot of my older family members don't read or write very well. Some don't read or write at all. They're great people though, some of the most kind hearted, quickest to offer a helping hand people I've ever come across. How gross that this woman was made to feel like shit when she was trying to get help making sure her baby was safe!
@@thejesusaurus6573 I think Freakonomics just did a podcast on how the difficulty of car seat use might _actually_ be decreasing the birth rate! No joke. The fact that millions of people mention car seats when talking about the variety of reasons why they’ve chosen not to have a second or third child is not insignificant .
@@stm7810 Glad it helped someone! :) Some fire departments (especially in big cities) will do clinics on specific dates where they check car seats. That allows them to make sure they have adequate staff at the station to help with car seats and still respond to emergencies. Other fire departments welcome walk ins for things like that. If you ever end up needing this service it might be a good idea to look into which one your local fire station does. Type in your location + fire department + car seat safety would be my suggestion. Hospital staff are also able to check that your car seat is installed properly before you bring a new baby home. You might have to ask for someone to check your car seat, but there are always people at hospitals who are able to do that kind of thing. Most police stations and some child care centers will also do it. I used to be a preschool teacher and that was part of my training. The logic was that then I could help new parents if needed, but also I could verify that our transportation vehicles car seats were up to par because we took kids to and from primary school and also had the ability to evacuate by car if there was ever an emergency (rural area in a floodplain that also got crazy wildfires every year so safety was paramount). Social services, emergency personnel, etc. are all given similar training for similar reasons. They need to know how to verify that a car seat is safe in case they need to transport a child for whatever reason. Even if there's not a formal car seat safety program (which there is at most fire stations in the US) they can still help the general public if needed. Fire stations started offering car seat checks to the public around the same time they started making every fire station nationwide a baby drop off point. It made a lot of sense to combine the services.
I worked for a couple of years with a man in his 50s. He told me that he never learned to read because of dyslexia, back in his time it wasn't even named. He told me he had reparied pianos for 10 years, gone to night school to relearn it in his 30s and to this day his handwriting was so difficult to read it became a running joke on the team. Still one of the kindest and hardworking people I ever met. He was not stupid or lazy.
I kinda know where he is coming from I have Attention problems which did not exist at the time so I was labelled as retarded by the school system and placed in special education. The topping on my cake is the fact I was top percentile of test taking in school it was just my daily task I had trouble focusing on. Not getting my cake part was the added kick to the teeth was later I found out employers could request these documents that filled me under mentally incompetent. Ah the good old days!
That sounds like my stepdad. He's dyslexic, and he left school early to get away from an abusive home. He can read and write at a functional level, but his spelling is rudimentary, and anything difficult takes him a lot of time and spellchecking. He's also a very smart and curious guy, who's been self-educating his whole life, now into his 70's. He's been a licensed realtor and real estate assessor for almost 40 yrs now, working around his disability by recording notes rather than writing them, and hiring smart assistants. He's learned a lot about a wide range of subjects over the years by watching all the documentaries that looked half interesting, and he's very politically astute, and fascinating to talk with. Nobody who hasn't seen him struggling with his email would ever suspect that he has literacy problems.
I’ve been using “illiterate” as an insult for years in reference to anyone I perceived as slow or not “bright” by my own biased standards. I’m going to stop now. Thank you for making this, it illuminated a perspective I never considered, and now I realize the ignorance of it, and how hypocritical It is, considering I try my best to be aware of social issues, especially those that are easier to ignore that don’t affect me. I guess I could call myself illiterate for not realizing how damaging my worldview was
@@alwynwatson6119 useless... until you need to actually communicate information non-verbally, like across the whole internet around the world or with people that have hearing issues. And using literate as an insult? lmao, you want to selfishly discourage people from learning an objectively and incredibly useful skill just because you personally suck at it? I also can't even figure out what "leair" is supposed to mean
@@mnmmnmm Maybe reading and writing was a useful skill before free text-to-speech software was a thing. You do not need to be literate to use the internet. People should learn more important things instead of reading and writing. Maybe Reading and writing still has some small applications for disabled people. Even then if things were spelled as they sounded everyone would just become literate by accident. So there is no reason to learn an existing language (other than for fun). Just invent your own and program it into Google Translate if you have hearing problems.
@@alwynwatson6119 oh you're actually insane LOL. "Maybe reading and writing still has some small applications for disabled people."... more like extremely useful and practical applications, being a basic skill that 7 billion other people on the planet should learn at some point if they're able to and given the proper resources. The main reason for people not being able to understand writing is because of terrible education systems, not because it's not a useful skill. You're just super hard coping about not having a skill that other people have, both incredibly selfish and ignorant. And like wtf, you think people with a hearing problems should just piss off because you think you're better than them?
That facebook post pissed me off so much. Even for full literate, well-read/written folks can have trouble parsing things. I have ADHD and often read things multiple times without really digesting it at all. I am an engineer that often creates work instructions for assembly and inspection processes, and there is nothing that makes me angrier than instructions that arent clear. There is absolutely no excuse not to include big, clear diagrams in your instructions and use simple wording and common terms to make sure they're as easy to follow as possible. Literacy is absolutely a matter of accessibility -- until we make substantial progress improving literacy, we should be making as much effort as possible in accommodating the less literature. Fancy, hifalutin instructions manuals are worth nothing if they are not easily understood by as many people as possible
To be fair (as someone who speaks English as a second language) English is really fucking hard and not intuitive. With Spanish you don’t have to guess how to pronounce something, letters almost always sound the same and most rules are consistent. English is rooted in three different languages and most rules are arbitrary.
@@ren.pfa.99 I had the hardest time learning how to pronounce words line enough, thorough, thought and through. As well as word like knife and knee. What’s the point of the K if you’re not going to pronounce it? It just confuses people who are used to reading a word and pronouncing the letters in the word phonetically.
@@susanita5211 I’m a native English speaker and I take for granted how weird the English language is. French is my second language and like Spanish, there are rules that are more or less fixed when it comes to spelling and pronunciation. I often call English a lawless language lol. Anything goes.
So much this. My youngest has ADHD and is in French immersion. His specialist asked me how he did with spelling. I said he was in French and she said "oh well that is much more intuitive he wont have issues." Shes not wrong.
I knew a lot of ableism, particularly with invisible disabilities, gets overlooked even in leftist spaces, and knew about the ways poverty affected education, but I had never realized this was so widespread. Really informative video, thank you.
I hate to say it, as a leftist, but a lot of Liberals feel totally comfortable dunking on poor white people. I think there is a portion of all groups who are more or less tribalistic. They aren’t egalitarian or anti-racist, they just have permission to hate a different set of people. They’ve decided that, ‘punching down is okay in _this_ case because of the historic privilege white people enjoy’, as if ethnicity is the only metric to evaluate oppression.
@@GeahkBurchill yeah, definitely, like when there were the recent snowstorms in Texas and stuff there were tons of memes making fun of red states getting hit with disaster when in reality the majority of people most affected were marginalized people already suffering from those governments.
@@n.lwhitaker572 So it's ok to belittle people because they vote for someone you don't like? Wow, i bet you feel like you're "on the right side of history".
In 1980, when I finished elementary school (graduated from 5'th grade), my school held a ceremony for all the students. Part of the ceremony included various parents reading little speeches to an auditorium filled with teachers, parents, and kids. At one point, the Mother of one of the girls got up to read her speech. It was immediately apparent that this woman could barely read, and yet she struggled through the entire speech. As a 10-year old boy in the audience, I remember being moved to tears as I listened to this Mom struggle through her speech, one she had no obligation to make, motivated by her love and support for her daughter. I don't really remember much else of the whole ceremony.
Something to keep in mind: illiterate people will often make excuses ('i forgot my glasses' or 'i just happened to be sick on the day i had to read something' or pretend to be to haughty to read labels). So if you see patterns like that you might gently ask someone wether they are struggling and that help is available.
i was reading at a college level and comprehending at a graduating level when i was about 12 or so, i've gleefully chewed my way through many great(and occasionally difficult) works of literature and i once found a grammatical error on a major pre-college test and corrected it. i have been told many times that i am a very intelligent person because of my capacity with reading and writing but at the same time i once had to put together a shelf that consisted of four rods, three platforms and some clips that slid between the rod and the platform to keep it in place: i spent close to half an hour on that shelf and ended up in tears as my motherinlaw came to to put it together for me. one's prowess in literacy is not necessarily analogous to their capacity to follow (often poorly) written instructions
i only ever read six books in my life. Death in Venice was one of them and when i started it i was so glad to finally find someone who writes normal underatandable sentences.. until that got spoiled of course when people complained how Thomas Mann was basically not readable. i suppose even within language we have completely different types of eptitudes.. the linearity of difficulty is a lie.
I believe Finland has been found as one of the most literate nations in the world, yet even we have 11% of work-aged adults struggling with daily reading tasks. So, in response, social services simplified the language from official jargon to more approachable daily language, since they acknowledged that many of the folks that struggle with reading may at some point need their assistance 😊
@@mmtruooao8377 from what I checked sources varied from 6,5% to 11% depending on study, but it's incredibly many people when thinking the education system is pretty bang-on 🤔
Why is it every time I hear about Nordic countries they are recognizing a systemic problem and actively taking steps to solve it? Can the USA take some hints?
I just looked up the numbers for the Netherlands. We have a 1.5% illiteracy rate and 7.9% of the people has low literacy. I still think this is too high. I also think a lot of those people are immigrants from poor or war torn places so they had other stuff to worry about outside of learning what symbols on a page mean. It's unproductive to use illiterate as an insult anyway. Not everybody has to be able to read scientific papers but if someone can't properly function in society we should help them up their reading level. How else will they be able to buy groceries? they need to have a decent level in reading and speaking to do that.
I'm just below a level 3 literacy and have struggled all my life with reading and writing. my parents homeschooled me, but they worked all the time, which meant they didn't have time to teach me so I had to learn on my own. it was so hard and the amount of time I sat crying on the floor because I couldn't read that one word was insane. I'm 15 now and I am doing my high school exams next year, but I still struggle with words, but I don't let it stop me. I didn't get bullied because I spent most of my time bullying myself. it's hard enough trying to read let alone people being horrible to you about it. HELP PEOPLE if you see them struggling just HELP THEM. I was so ashamed of myself for being illiterate and developed an eating disorder because of it.
Literacy is a useless skill. If you are dyslexic, then you can never become literate. If you are not you can learn any language in 1 month with just an internet connection. But don't bother because reading is ableist.
As someone who grew up in an affluent “liberal” community with a severe reading disability, the cruelty shown to those who are deemed stupid or uneducated is truly inexcusable. I’ve got horrible memories of needing to read aloud to my peers and even worse ones of teachers ridiculing me for “not knowing” something when I was struggling through a reading even though they had access to my IEP. Reading allowed to someone is still a huge anxiety. I currently work in academic research (which is a huge literacy load) but in my personal life I never read. I’ve finally after years of feeling too humiliated, accepted that I’m never going to be able read at the level I’m able to think at and I’m going to need to use literacy aids and thats fine. However, I often think about how (as someone who’s highly educated) I’ve been shamed for how I read/write by my class ingroup and how much worse it would feel to be shamed and humiliated by people who in many ways are withholding that skill from you.
I would like to point out that struggling with a style of writing doesn't make someone illiterate either. That woman could clearly read and write as evidenced by the existence of the post. She may just struggle with the way manuals use their word structure. Most of us might struggle with scientific papers were we to causally read them, that wouldn't make anyone stupid or illiterate, it's just the way it is being written that doesn't often accommodate a flow of understanding
things like this are why I subscribe to the idea of different forms of intelligence rather then some simple catch all form of it, you can be smart in math, in writing, in talking or in working, just cause you can't carve a sculpture with your hands doesn't mean your dumb, nor does failing to figure out advanced mathematics, nor being a bad writer. point is just cause your lacking in one form of intelligence doesn't mean you are stupid, it just means your abilities are likely in another. (judging by how I am fairly sure I just insulted a lot of people by calling them lacking in intelligence I clearly am not the strongest writer out there)
I have a high reading level with really good comprehension. Like, was in the gifted program for reading in grade school and was the kid everyone asked to "speak English" because of my larger vocabulary Now I'm trying to build a house, and the jargon and word structure used for all the paperwork makes me feel stupid. I have CRIED over trying to understand it, and am so SO grateful my mother in law built her own house too and can help me know what the heck I'm supposed to do with this stuff. It also took me over a month to learn the finer (read: slightly more in depth than basic) points of audio editing because people already into that stuff have what seemed like an entirely separate language to explain stuff. People already used to working with an issue may not realize their explanations are confusing to others. Sometimes people just need you to explain it to them like they're five, and without ridicule. Unfortunately official paperwork doesn't tend to care about that sort of thing and, I suspect, likes that people out of their "circles" can't understand what's written.
Also sometimes those instruction sheets are written in font so tiny you basically need a magnifying glass to read it. I have excellent reading comprehension and I'm very good at following instructions to a T, but that doesn't do me any good if the letters aren't big enough for me to read in the first place.
@@EveryDayALittleDeath I really struggle with instruction manuals at times as well. Especially if they’re needlessly complicated, badly explained or printed really small.
Yeah I see this a lot when things are also translated as the instructions when translated aren't always worded right for that specific language making it harder. Just because the words are technically correct, doesn’t mean it's understandable.
I find it really interesting how education, skills and intelligence are blind spots when it comes to otherwise progressive people. It always bothers me when statistics come out that college educated voters were more likely to vote for Biden or other democratic candidates, and liberals and leftists use this information to act as if we're so much smarter than republican voters as opposed to seeing this as a sign that the democratic party does not do enough to meet the needs of lower income, blue collar workers who are often underprivileged.
I'm from rural Missouri. We have high rates of poverty, drug use and brain drain. In theory they should be the people the Democrats should most want to help. But for most of them they feel like the Democrats have abandoned rural white folks for urban minority groups. Republicans at least defend their guns and their religion even if the other policies aren't super helpful. The Democrats need to do a better job at fighting poverty in general and not just focus on urban poverty in their narrative.
@@Extinctanimals22 That is because this polarization of left vs rigth paradigm that is so simplistic that I cannot Donold Trump pull the trigger and everybody was losing their mind for him. The right trying to adored their idol Donald Trump while Altrighter creating new rhetoric and attracting new audiences for their propoganda. Left winger managed horrendously to this situation and let their hatred to Donald Trump as their main purpose instead of solvung problems like ableism ,male issues, homosexual domestic violence, incarceration problem, veterans ,poor people , working class and etc. Also there is underlying narcissism in both side of the spectrum. They have in common they believe they are morally superior , smarter and represent the people they allegdy trying to save from. There is no nuance , humbliness , debate turn into a sport who better at arguing instead of a learning or searching for truth. The biggest problem ideology trumps pragmatism and turn into something to posture. Worst thing it does not solve problems whatsover and always insulting each other like to rival brother fithing each other instead of solving or gaining new ideas to adress issues. No wonder people search for other extreme ideology like paleoconservativism, white nationslism, black nationalism , comunism, libertarianism , socialism , distributism and etc. People are sick of false promises and not getting results nor being recognized. Sometimes certain are ignored to other marginalized group giving special attention to them and have this weird of sacrificing other demographic because they suffer less than the " minority" and turn into pity party who is the most victimized and other the opressor. There is no middle ground or gray area of the situation. We can just understand that world is not thst freacking simple to just every issue with biases and prejuices. Also , we have a lot problem with regard with existential crisis, mental heath, education, career and relationship. There is a problem of admitting you are wrong and being humble. People nowadays do not have a healthy self love thst is not narcisistic. All of these is not a poltical issues is a human being still not adapting this new reality and facing the consecuences of past decision made for humanity that gave new problems and still it is not solved.
And the thing is, telling people that seems to be all too common these days. I've heard people say this about disabled people, people with dwarfism, poor people and especially people from the third world.
@@-Scrapper- Thats not the fault of the poor person, its the fault of society for not caring for the vulnerable in society. Should we also tell black people not to have children because they'll most likely be discriminated against? Its all just another kind of eugenics in my opinion.
@@-Scrapper- Its a reality that can be changed, but not by telling people not to have children. Its not your place nor is it mine to tell people whether they should or shouldn't have kids.
"You never forget how to ride a bike that's how that works right?" Me with low kinesthetic intelligence who actually forgot how to ride a bike. T_T I'm really good with reading though, it just goes to show that people are wired differently. Like I remember hearing about Aphantasia and suddenly all those people I met who didn't understand the appeal of reading made a lot more sense.
Irony here: I was a huge fiction reader as a kid, and while I can make images, they're pretty much entirely vague. I'm very good at imagining character and atmosphere, though. Definitely a nuanced subject.
on that last one - from what ive read about aphantasia, i strongly suspect that i am aphantasic and i very much enjoy reading quite a bit (as well as pen&paper roleplaying games)... but in retrospect i can see why i enjoyed some books more than others and why i had trouble with some aspects of roleplaying the lack of that eye of the mind and induced mental images meant that my imagination of what was described was a lot more abstract and that lengthy descriptions of vistas, which to others might be incredibly evocative, did nothing for me aside from feeling repetetive... on the other hand descriptions of political intrigue, deductions or character interactions were highly fascinating, because those always are abstract concepts anyway... and following those thoughts and extrapolating where the story could or will be going from there is highly engaging to me so i would say that reading can be very appealing to people with aphantasia as well...but it might manifest a bit differently
Aphantasia does not necessarily mean you do not enjoy books. There are even famous authors who are aphantasi...astic? Mark Lawrence for example. He writes about and gives interviews with some frequency.
This hit home. My father is likely a level 1-2 and we always laughed it off, we thought it was because he didn't write often. But now that I look back on it, he did have to take a written test to get his motorcycle license 5 times before he could manage to pass, and then it was only through the innovation of computer-based audio questions that he was able to pass. Come to think of that, even my own name was changed due to this issue, I have a rather simple name because he denied the idea of naming me Xavier, because he couldn't spell that name.
This just gave me a revelation, so thank you! My husband struggles with spelling and now that we have a baby due in a few months, we're trying to choose a name. He hates the idea of a middle name or even a long first name because it gave him a lot of grief growing up. He misspells his own middle name a fair amount. I was annoyed because I hated having no middle name and am partial to long names, but now I'm realizing why he feels the way he does. I really don't know how I never connected the dots on that one! Huh, now I feel sheepish for not being more understanding. I even have a dad who struggles with spelling. It's been a running joke in our family, but now I'm thinking that we've been kind of rude to him. I really should've known better, since I struggle just as much in other areas. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with your father!
@@songpoetry1 hi! I am not a mum, I am a teenager who should be asleep right now and has very little experience with other humans, so feel free not to take my advice. What you could do is have a name that is simple to spell but isn’t just a few letters long. Something like ‘Madeline’ or ‘Gregory’. You can probably come up with a better idea but those two are the examples I could think of. Something that’s spelt the way it sounds without any random letters sprinkled in to make the word look pretty, ‘ough’s (what is up with that letter combination?) or unnecessary silent consonants. Also, the two examples I gave could be shortened to make them simpler. I hope you and your baby are okay! Or will be, if he/she/they isn’t/aren’t born yet. I’m not great with the concept of time. Okay, I’m going to bed now.
I'm pretty much Math "illiterate". I count on my hands as I find it nearly impossible to count in my head. I function normally in nearly every other aspect. We treat people like trash who have a different way of comprehending a problem or solving it "the wrong way".
Same I can barely say numbers out loud cause my brain is like 'lol no those don't exist' it's easier to hide in some places than my other brain quirks but it's so frustrating that I'm immediately labeled as 'doing it wrong' when I am quite capable of doing a wide range of things
Whenever I notice someone actually having some kind of legitimate problem, I switch my mindset from "oh lol, this idiot" to "I want to and have to be nice, they don't deserve poor treatment". It is just a thing people like you cannot change and it requires sympathy and understanding. I once had a classmate who had a severe case of "maths alzheimer"(because I don't know the correct term if it exists). They were able to learn the concepts properly, but it was basically deleted from their brain after about 5 minutes of not practicing. It was clear to me that they had to have some kind of disability or a related issue, but the teacher just said to practice more. Like it wasn't suspicious at all that someone would go from being able to do the tasks to not even comprehending it in a few minutes flat. It kinda hurt to not be able to do anything because I had my own trouble to sort out.
@@lpfan4491 I think the term you’re looking for is dyscalculia. Constantly needing to practice/re-cap skills is one of the symptoms. I struggled with this and many other symptoms all throughout high school without receiving any help, even though looking back it couldn’t be more obvious. I’m still fighting at 20 to get diagnosed because my doctor doesn’t believe it’s a real LD, despite being in the DSM-5. The problem is that most people aren’t really aware of learning disorders outside of dyslexia. Hopefully by discussing these issues we’ll be closer to achieving some meaningful change
It's another form of privilege. "It came easy to me, so it should be easy for everyone." Even if it was actually difficult, but happened so long ago and you're now so practiced that you've forgotten the early struggles.
@@givemethebreadsticks I was just gonna say, it sounds like a form of dyscalculia. It's something I struggle with too. It's interesting because I really love math. I do computer programming as a hobby, and have no problem engaging with hard logic, trigonometry, calculus, etc. The only caveat being that I have to see these numbers in front of me in some form, either on paper, or on screen - I just can not sort or calculate large numbers in my head. I excelled in all subjects in school, but I never actually fully internalized the multiplication table, despite putting in years of practice. This has limited me from a lot of service sector jobs that involve any sort handling with money directly in a fast paced environment (like 99% of service jobs). But if I'm working with finances laid out in a spreadsheet, and using complex formulas, I have no issue. In fact, I've done a lot of accounting/finance work just fine. But if you handed me a $20 dollar bill and asked me for change in quarters, I would not be able to do it with ease. (As a test, I just tried to do the math real quick, and it took me about 6 seconds. I had to use my fingers to visualize the 4-quarters-in-a-dollar, and then realized that I could multiply 4 by 2, to get 8, which meant 80 quarters. I CAN do simple mental math, but I need full concentration, and it takes me SIGNFICANTLY longer than an average retail worker -- I can not work at a "competitive" speed in those kinds of positions. And this was something as simple as 20 divided by 4 (or technically 200 / 25, in cents))
This sort of thing also comes up in second-language learning contexts. When I was doing my ESL (English second language) teacher training, my instructor told us the story of another student he's had. This person was also training to be an ESL teacher, but was treating their beginner-level students with a lot of disrespect. Finally, one of the ESL students in the class stood up and said, slowly and deliberately, "We're not stupid. We just don't speak English." That story has stuck with me since then. Honestly, most of the ESL students I've taught over the years have been driven, intelligent, and fascinating people... who just don't happen to speak English very well. I respect them all immensely for putting in the effort. I've been learning French for decades and still consider myself intermediate at best.
Hey Zoe. I just wanted to express how much I appreciate this video. My dad struggles with a lot of what you mentioned in the video. Growing up, and to this day, I always partially resented hin for not trying, despite knowing that he has tried in the past and received no support. I'm a social worker by trade. I live and breath the discussion of systematic oppression and how to deal with it, but I never saw literacy learning as a part of that in any sense, despite it being literally right in front of me my whole life. I want to make sure you know that you gave at least one person perspective on an issue that was sorely needed. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
It was a humbling experience to realize that my ABE students were smarter than me in many ways (have to be to get by without advanced reading skills)-my only real virtue was privilege
Oh yes absolutely. I met a man in our local literacy org who owned and ran a business until he retired. Once he retired, he decided to finally learn how to read! Incredible.
Just want to put it out there that there is probably another reason why most American's don't know somebody who is illiterate: they just genuinely don't know somebody who is. I'd hazard a guess that lots of illiterate adults are part of communities that for one reason or another suffer immensely on the educational side of things. Like people who live in a ghetto or otherwise poor neighbourhood. Everyone around them who 'knows' them is probably in the same boat. Meanwhile, one neighbourhood over, a community of middle-class Americans who are either almost entirely or entirely literate look at each other and think that illiteracy can't be that common. This phenomena is called social sampling - you overestimate how many people resemble people in your social circle. Fighting illiteracy and the stigma surrounding it - just like fighting racism - is going to involve putting these people on a more level playing field with society so that being illiterate becomes disassociated from being poor or living in a bad neighbourhood. Empathy for people in discriminated groups tends to shoot upwards when everyone has at least one 'illiterate friend'. Thanks for putting this video out. I hope that America takes steps to fix its abysmal education system.
I obtained a master’s degree years ago, but instead of pursuing a career, I decided to stay at home with my kids. But even then, having to read dense texts and doing technical writing was so difficult it’s a wonder I was able to succeed. I grew up low income with the whole “white trash” diet you mentioned in your previous videos, received bad grades and attended low ranking/performing schools. Attending grad school and, even after graduating, I felt like a major fraud. Today, watching all these leftube and philosophy videos, I just feel super inadequate because it’s hard for me to follow most of them. The speaker talks so fast as if they’re reading from a script and use a lot of vocabulary I just don’t know the meaning of. It’s very hard to find simple, practical anarchist videos or reading for folks on that lower side of the literacy scale. I definitely think that mine and other low-income folks’ education, or lack there of, was by design. Because if everyone were raised with an equal access to reading and writing, as opposed to school to labor and school to prison pipeline, we would all be able to read and practice philosophy and better advocate for ourselves in this capitalist hellscape. I want to thank you for such an easy-to-follow, conversational video. You created such an inviting space that I finally feel confident to say something in the comments section. I see so many people in these leftist comments sections insulting each other, it’s intimidating. I really hope you post more and I really appreciate you using an example from parenting as that’s also lacking in anarchist material on TH-cam.
I take it you've been watching some of Philosophy Tubes videos lol, she can be pretty wordy for sure. I can suggest some channels for you to try out, I dont if they will be your cup of tea, but it's always good to share good content:) Thought Slime, Renegade Cut, Contrapoints, Salari, Lindsey Ellis, Hbomberguy, My Take, Graham elwood... etc. Actually, you should probably just ask r/breadtube for their recommendations (reddit). There is probably a bunch of people who have similar struggles and can give you a better curated list. Anyways, welcome comrade:)
Watch Shaun, José or Big Joel! They're somewhat easy to follow and very nice, calm people. English isn't my first language so when I first started getting into breadtube, I had a hard time following creators like Contrapoints, Lindsay Ellis, Sarah Z or For Harriet because of the topics they elaborate on and the vocabulary they use, but watching this type of content almost daily helped me understand their arguments a lot better in the long run.
Just wanted to send you some love and let you know that I empathise. If you ever want someone to talk about left tube videos with I'm down. Verbal or written. You can @ me in comments anywhere, but I also use this same user name on instagram and most social media if you want to reach out. I'm Indigenous and the first generation in my family not forced into residential schools. Most of my family struggles with reading and writing. I have the privilege of helping them with all of their formal paperwork and a lot of informal stuff (like youtube comments and understanding vocabulary in media). Ironically, my dad has gotten super into "bread tube" recently, but doesn't understand most of the vocab. It's been really fun getting to talk to him about some of the ideas in the videos he's been watching. I'm also a disabled, non binary, low income, single parent and firmly in the anarchist category politically (for added context lol)
Yes! I'm dsylexic and I've got like a little red bracelet on my right arm (because both have an r in them) to help me. Its like a string bracelet but you can get them in loads of styles. That way I can just look at my wrists. Somebody I know also dose this with nail polish as well.
Yeah, some dyslexic people also say the opposite of what they mean to say. If you know that they're dyslexic it's usually pretty easy to tell what they're saying from context, but that has to be pretty annoying right? And on top of that people being demeaning to you about something out of your control that ultimately shouldn't matter in most situations.
I've never made fun of people who can't read, specifically because of that one scene in "a league of their own" where that one character cries and becomes embarrassed when she can read if she made the team or not. okay maybe that's not the only reason. this is a very thoughtful video that really go in depth and explains why you shouldn't shame people for being illiterate. you did a super good job and i really hope it teaches particularly stubborn people why shaming people can be a bad thing all around.
That 52% statistic literally shocked me. This video was really eye-opening. It's certainly made me reconsider the way I think about and treat illiterate people. Thank you for making something important.
Generations of citizens voting for parties who consistently de-fund education will inevitably result in these numbers and higher. There is also a reason Orwell invented Newspeak.
@4Freedom4All Interesting. According to a Forbes article from Sept 9, 2020 "According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level" Now we will argue about Illiterate and functionally illiterate and low literate I suppose? www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=17c697b94c90
@@dinnerwithfranklin2451 Honesty it's a cycle. There's a reason why the south is mostly red and has lower education scores. As someone who's lived in Georgia my whole life the cycle continue to happen there are small improvements but it never feels like enough for certain kids to catch up
when you asked what percentage of adults fall below level 3 i cynically muttered 50% and then the real number was slightly higher. and i have about as negative a view of the failures of the american education system you can imagine. jesus christ.
Personally, the way I see it is those with dyslexia and similar learning disabilities get a pass as they didn't decide to be born neurodivergent, those who the education system failed get a partial pass with the understanding that they try and improve but the timeline for that is none of my business just that they try and better their situation, and those who simply want to wallow in ignorance get no passes because there are two things which I absolutely loathe, willful stupidity and self-centeredness (probably why I became such a misanthrope when reality too often didn't match my naive expectations).
HenshinFanatic or, maybe everyone deserves a “pass” because without it, they’ll likely fall into a cycle of poverty and state-sanctioned abuse. You may see someone not working on literacy as willfully stupid (which is the exact mindset this video critiques, imo) but why is that so? How is an illiterate person supposed to find an adult literacy class when they can’t successfully navigate websites or get a drivers license? How can they pay for those classes when they can’t work a well-paying job? How are they supposed to make time for classes when they have to work crazy hours to survive in our broken economic system? It’s just cruel to say that anyone deserves poverty or to struggle in life because of something like literacy.
@@HenshinFanatic Please don't. It's enough I feel dumb for still struggling with reading due to my learning disabilites and would never want anyone to deal with the mockery people have given to me over it.
I worked at a library's literacy dept. and honestly when you're mindful of literacy restrictions it really helps to communicate things more clearly in general. I've learned to break down things like computer instructions, loan applications, and business documents into simple language bc of that experience so I highly recommend volunteering if you can.
I’m “functionally illiterate” however I’ve managed to get a PhD, At work I hide behind IT & are mostly undetected, I can’t write properly (legibly or spelling), words are essentially pictures to me making reading very difficult. Say I’m in a restaurant & see a new word, I can’t read it, it’s a picture. Friends often tease me when this happens. A waitress once ridiculed me while I was on a date. I’ve come to accept if I was ever arrested I would need someone to read everything out loud to me.
how did you manage to be illiterate, could you tell me if there was anything stopping you from being as literate as you could be? (like for example; dyslexia, learning disorders, et cetera), how did you brain get "wired" to interpret writing as pictures instead of language?
@@1leon000 I’m dyslexic, I knew I was different about age 7. It took until I was about 13 before school thought something was wrong. My IQ percentile is in the top 2% (but it’s not a very good measure) so it was fairly easy to hide. I’m learning a language at night school and the teacher noticed something about me was different last week. It’s hard but I’ve had to adapt to the reality of it 🤷♂️
I actually recently posted a video that led to a friend "coming out" to me as dyslexic, and it was a real eye opener. I cried that night thinking about callous things I'd said over the years without ever realizing how this person was struggling, all the times we'd "joked" about them being illiterate, and reflecting on my own struggles with learning through ADHD. Thank you for doing the work of helping us realize our own meanness so we can start the hard work of eliminating it.
I've spent nearly a half year learning a second language and the amount of reading it requires is incredibly humbling. When you are raised in a way that enables you to become literate it is easy to look back on that time and forget what a struggle learning to read and write was and is. Learning a second language with the added difficulty of new writing systems puts you back in that place of essentially knowing nothing. It was incredibly frustrating for a time.
I know, right? I mean, I started with German. We have most of the same alphabet, but re-understanding how these sounds interact etc. was so irritating. I hate not being able to express myself, and I want to do better, always. My command over English is pretty damn good, and it's humbling.
I was just looking for a comment like this. I've spent the last few months learning the basics of Japanese, since it can be done safely online during a pandemic without spreading disease. It's definitely taught me some empathy, especially for people who come from different writing systems into English. I've said to everyone who will listen, it's a good thing Japanese doesn't take the same inconsistent approach to pronouncing its words English does, because I would have given up months ago. It's humbling, especially as someone who falls in the 48% of Americans who do not struggle with literacy. I'm lucky to be in a position of privilege where I can study Japanese and drill kana/kanji; I can't imagine having to try and get by and make money and survive at my current level of the language.
After four years of studying Japanese at a college level, I definitely agree. My literacy is probably about that of a highschool level now, approx. 1000 kanji, JLPT N2 grammar literacy, and I find most things intended for my age (22) completely inaccessible even still. When I was applying for an exchange program, I needed my native Japanese friend to help me. (And then when I got accepted, covid happened so I never got to go...)
@@teaja211 Rude was a word I used to be kind. The proper word is asshole. No one said you couldn't comment on this. I was just telling you it was a shitty comment. Everyone else who replied shared their experience, your comment was made purely to antagonize. It's not conducive to the conversation. I hope you find better ways to spend your time than shitting on people for learning of all things.
I expected to learn important things from this video, but I didn't expect to find out that I'm an adult literacy learner. I didn't realize that my severe difficulties filling out forms, writing a CV, spelling without autocorrect, writing essays or articles, and following written instructions qualified as a literacy issue. I thought that since I can read fiction, communicate with friends over text, and speak eloquently I must be fully literate. This really recontextualizes all the times I've cried in confusion at job applications, starred blankly at pages of instructions, and panicked in front of written tests about things that I am good at. I once tried to explain to my bemused comrades that I can't write an article for our anarchist newsletter and I'm still not sure if they get it. By the way my literacy issues are definitely because of my neurodivergencies (ADHD and autism), and it gets better whenever I find more accessible ways to learn a literacy skill.
Also installing a car seat? Wouldn’t that mean this person is having or just had a baby? I can’t imagine the issue with her not wanting to deal with the instructions not having to do with the stress and exhaustion of birthing a tiny human. :( some I wish the group had more empathy
That group was really, just a meeting of bullies from school who never grew out of their “stupid and jerky” phase, and that mother joined without knowing 😢
@@icantthinkofaname8139 the progressive rules of the group worrying allow them convince themselves they are the good guys too and that their bullying is a crusade for bettering the world
While I agree with your point the seat looked more like a forward facing seat meant for a 1+ year old. Still a lot of work and all that still applies fairly well.
I just want to find that girl and help her with her car seat, I hope someone did, the amount of damage done by the people in that parenting group is unfathomable!
And it’s not even (completely) a literacy issue! Our local fire department does car seat installations because they’re so tricky to do properly. If she had just said that she was having a difficult time doing the install I bet people would have been sympathetic. But because she was honest about her problem, she was insulted and mocked. No wonder people don’t ‘come out’ about struggling with reading!
My grandmother, an absolute gem of a human being, struggles with writing a lot. From what she has told me, her upbringing in poor, rural Ireland and her schooling massively contributed to it (she was hit across the hand with a ruler for trying to write with her left, her natural hand). She is massively embarrassed by her writing, to the point where she gets my Aunts to write addresses on envelopes. Thank you for this video. You get it.
I’m not illiterate but this reminds me of when my friend used to make fun of my borderline illegible handwriting but it turns out it was cause I was disabled.
This one is really good. I've worked with so many people who would be considered illiterate. They are definitely not stupid. Being able to talk-to-text on your phone and watch videos to show you how to do things really help, our world is becoming more accessible and yet more hostile to these adults. My nana raised three children as a single mother, and didn't know how to read above a second grade level until she was 48. She's the most kind and emotionally intelligent person I've ever met. My co-teacher at my daycare has difficulty reading in her head and doesn't read books to our class, she's extremely smart and always figures out how to do complicated curriculum activities that I struggle to grasp. The failures of education, of a system that doesn't prioritize understanding but memorizing and test taking, the failures of capitalism and society to provide resources to these people are not their failures, they are being failed. Sometimes I think about the kind of life my nana could have lived if she had been able to continue school after 8th grade, if she had been born in a town that didn't just have a single room school house, or to a family without six younger siblings to take care of. She could have been a nurse, or a teacher instead of working as an unlicensed beautician and a waitress. Poverty is the ultimate barrier.
As a privileged literate person myself I am guilty of contributing to this issue. Thank you for enlightening me. I'm going to share this with some of the groups I'm in and one of my lecturers in the Sociology department at my university.
So am I. Most of my "contributions" to this discourse have been throwaway jokes about George W. Bush. I've always conflated with adult illiteracy in the developed world with right-wing and fundamentalist ignorance even though I know it's objectively false.
Really awesome work. I'm a #UX designer by day and part of my job is making software and websites easier to use. Your video is so important for my industry to remember because we are the people designing those awful government websites and horrid web forms and so on. I'm going to make this mandatory viewing for future interns and people that work with me because it lies at the heart of why we do what we do.
Oh my gosh - hi! I love your work! It's also so great to hear that my video could help to have an impact on something, like, REAL. Thank you so much, both for your kind words and for fighting the good fight!
Literacy is really about privilege. When I was 12, I was middle class and at a college reading level. My family became lower class when my sister was very little. She is 12 now and still can't read. She's just as smart as me, but the limitations of our economic class have kept her from learning. She thinks she's dumb because of how many adults in her life have mocked her and called her lazy. It's very upsetting.
Re: Voting. Voting is hard - even being literate, sweating at the polling station because I am nervous, the instructions are incomprehensible and I don't recognise some of the candidates feels embarrassing. I try to find ballot papers online to look at the instructions and research candidates in peace and print some out to give to others. Having some extra time to look at the layout and so on may help. For elections where the candidates are not well known (eg local elections that aren't hotly contested), my friends and I have held pre-voting parties to research our choices together. It can't really be unbiased, but at least you'll know more than before.
Growing up, I knew an adult, E, who was illiterate. He dropped out of school so that he could help his family. His siblings went to school, but he didn’t. I lived over a funeral home and he was the “porter.” It was a job he could do but someone else had to order all of the cleaning supplies but he couldn’t read. I think he was also paid under the table, because when he retired, he did not qualify for Social Security-or he could not fill out the paper work needed. The only benefit he had for all the years he worked was a life insurance policy. A policy that his younger sister took from him claiming that she would help him when he was dying of cancer. He made his “mark” thinking that he was leaving the policy to the mother of his children. Instead all of the funds went to his sister. I have always argued that the illiterate are not lazy or stupid. There are always supposed examples of people who just don’t want to learn, but the reality is more complicated than that. They may have had to drop out like E, or they may have a disability and attended in a rural area where the school lacked teachers who could work with them, so they were progressed through to each grade because there was nothing else to do with them. As a teacher of adults, I have teach a wide range of students. As a country, we do a huge disservice to many of our students, allowing those who are “Other” to fall between the cracks. This issue will only become worse as more states move to easing restrictions on child labor and doing everything possible to kill the public school system. Illiteracy will only get worse.
As someone who struggled in his youth with literacy due to the lack of formal education of my close family I loved this video. I am currently in college for math education and I am taking several literacy classes to cater towards children who struggle with literacy, I feel my literacy professor would love this video.
I’m so glad you made this video. I really hope people learn more about this. I am dyslexic and didn’t learn to read until I was 10 years old. It’s something I still struggle with. I never actually got diagnosed, all throughout school teachers and students just said I was lazy or the R word. I now tutor children in reading and writing. 80% of my job is telling parents that it’s ok if there kids are a little behind and working with them to help there kids fall in love with reading.
I struggled to read as a kid. Like, basic reading, spelling, anxiety having to read a loud. Turns out I had trouble seeing the letters, and because my family was poor I didn't get a vision exam as often as I needed. Once they figured out I needed bifocals at about 8 and a half, I started reading old Archie comics and my moms vintage Nancy drew books and took off! Even though I am now a ravenous reader, I still struggle to spell, and with some pronunciations.
Same here, I didnt realise i needed glasses until i was 10, i used to read with my face literally pressed to the page. Luckily my dad read the hobbit and faraway tree books to me every night for years. Parents! Read to your kids!
I told people in 1st grade I needed glasses. I did see an optometrist but he said my eyesight will get better on it's own, it didnt. I saw a different one 4 years later he said I should have gotten them earlier.
As someone who reads a lot and speaks very little, some of the pronunciation mistakes I make are absolutely hilarious. I will just misread a word and from then on, that correct spelling no longer exists to me. I pronounce loads of words like they would be pronounced if English was a sane language, like Spanish (pause for the appreciation of Spanish’s phonetic consistency) and then there are things like the embarrassing amount of time it took for me to realise that ‘thorough’ and ‘through’ are two separate words and not just the same one re-used like the lazy little doorknob English is. Also, ‘pronUnciation’? Seriously? It just went, “oH, yOu KnOw WhAt ThIs LaNgUaGe HaS fAr ToO mUcH oF? *MATCHING WORDS!* i’D bEtTeR jUsT- [
There's a TV show in the UK called The Write Offs who follow a group of adults who struggle with literacy. It seems to address a lot of what you mention here and has a fairly diverse group of people, in regards to why they struggle with literacy.
I once worked with a group of people in a middle school building. During registration, a mother came in asking for someone to help her with the registration process. She was told by several staff to just "read through the website". In front of other parents, staff, and a few students, the mother had to admit that she was struggling with the directions on the site and needed someone to sit down with her and take her through it. Several office workers scoffed at her and pretty much told her "good luck". They then gave me nasty looks for insisting on sitting down with her and taking her through the process myself (I had other things to do, but this was important). She told me that she was afraid that her daughter was suffering from the same reading issue and wanted her screened before she started school. It breaks my heart that she was just desperate to not have her daughter suffer through the same literacy struggles she went through. It DISGUSTS me how critical and closed minded the staff was. SCHOOL STAFF! We're the very people who should be the FIRST to understand. Ours is a toxic culture: especially when it comes to those we don't understand.
I'm a translator and translating instructions manuals is a large part of my job. Instructions are written in a very specific way, different from the everyday language we normally use. Over the years I've noticed that the quality of such instructions lowered significantly. They're often confusing or even simply incorrect, this applies especially to small electronics. If you ever struggle with instructions for a thing you just bought, there's a good chance you're not the only user who does.
I know that's the case when I couldn't understand something, only to find out that my family doesn't understand either. I should point out that both me and my mom are translating texts and movies on regular bases so I can say that comprehension is something I am good at (and not just me). However there is also another problem. Sometimes you can't literally read what is written. I am not sure why every single instruction is forcing the ever smaller letters and numbers, but it is a serious problem. Out of 4 us in family only I don't have glasses and I have very good sight overall. However, sometimes I am forced to read instructions for my parents, not because they are stupid, but because they can't physically see letters and while I can read it, sometimes I struggle too. This not only hinders people understanding instructions (the main purpose of manuals) for no reason, but it damages sight. Sure, my sight is good and my parents can figure things on their own, but what will happen when my sight fails? My parents when I am not around need to use magnifying glass with their glasses to read. I wonder how much they damaged their sight that way. Sometimes, I wonder if there is a conspiracy to make people comprehend less and damage their sight in the process.
It's so surprising because i thought there was a culturally uniting thing that people rarely read manuals and try to play with what object they're given or bought with. And that people who make products try to make them as intuitive as possible so people buy them more, etc.
Okay, I'm about to link this everywhere. About 1/4 people in my country (Scotland) are illiterate. Edit: source: Scottish Survey of Adult Literacies 2009.
@TheJesusaurus it does sound like a lot, but the illiteracy rate in the US is more than half. A quarter of the Scottish population doesn't sound so extreme in comparison.
@@thejesusaurus6573 Scotland has many issues we need to tackle tbh. lots of deprivation, Also substance abuse, Scotland has the highest proportion of drug related deaths in Europe.
Well, this was a rude awakening to something that I'm embarrassed not to have already understood. The literacy bubble is quite insulative it seems. Thank you for making this video, I need to make some adjustments to my behavior.
This might be one of the most impactful video's I've watched on this platform. I think my local library has a literacy program and I am going to inquire about volunteering there.
This video was extremely powerful to me. The main subject for sure, but that one line in passing "that's just eugenics". As soon as I thought about it I realized exactly how much rhetoric that falls into that category I have heard and not disputed. thanks for that!
'Eugenics' isn't limited to what the Nazis called their failed and ill-founded racial purity programmes. CRISPR is the future-'Eugenics' literally means 'good genes'. Genetic justice for all is the next crucial frontier of humanity.
It was that line that soured me on the video. It may sound a bit antinatalist but having a child when you know that you are not able to give them the care that they need is a bad thing. It is cruel and society failing you is not an excuse to do that to another person. Painting all criticisms as eugenics is irresponsible.
@@Captain_Chair any group of people who deny the right of bearing a child to someone based on some arbitrary standard, like literacy, is eugenics. Even if someone cannot read, if they are not abusing or neglecting the child in their care, they have the right to parent that child. I recently watched a Mia Mulder video in which she discusses her transition. At that time, the government sterilized trans people as a matter of policy, as they considered trans people to be unfit parents. That video hit me deep in my soul. Fortunately, the government changed their policy and by some miracle she was eventually able to recover some of her fertility and have a sperm sample frozen to use if she decides she wants biological children. It felt awful hearing her talk about the sterilization policy so matter of factly, and I would never want to force another person to go through that.
@@jwick2520 But someone who cannot read to their child is inherently neglecting their child. It's not their fault but it is a passive cycle of abuse that needs to be addressed systemically.
It makes me sad that I can really see this stigmatizing behaviour around me and how quick people are to write off others as stupid and not deserving of help or financial aid because they are "lazy". We are so willing to define a persons worth based on their skills in something they often have little influence over. And the 52% number really shows that this is a society that fails more than half it's members and doesn't really care.
As someone who works in literacy, It's great to see a video on this! Idk about other countries but many Australian schools are behind in implementing actual evidence-based literacy teaching methods, so it's awful to hear people here be jerks to people who like, don't spell correctly, considering their schools probably weren't equipped to even teach them properly.
This video really amazed me and touched me, in fact I'm in tears as I write this. I went to an adult high school, where people who were beyond the compulsory schooling age chose to go back to school and finish year 11 and 12. It was a really important experience for me because I wouldn't have been able to go to university without going back to school and sitting my exams to earn my ATAR (the Australian national ranking of high school students in a given year who wish to go to university). While I was there I met so many amazing people from poorer backgrounds who were making this amazing step in trying to improve themselves; from 18 year old's who struggled with mainstream schooling and just needed a slight adjustment to how they were taught, to people in their 50s and 60s just trying to make up for the opportunities they missed earlier in life. I never looked at my experience going back to school as being related to my literacy level, but that is exactly what it is and it was life changing for me and so many other people. Thank you for helping me realize that adult illiteracy is a massive societal issue and isn't as simple as a person not being able to read basic sentences.
As someone with dyslexia, to this day I can not stand when people say ''You just need to read''. Read what? People don't take into consideration how hard it is to read when what you are trying to read is not interesting. You need to actually be interested in what you are reading to be able to concentrate. I tried finding things to read, but I couldn't concentrate, because everything was boring and I though I could be doing so many other things instead of reading this one sentence over and over again because I couldn't remember what I had read. I tried to find books for people my age at the time, but it was exhausting trying to read someone waxing poetry about the sky for 5 pages instead of actually getting into the plot. Newspapers, kids books, ingredients on a food label? What are we suppose to be reading? I don't think people know or understand how much time people have to use on finding something to read to be able to actually practice reading. Also not everyone has access or time to find something they would be able to use for reading. I found fanfiction at 13 and that was the only thing that was able to keep me interested enough to struggle through it. They were short and didn't usually go on a 3000 word tangent about how a characters life is like a tree. I was privileged enough to have access to all kinds of literature, but what is a fully grown adult with a job and/or family suppose to do?
If you'd like to enjoy books specifically, audiobooks are great. You still get all the story or all the knowledge without using so much energy to get it. It's good to practice reading, but it's okay if you just want to enjoy something in a way that's less draining!
Maybe a bit weird but there are books for language learners that are written using simple sentences and can be interesting for people who speak English (or what have you) as a first language too.
I am from Finland and my elementary school teacher used to say that there’s no such a thing called “stupid question”. I think that the mother on video was smart because she tried to ask instead of getting stuck. I think that people were unnecessarily mean to her when she has a genuine, important safety, question. We don’t know this lady’s background but she might have had dyslexia, ADHD or other disability (or simply not speak English as first language) and thus had difficulties to understand written text manual.
I run therapy groups that involve a lot of reading as part of my job. Since I work with adults in the justice system, an even higher proportion are adults with literacy needs. I’m saving this video, thanks for always having helpful info!
My jaw actually dropped open at the 52% statistic. Makes me think of all the people I’ve met in my life who have struggled with literacy. You’ve made me really interested about this issue and I thank you a lot for that
I'm a decent writer. But, I've gone through creative dry spells, and depressive states where I didn't write for several months, or even a couple years, at a time. Each time coming back, I realize just how rusty I am, and it takes a little to get back into the swing of things. If you've a skill, and you don't use it, you've the chance to lose it. If you are made to use a skill, that you don't want/need/use in your daily life and then don't use it for a while....it makes sense.
Weirdly enough, I used to find it very challenging to write in clear simplified language until I began volunteering with a local intellectual disablity charity. As alot of the clients I worked with loved to communicate by text message. I had a few months of them texting 'I don't understand what you just wrote', every so often, until I finally learned to compose my thoughts in more direct language.
I struggle with over explaining due to childhood trauma, but my bf is dyslexic so whenever I’m texting him I know I need to be short as possible so it’s less daunting for him to read. I’ve gotten a lot better about it outside of texting just because of the practice I have in texting him.
Thank you for putting this issue out there, much appreciated. I remember I was discussing this problem with my friends and they just didn't believe me when I said that over half of US adults are functionally illiterate.
I could read by age 3, and my intelligence was all that I had going for me. Now I have a 9 year old son that is probably dyslexic and has trouble reading. I feel so bad about ever criticizing someone's reading ability. I guess I was hurting and I lashed out at my peers with the one thing I had that they didn't.
Hey I know this comment is 10 months old, but your son should try reading through blue tracing paper. I find it locks the letters in place and stops them moving around so much.
This is a topic you don't see a whole lot of people talking about. I grew out of my "grammar nazi" phase in my early 20's. I'm in my 30's now, what can you do, people weren't exactly woke about a whole lot of things pre 2010. When it comes to literacy, we've probably actually taken a few steps backwards in some ways, since the evolution of technology has lead to so much more communication being done through text rather than speech. It's bad enough without us ACTIVELY working to ostracise and shame people further for struggling with reading and writing.
I *want* people to correct my grammar. I've written things wrong for years because no one online would correct me. For example I thought "believes" was the canonical plural of "belief".
@@MrCmon113 It may be the "incorrect" way to pluralize belief, but I also think it's English's fault for being so darn bespoke. Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions...
I'm dyslexic. I can devour nonfiction but I struggle with fiction. Remembering characters, what they look like, location etc. I can read fiction but it takes a long, long time. It's funny because I've finished Howard Zen's A People's History Of The United States (a door stop) cover to cover but gave up on Coraline after about a month of trying. Reading out loud is pretty much impossible for me. Not sure why I'm sharing this except maybe to reiterate Zoe's point that there's many stages to literacy.
Living in rural California and Oregon I've met people who were almost completely illiterate. They could spell and recognize common words well enough to use the internet and finish school but they needed help. I believe being able to read is very important, every person who plausibly could learn to read should. But people who are illiterate still deserve to have jobs and be treated with basic respect. Society as a whole should use more communication and signage they can easily understand.
The first time I came up against this was doing informed consent for health research studies. The consent form needed to be written at a Grade 8 reading level and we all really struggled with that, partly because it wasn't something that we had really had to do before (all college-or-beyond educated researchers, technicians, physicians) and also because the boilerplate they had for us was so far beyond Grade 8 level. We would talk to people verbally about the consent, which helped, I think ... but I always felt so bad that we would follow that up by giving them a 14 page dense document to "take home and look over" like who the fuck has time for that??
In our org we try to inform healthcare providers on lower the reading level of forms. I’ll tell you, if you give us a form at an 8th grade level we would try make it 3rd grade lol. 8th is usually too high honestly
When I was a kid, the Australian Reading Writing hotline was a banger designed to get into kids' heads, and I hope that helped destigmatise it a bit, and also get the info into an aural text. I hadn't thought about it in years.
I tutor, and it's amazing how much missing one or two steps of learning mess with your whole knowledge base. Teaching a kid that a) it's fine not to "get" spelling, or multiplication, or reading; and b) the actual *content/ skills* they need is just incredible
Yes, I haven't seen an ad in ages but it let me know to study at school or study later. And gave me an understanding that not everyone can read, even though I still take everyone reading for granted most of the time. I still remember the phone number. 1300 655 506.
I love this video, this is something I feel strongly about. I used to be one of those people who would ridicule adults who happened to be less literate than myself. Since I grew up poor and spent most of my time in middle school and high school doing drugs and playing music, I pretty much made straight D's and F's for a good 6 of those years. So I virtually had no real actual education by the time I was 18, but I made a choice to take classes, start reading a lot, and basically just get interested in things, I had a lot of intellectual curiosity. I'm very humiliated nowadays to admit this, but for a number of years I walked around with a false air of superiority because I, quite inaccurately, assumed everyone else had at very least an equal, if not slightly better, foundation of literacy than I had. I, however, learned to read overnight when I was 5 years old and never had any real problems learning English or grammar, a part from severe laziness. My grandmother taught school for forty plus years, both of my parents were college educated, and avalanching mountains of books were commonplace in my household. I don't say these things to brag, to the contrary I wish I understood advantages I had many years ago. I used to shame people to their faces and snicker behind their backs for being, not even necessarily, for want of a better word "stupid" ( which btw is a terrible word, and is the most, if not offensive, then perhaps "offending" word in the English language ) but for simply being "less enlightened" than myself in terms of literacy. You will never inspire a person to improve any aspect of themselves by making them feel stupid or inferior, conversely it drives people to despise an area of knowledge as something for inherently arrogant and privileged assholes, when you highlight their intellectual deficiencies and degrade them for it. Ableism is hypocritical and a means of projecting our own insecurities onto the less fortunate. If we ever want to see things improve we have a duty to be empathetic and generous. Our public education systems are highly flawed, ass-backwards and draconian institutions that were designed to raise obedient unquestioning factory workers, and the larger bulk of us have in a sense been victimized by these systems in one way or another, from a young age. The great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurielius cautioned us to be "tolerant with others, and strict with yourself." And to end this inappropriately long raving rant, ( for a YT comment section )I shall also quote the late-great John Lennon, who sang, "You better learn to recognize you brothers - Everyone you meet."
One of the most fulfilling jobs I've had was working at a private tutoring service and school called Lindamood-Bell, specifically designed to improve literacy. Lots of great kids there. I met a few who were absolutely brilliant but had the simple bad luck of being dyslexic. They were years ahead in language comprehension if it was spoken aloud; I hope they find it easier now to access written content. Also, one of my co-workers was stricken by the connection between struggles with literacy and going to jail (which we learned a bit about during training), and she said it was one of her big motivating factors in continuing to work there. Now if only they could find a way to get that insane tuition down...
im not really illiterate but i do really struggle with comprehension, like my mind just totally blanks out and i wont be able to understand anything that i read. it would be so much easier if things were worded in a more simplistic way. for example in ap chem and all of my history classes. i especially hate those questions that intentionally try to trick you, like im supposed to be tested on if i understand the subject, not if im good at figuring out a weirly structured question. i also dispise how standardized tests are timed, i naturally read really slowly, which means i have to try to read fast and possibly skip over or misinterpret important information. It makes me feel like im being tested not to help me in any way, but just to be weeded out. i know its kind of ironic and weird that i left a long comment on a vid about illiteracy, but i hope that for those who read it helps to understand how even with someone like me who isnt really that illiterate, that the school system really puts me and people who have it worse than me in an underprivileged situation. its just not fair
I consider myself a good reader and there are times where that happens to me as well. (like I can read the same paragraph 5 times over and still understand nothing)
My grandfather was 16 when he left home and travelled to the far side of the country and made a life and home for himself and became a net worth millionaire. I was in my teens when I finally realized he wasn't able to read. He could read a little bit and when he asked others to read for him I assumed his eyes where bad. He was extremely smart and I have never and probably never will respect a man as much as him. May he rest in peace miss you grandpa.
I tend to get frustrated by people who seemed they just couldn’t understand things in writing. I’m disabled myself (autistic) and I could learn how to read - I did so basically completely self driven. Why couldn’t they? But as I’ve started trying to learn a second language, there’s a whole lot more that I understand now with this video. I am definitely illiterate in Japanese despite my work at studying, and there’s not a small chance I will ever be truly literate. And being autistic, I’m definitely socially illiterate- I have to constantly ask people to clarify memes, intent, etc, simply because _I do not understand._
Don't judge others for their struggles, realize that you might have an ability that not everyone has and use it to lift others up rather than putting them down. Easy to say, but hard to do in this society. Let's all try to improve together. Thank you for this well laid out video essay! Lot's to think about.
This reminds me of one time when a good friend of mine showed me a birthday card from their grandma. It was full of spelling errors and looked like it was written by a 6-year-old. They explained to me that their grandma was a child during WWII (I live in Europe) and had to drop out of school because of the war and therefore never properly learned how to read and write. She had only recently started to learn it again. I was moved to tears. Giving someone a handwritten birthday card is something considered so normal in our society. And this woman overcame the immense shame I am sure must be associated with that, all so she could give her grandchild a handwritten birthday card. This woman has my utmost respect!
Our literacy problem also extends to outdated psychology and sociology on what books to read in different communities and in schools. As a child, I read everything and every book I touched was read until Middle School where I was not allowed to read books at my own pace and we read depressing books like The Outsiders. Things got worse in High School with There Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury where a robotic house is so lonely it blows itself up, The Crucible and Inherit the Wind made me feel terrible because I was agnostic, and Animal Farm and 1984 was the breaking point. Comics and Manga were not even considered literature or art at my school not even greats like Charles Schulz, Bill Waterson, and Tezuka Osamu, and fantasy was seen as not high brow not even Lord of the Rings or Joseph Campell. English class or any language art class should inspire and encourage people to read and not scare them into submission. Also, cancel Ayn Rand and Diary of a Wimpy Kid for the damage they have done to the curriculum.
My great aunt Lucille has a hard time reading, she has severe epilepsy and couldn't finish school because of it, among other things. She is in her early 80's and needs help and often asks me to read something aloud to her and I have no problem helping her. She also calls my grandmother when she needs help with a word. Her sister in law will tell her to figure it out and will not help her, and is hateful to her in general and makes her cry. She tries to read and has been working on her handwriting lately. I don't know why people have to be mean.
My grandpa is illiterate and didn't learn to read until high school. He had undiagnosed learning disabilities and no one had helped him for a really long time. He still struggles to read, spell, and pronounce most words. Growing up my brother and I would laugh at his 'simple' mistakes and looking back I feel really bad. I hadn't realized how prevalent illiteracy was and I'm glad you've made this video to inform people. I'm proud of my grandpa for the progress he's made and for helping his children and grandchildren learn to read.
I work in a library and see people who struggle with this illiteracy every day. We help people navigate their emails, taxes, and applications for government benefits and jobs. Something I notice often is how self deprecating these people are and how they see themselves as worthless because they don’t have this literacy. I had never identified it as “illiteracy” but it helps explain why so many people are afraid to seek this help in the first place. You’re right on that they are ridiculed for it. This is a great video! I need to share this with my coworkers
Being Autistic myself, it's very appreciated that you are covering this topic. I've always struggled to navigate through a lot of institutional systems, whether it be school, government sector, Universities, workplaces, and even the doctors. The worst part is that my issues are largely not taken seriously because I don't "look Autistic", which I think ties into certain expectations you mentioned in the video, like the idea that only "people who voted for Trump" are illiterate... Which is an idea I don't even know how to unravel, especially since people who smugly say that are people who often rave about "social justice". Least to say, ableism is still a touchy subject in left leaning circles, despite how much they like to pat themselves on the back for pretending to care. People like that actually annoy me more than actual ableists. Obviously I'm a lot more articulate now than when I was a child, a youth, or even a young man in my early 20s. I worked really hard to present myself as "normal" to most people, however that has had the unexpected effect of me being required to work harder for help because I'm apparently too good at behaving like a neurotypical person. Luckily my wife is around to help me whenever I have questions. She is the best :D
I'm autistic too. I love bashing people who are illiterate, because it makes me feel better about my own place on the totem pole. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? Well, punching up is too painful when you can just punch down.
My dad told told me a story once about how in his childhood, all his siblings quit school all at once, and their mom just let them. They were incredibly poor, and my dad would’ve rather gotten a job then continue High school. He was the first to protest. Their mom barley put up a fight. Then my aunt....and then finally my uncle. The youngest, my uncle, dropped out of the sixth grade. He had a lot of trouble reading his entire life. He Had to stick to manual labor, like painting for jobs. He struggled with a lot of things, but he was the sweetest person ever. RIP.
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This really puts Dolly Parton's book program into perspective. She's not just doing a sweet thing, it's a systemic problem and she probably knows it.
Oh our Appalachia queen knows, she is doing the lords work
Ironically, I misread this as a Dolly Parton take down and was really confused for a second.
Her father was illiterate, which inspired her to start the program in the first place.
I really love her book program, the child I take care of recently got their last book. The selections are great and diverse, and reading tips have been really helpful in getting children engaged (I wouldn't have thought to go letter fishing or have a word scavenger hunt without them.). Getting books into homes and getting parents to read to their children is such a massive issue that we tend to overlook.
She aslo made a version of the communist manifesto accessible to anyone in 9 to 5. I read the manifesto,and you really aren't missing a lot by just listening to the song mostly just stuff about fake kinds of communism.
When my son was little, we lived in a neighbourhood with very low literacy rates. Our son struggled with reading and writing, but when we met with the teacher he told us he simply didn’t have the resources to help - our son wasn’t at grade level, but there were kids in his class that didn’t understand that every letter makes a sound - let alone that you could combine letters into new words. The teacher sent us home with a packet of materials; when we read it we were shocked at the things that were ‘tips for parents’:
- don’t make fun of your child for reading (don’t call them a geek or a nerd)
- don’t punish them for reading instead of doing something else (like playing outside)
- don’t call them dumb if they’re struggling/ask for help
- don’t take away books as a punishment
It really shone a light on the problems of systemic illiteracy. If you can’t read well, and your child comes to you for help, are you going to admit you struggle? I can see why you’d just tell your kid to go do something else.
As a kid finding out an adult struggled with the same thing was actually deeply encouraging to me. Seeing that I could be an adult without something made not being able to do stuff feel a lot less damning, and if I could do something better then I felt empowered, like I could help.
That said in my perspective admitting your struggle seems to me like a good thing to do. It lets the child know it's okay that it's hard, and that can be a net positive; it can even lead to the adult learning more by trying to help as best they can.
Damn. Those rules made me kind of cry... it shows how as much as we like to “laugh” at the “dumb” people, were actively ignoring a culture that is the negative product of anti-intellectualism. It’s more tragic than something to be proud of, or shallow entertainment. It has real outcomes that perpetuate negative outcomes for not only those affected, but society as a whole.
Glad this video was posted... such a great topic to broaden my compassion for everyone and myself.
Do the tips in that packet your received really prove that the illiteracy in that neighborhood is a systemic issue, or do they show an unfortunate cultural problem? If you are having to tell people "don't make fun of your child", those are not systemic forces that are coming from local systems or institutions. Those are bad cultural habits that people have to willingly learn are counter to their well being. It's far different and a MUCH more difficult problem to solve than a systemic problem.
@@BunScholar Local systems are culture and culture is local systems.
@@BunScholar I think your confusing systemic and systematic. The first refers to what you described, a cultural issue. The second, systematic is the one that means "part of the system".
So for example, rape culture is a systemic problem, but the thousands of unexamined rape kits are a systematic problem.
It's also why you often see people referring to systemic racism. Sure, their arent laws anymore that enforce racism, but there is still racism. Redlining is an example of systematic racism. The fact that because of that original practice black people have less generational wealth is a systemic problem.
On a somewhat related note: For all of Reddit's faults, at least subreddits dedicated to helping people out with seemingly menial tasks actually do so. Everytime I've seen a post by an autistic or socially anxious person asking for help regarding grocery shopping or whatever, people actually help out and explain it in as much detail as necessary. Even when neurotypical people ask questions that are immediately clarified by a 5 word answer and realise how obvious it was, there was still someone who actually responded withiut judgement or disdain. I really appreciate that side of reddit.
I am curious to what the subs are, as someone with ASD the idea of having somewhere to pop the odd questions like that sounds usefull
@@orrinsalton829 I too would like to no what the subs are. I don't know any specifically for help with menial tasks but there is /r/nostupidquestions and /r/internetparents for more general help, and /r/findareddit to look for more specific subs.
I feel like that's a result of how content is filtered on Reddit. Things aren't pushed up to the top as a result of how many reactions it gets. They're pushed up by the number of upvotes and the ratio of upvotes to downvotes. Combined with Reddit impressive sort of social obligation to vote appropriately, posts and comments that the majority like and find helpful are pushed to the top. Negative comments that would normally get pushed up by arguments are instead pushed down to the bottom.
As much as Reddit is.... Reddit. I do like how it's voting system works above all other social media.
@@orrinsalton829 /r/explainlikeimscared is one of my favorites for this - i think the original audience was probably for anxiety disorders (hence the title), but they welcome people with ASD and other social disorders that make doing new things scary or difficult.
Oh, yes, I know such subreddits. Like, "what is the name of the pornstar" and "what is the source manga"
Good subreddits
I can read in four languages and two scripts and I couldn’t put my son’s car seat in after reading the directions and watching a video tutorial. Those things are tricky little buggers.
I like your name with the phonemic
Haha, this reminds me of a time my friend was struggling with a manual and said “I’ve read this thing in 5 different languages, and I’ve STILL no clue what to do”
@@hiiamelecktro4985 not to mention the gigachad Ikea instructions, where languages will not help you
Yup. I went to grad school and I looked at the manual and was like.. umm. Waat. Ha.
My engineer Dad could not deal with my car seat, the poor man was just like "what the fuck is this design"
I got called illiterate a lot as a child because I have dsylexia. I dont think people understand how hard people work to not appear as such. I would cry almost any time I had to work on reading or wrighting, because I didn't want people to think I was stupid. Thank you for this very good video.
I have a similar experience. I have dyslexia, ADHD and a visual processing disorder. I could not read until I was 8 years old. I tried so hard to read, and it just wouldn't click. Now as an adult I still have a hard time spelling. People assume I can't spell correctly because of a lack of focus, lack of time or lack ov intelligence. Last week I was even accused of forging a signature on a contract at my college because my professor had approved the contract with spelling errors.... I try to not be self conscious about my spelling. Its just a part of who I am. But sometimes the Neurotypicals in my life make me feel like I have to be self conscious about my spelling.
@@Sophia-Sews Oh yeah, I have an ASD and visual processing issues too, they weren't diagnosed during my school year though. I had teachers accuse me of "just being lazy" all the time. It took me years to start typing shortened words in text or online, I would triple check spelling before I sent messages to my friends, spent lots of time drilling into myself the difference between to, two, and too, or your, and you're. I refused to "look stupid" infront of anyone, which was funny because when other people made the same mistakes it never bothered me.
I had the same issues. whenever I would pick books from the library I would dread it cuz I would prefer the children's books cuz the adult ones were too hard. I read pretty proficiently now and I love audiobooks and comics even though i utterly hated reading as a kid/teen.
My parents were divorced, my mom schizophrenic, and she was in the mental hospital... The kids knew... They made me cry. lulz
Interesting fact! Kids are shallow vicious cruel selfish things... They will find any weakness of their classmates and attack! Atleast I didn't have to go to school wherein EVERYONE has a smartphone... Or the demand to keep up with forrnite skins 🖖
@@Allups that is so relatable, I used to always check out non fiction cat books with cool photographs at the library so that instead of attempting to read I could draw pictures of cats on bookmarks instead.
Also I’m not saying this is the case but it is possible that woman is entirely literate and just has trouble with instructions in the abstract. For example I have ADHD and I taught myself how to knit via a book but regardless of the instructions and the diagrams I couldn’t fully comprehend them until I watched a few videos of demonstrations. And even after 5+ years when knitting patterns of items I haven’t knitted before I have to first do a pattern via a video because even though I fully comprehend the instructions they don’t translate in way where I can envision them.
The same thing with piano, I’ve played for almost 20 years and can read music, etc and I could learn a piece just via sheet music but it would take me like 3x’s as long if I have no conception of what it sounds like, how other people have their hands positioned, tempo, meter, etc. which is all info I can get from sheet music but doesn’t translate in a way where all that info comes together, but ends up filtering in separately.
But I continue to read for fun and I don’t have trouble in other areas of literacy it’s more of a processing issue than a literacy one.
Oh wow you just described me! I sometimes wonder if I have ADHA or I'm on the spectrum bc of stuff like this... If only I could afford to be diagnosed
@Falcon Fern ty!
I came to the comments to say something about ADHD. I’m nearing the end of a reading heavy college degree and have been reading dense texts for much of my life but in moments where my adhd is poorly managed and circumstances are aggregating symptoms, i’m sometimes functionally illiterate. I struggle with the executive functioning to literally even just pick up the book in large part because I get sort of anxiety about it after days of trying and failing focus on one line for long enough to comprehend anything.
@@heyyotayo I can completely relate to the overwhelming anxiety that can overtake any motivation to start or complete a task. Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, as a young adult, I always had real difficulty with bureaucratic paperwork (I still do but it’s much better.) So much so that I had failed to do things like apply for insurance or pay an overdue excise tax, once I even filed my taxes a year late. And that would be overwhelming to the point where I would just shut down completely.
@@sarahwarnock2707 I absolutely second what Falcon fern said, I could also possibly recommend checking out r/ADHD and r/ADHDwomen if use Reddit at all, there’s a lot of people on there that haven’t, can’t, or are in the process of being diagnosed. Women are often under diagnosed with ADHD as our symptoms can sometimes present different than men. So if you need support or coping skills in the mean time those subreddits and howtoADHD are a starting point.
Literacy is a privilege that many take for granted. Where you are born, economic status, and ability to learn (which you have no control over) greatly influence your likelihood of becoming literate.
I'm lucky to have been born in my situation, my mother grew up having literacy issues while my father did not; he went to college (although, hadn't completed), my mother was abused in more ways than one plus was intentionally held back because of her own father.
I learned how to read and write because of my father, in my case, the schools choose not to teach me how to read and write on my own instead used my autistic meltdowns as an excuse to not give me a chance. When I got pulled out I had to relearn these skills that I already learned before going to that grade school.
If I had been born in a poorer family, I probably wouldn't be nearly as literate since my vision is so poor, the correction for my eyes is pretty expensive
I always try to remind myself of this. Despite everything, I’m lucky that I can at least read and write decently. I struggle with maths, but I continually try to keep learning to get better. I’m thankful that I live in a country, and I’m at a stage in my life, that allows me to be able to use the Internet, access books etc to learn maths.
Literacy is useless. Unless you are dyslexic, you have complete control over your language learning ability. But you should choose to become illiterate by unlearning reading and writing.
You can become literate in a year no matter how dyslexic you are if you have an internet connection. But I would not recommend doing that because text-to-speech software is a thing.
When I was in my teens I met a friend of my brother's, a twelve year-old who was illiterate. He was a victim of parents who pulled him out of school for their religious beliefs despite not having the time or money to properly homeschool him, and his education was extremely lacking as a result. He asked my brother to help him with extremely basic things, like reading the right options on a video game start menu. Twelve years old may seem young, but in my area that was around the age that children start to have a bit of freedom, from walking to school to doing basic grocery shopping. This kid was completely helpless in so many small tasks. I cannot imagine being an adult and being unable to read.
Text-to-speech software exists. You don't need to read and even if you did. People with to most extreme forms of dyslexia pick it up by accident.
I'm functionally literate, or at least I think I am, and some instruction writers just suck at writing instructions
Honestly I don't think I've ever seen instructions that were clear and well written.
I don't know if it is deliberate or if companies just don't bother to hire people who could do the job well.
@@atlantahunter4401 Part of the problem comes from one set of instructions needing to be translated into many different languages. Instruction writing pays pennies. Often less than minimum wage because they pay you per job rather than per hour and some jobs obviously take longer than others. It was a pretty common thing for us to earn 60 cents for a job that would take 2 hours to complete. Usually you'll get one person to write the instructions (often that person is not an English speaker) and then the company will hire other people to translate that one set of instructions into all the other needed languages. Often the initial instructions don't have clear equivalents in the destination language and the person doing the translating almost never has the actual item in front of them or any familiarity with the item, so it can be very difficult for the translator to think of a different way to phrase things that would actually be helpful to the end consumer when trying to assemble the product. My mom spent a few months writing directions for large companies and proof reading math textbooks when I was a teenager and my youngest sister was a newborn. Often she would be too exhausted to get everything done, so I would help her. The company wanted to hire me to translate their instructions into other languages (I'm fluent in 3 and good enough for most things in 2 more) but their usual rate was 20 cents to $1.50 per job, with each job taking 30 mins to 3 hours and minimum wage at the time being around $6 per hour. The whole industry is flawed on almost every level honestly. Keep in mind, those rates are for my mom and I who are native English speakers and US citizens. At the time my mom had a masters degree and I was in high school. We're both multi lingual. It's honestly a joke and I hear it's even worse now that the gig economy is bigger than ever.
Not just on a corporate scale either tho - the world of indy boardgames is an interesting example. Terrible useless instructions are kind of a running gag but also a chronic gatekeeping problem? A lot of people - even people who are capable of designing brilliantly complex asymmetrical resource management and territory control games - are *really truly bad* at explaining their own mechanics. Almost any game is easier to grasp with a face-to-face demo than an instruction book (remember how nintendo games used to come with instruction books but now tutorials are built in?) - and even then, it often takes multiple plays before really starting to understand the construction of the thing.
Technical writing is difficult, it's underpaid, it's not made especially accessible, it's not taught and it's not really something we have to navigate regularly enough to develop naturally.
@@MulberryDays "remember how nintendo games used to come with instruction books but now tutorials are built in?"
That was more due to the memory limitations of the system. Most games literally didn't have enough room for a full-fledged tutorial until the PS1 and N64. Thankfully the good games back then like Mario, Sonic and Mega Man used a more intuitive design by making the beginning levels easy enough for the player to learn the game mechanics on their own.
Eh, it's not really a memory issue - look at jrpgs, who have tutorials built in dating before 64-bit tech. Increased memory just made it easier for other games to follow the trend - especially as spikes in tech and popularity hit at the same times, driving the data and incentivizing certain behaviors. And I can guarantee you that every game dev in the history of computing has discussed intuitive design at length, with varying results. The mario one does make a good Extra Credits video tho.
So...thanks for popping in just to "correct" a smol parenthetical on a comment that wasn't really about the issue you felt the need to debatably explain? :/
My great grandfather was illiterate. He was raised rolling tobacco. He would soak his boots in a muddy puddle so that they would bend/stretch/soften because they were too small. I heard he was one of the kindest people my mom knew, he just never learned to read.
Ancom/syn gang.
Same. My immigrant great-grandfather was a carpenter who signed his named with an "X". We even have documents of it. Unreal. He and my great-grandmother still lived productive lives and raised productive members of society.
My grandmother is illiterate and she also can't understand numbers. She was born in sexist-AF 1935 and grew up under Japanese occupation, so she never got the opportunity to learn. One of my mom's friends was born in the 70's and is also completely illiterate - this was very rare, unlike 4 decades prior.
Same with my great grandfather. He taught himself some basics later in life by watching sesame street.
My grandma was completely illiterate because she was born in a society where you had many kids and had the oldest kid look after the rest while you worked so she never had the chance to go to school, then as an adult went straight into working doing whatever low skilled jobs she could since my grandad died when dad was in his teens.
I remember she couldn’t spell, John, my dads name on any cards for birthdays or Xmas.
She never failed at anything, she was illiterate due to circumstances and managed to provide for her family until she died
I HATE it when I see people online point out a spelling or grammar issue in order to “disprove” (see: dismiss) the point they are making. I find it truly infuriating, and I will always call people out on it, even if it means I end up defending someone I fundamentally disagree with. Not understanding how to use a comma has nothing to do with being right or wrong.
"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear."
yes. it's ironic too because it's a fallacy. in other words, the one using grammar to prove themselves right is actually hurting their own case even outside of just optics.
There is nothing that makes me happier than when I see that kind of person, and I somehow school the everliving SHIT out of them, while also stating things more eloquantly than they can. People are doing their best. Opinions are not to be discounted just because the owner of said opinion can't write a novel. Some of the smartest people I know can run a circle around you solving complex, life-changing issues, while those pathetic excuses insult them because they didn't capitalize an "I", or they used the wrong "they're/their/there".
You're*
Well it depends on _how many_ spelling or punctuation errors they make. Just two or three typos here and there is fine but...
As someone who doesn't remember ever being illiterate, who needed harder spelling tests in elementary school, and whose parents gave me basically a library of books to read, I honestly took literacy for granted and also flexed it pretty hard. Learning that 52% of US adults are adult literacy learners has made me realize even more how privileged I really am and how much I should be mindful of it when interacting with others.
Literacy is a useless skill.
Ok seriously though... does anyone know if this woman figured out her car seat in the end? Does anyone know how to contact her? Most fire departments will happily install a car seat for you, ensure it's set up correctly/safely, etc. No judgement and no fee. Sometimes they're even able to give you a free car seat if you need one, but that depends on the specific station.
I'd personally be happy to help this person if there's a way to know if help is still needed. How horrible that she was treated this way! I'm Indigenous. My family has a whole host of issues around schooling/education (research residential schools for Indigenous kids if you don't know the history... but be warned, it's fucking bad and I know people who get re-traumatized when they have to think about it). I'm the first generation in my family who wasn't forced into these residential schools. A lot of my older family members don't read or write very well. Some don't read or write at all. They're great people though, some of the most kind hearted, quickest to offer a helping hand people I've ever come across. How gross that this woman was made to feel like shit when she was trying to get help making sure her baby was safe!
For real carseats are a pain even if your literate.
@@thejesusaurus6573 I think Freakonomics just did a podcast on how the difficulty of car seat use might _actually_ be decreasing the birth rate! No joke. The fact that millions of people mention car seats when talking about the variety of reasons why they’ve chosen not to have a second or third child is not insignificant .
Thanks for the advice, we did not know fire departments would help with that.
@@stm7810 Glad it helped someone! :) Some fire departments (especially in big cities) will do clinics on specific dates where they check car seats. That allows them to make sure they have adequate staff at the station to help with car seats and still respond to emergencies. Other fire departments welcome walk ins for things like that. If you ever end up needing this service it might be a good idea to look into which one your local fire station does. Type in your location + fire department + car seat safety would be my suggestion.
Hospital staff are also able to check that your car seat is installed properly before you bring a new baby home. You might have to ask for someone to check your car seat, but there are always people at hospitals who are able to do that kind of thing. Most police stations and some child care centers will also do it.
I used to be a preschool teacher and that was part of my training. The logic was that then I could help new parents if needed, but also I could verify that our transportation vehicles car seats were up to par because we took kids to and from primary school and also had the ability to evacuate by car if there was ever an emergency (rural area in a floodplain that also got crazy wildfires every year so safety was paramount).
Social services, emergency personnel, etc. are all given similar training for similar reasons. They need to know how to verify that a car seat is safe in case they need to transport a child for whatever reason. Even if there's not a formal car seat safety program (which there is at most fire stations in the US) they can still help the general public if needed. Fire stations started offering car seat checks to the public around the same time they started making every fire station nationwide a baby drop off point. It made a lot of sense to combine the services.
We need more humans like you.
I worked for a couple of years with a man in his 50s. He told me that he never learned to read because of dyslexia, back in his time it wasn't even named. He told me he had reparied pianos for 10 years, gone to night school to relearn it in his 30s and to this day his handwriting was so difficult to read it became a running joke on the team. Still one of the kindest and hardworking people I ever met. He was not stupid or lazy.
To be fair I'm very literate and a university graduate but I can't read my own handwriting.
I kinda know where he is coming from I have Attention problems which did not exist at the time so I was labelled as retarded by the school system and placed in special education. The topping on my cake is the fact I was top percentile of test taking in school it was just my daily task I had trouble focusing on. Not getting my cake part was the added kick to the teeth was later I found out employers could request these documents that filled me under mentally incompetent. Ah the good old days!
@@thallienwhite3279 Jesus damn. That sounds awful, i hope things are going well for you despite the idiots in you schooling system!
That sounds like my stepdad. He's dyslexic, and he left school early to get away from an abusive home. He can read and write at a functional level, but his spelling is rudimentary, and anything difficult takes him a lot of time and spellchecking. He's also a very smart and curious guy, who's been self-educating his whole life, now into his 70's. He's been a licensed realtor and real estate assessor for almost 40 yrs now, working around his disability by recording notes rather than writing them, and hiring smart assistants. He's learned a lot about a wide range of subjects over the years by watching all the documentaries that looked half interesting, and he's very politically astute, and fascinating to talk with. Nobody who hasn't seen him struggling with his email would ever suspect that he has literacy problems.
Bad handwriting? Just means he was a doctor in a past life, I respect that. I hope his reading and writing has improved since then
I’ve been using “illiterate” as an insult for years in reference to anyone I perceived as slow or not “bright” by my own biased standards. I’m going to stop now. Thank you for making this, it illuminated a perspective I never considered, and now I realize the ignorance of it, and how hypocritical It is, considering I try my best to be aware of social issues, especially those that are easier to ignore that don’t affect me.
I guess I could call myself illiterate for not realizing how damaging my worldview was
You don't need to read or right to function in society. reading and writing is a useless skill. But Illiterate should be used as an insult.
then you should wear a shirt telling folks you are an illiterate since you seem so proud of it@@alwynwatson6119
@@alwynwatson6119 useless... until you need to actually communicate information non-verbally, like across the whole internet around the world or with people that have hearing issues. And using literate as an insult? lmao, you want to selfishly discourage people from learning an objectively and incredibly useful skill just because you personally suck at it? I also can't even figure out what "leair" is supposed to mean
@@mnmmnmm Maybe reading and writing was a useful skill before free text-to-speech software was a thing. You do not need to be literate to use the internet. People should learn more important things instead of reading and writing. Maybe Reading and writing still has some small applications for disabled people. Even then if things were spelled as they sounded everyone would just become literate by accident. So there is no reason to learn an existing language (other than for fun). Just invent your own and program it into Google Translate if you have hearing problems.
@@alwynwatson6119 oh you're actually insane LOL. "Maybe reading and writing still has some small applications for disabled people."... more like extremely useful and practical applications, being a basic skill that 7 billion other people on the planet should learn at some point if they're able to and given the proper resources. The main reason for people not being able to understand writing is because of terrible education systems, not because it's not a useful skill.
You're just super hard coping about not having a skill that other people have, both incredibly selfish and ignorant. And like wtf, you think people with a hearing problems should just piss off because you think you're better than them?
That facebook post pissed me off so much. Even for full literate, well-read/written folks can have trouble parsing things. I have ADHD and often read things multiple times without really digesting it at all. I am an engineer that often creates work instructions for assembly and inspection processes, and there is nothing that makes me angrier than instructions that arent clear. There is absolutely no excuse not to include big, clear diagrams in your instructions and use simple wording and common terms to make sure they're as easy to follow as possible.
Literacy is absolutely a matter of accessibility -- until we make substantial progress improving literacy, we should be making as much effort as possible in accommodating the less literature. Fancy, hifalutin instructions manuals are worth nothing if they are not easily understood by as many people as possible
To be fair (as someone who speaks English as a second language) English is really fucking hard and not intuitive. With Spanish you don’t have to guess how to pronounce something, letters almost always sound the same and most rules are consistent. English is rooted in three different languages and most rules are arbitrary.
Yes, though the vocabulary+ grammar is easy simpler. Writing correctly is the hardest part.
@@ren.pfa.99 I had the hardest time learning how to pronounce words line enough, thorough, thought and through. As well as word like knife and knee. What’s the point of the K if you’re not going to pronounce it? It just confuses people who are used to reading a word and pronouncing the letters in the word phonetically.
@@susanita5211 I’m a native English speaker and I take for granted how weird the English language is. French is my second language and like Spanish, there are rules that are more or less fixed when it comes to spelling and pronunciation. I often call English a lawless language lol. Anything goes.
So much this. My youngest has ADHD and is in French immersion. His specialist asked me how he did with spelling. I said he was in French and she said "oh well that is much more intuitive he wont have issues." Shes not wrong.
English isn't a language - its 3 languages dressed up in a trenchcoat trying to get into an adult movie.
I knew a lot of ableism, particularly with invisible disabilities, gets overlooked even in leftist spaces, and knew about the ways poverty affected education, but I had never realized this was so widespread. Really informative video, thank you.
I hate to say it, as a leftist, but a lot of Liberals feel totally comfortable dunking on poor white people. I think there is a portion of all groups who are more or less tribalistic. They aren’t egalitarian or anti-racist, they just have permission to hate a different set of people. They’ve decided that, ‘punching down is okay in _this_ case because of the historic privilege white people enjoy’, as if ethnicity is the only metric to evaluate oppression.
@@GeahkBurchill yeah, definitely, like when there were the recent snowstorms in Texas and stuff there were tons of memes making fun of red states getting hit with disaster when in reality the majority of people most affected were marginalized people already suffering from those governments.
See: "Read theory; if you haven't read theory, you're an idiot; why can't you just educate yourself?"
@@GeahkBurchill dunking on poor white people who vote for a guy that says poor people of color are the problem...
@@n.lwhitaker572 So it's ok to belittle people because they vote for someone you don't like? Wow, i bet you feel like you're "on the right side of history".
In 1980, when I finished elementary school (graduated from 5'th grade), my school held a ceremony for all the students. Part of the ceremony included various parents reading little speeches to an auditorium filled with teachers, parents, and kids. At one point, the Mother of one of the girls got up to read her speech. It was immediately apparent that this woman could barely read, and yet she struggled through the entire speech. As a 10-year old boy in the audience, I remember being moved to tears as I listened to this Mom struggle through her speech, one she had no obligation to make, motivated by her love and support for her daughter. I don't really remember much else of the whole ceremony.
Something to keep in mind: illiterate people will often make excuses ('i forgot my glasses' or 'i just happened to be sick on the day i had to read something' or pretend to be to haughty to read labels).
So if you see patterns like that you might gently ask someone wether they are struggling and that help is available.
i was reading at a college level and comprehending at a graduating level when i was about 12 or so, i've gleefully chewed my way through many great(and occasionally difficult) works of literature and i once found a grammatical error on a major pre-college test and corrected it. i have been told many times that i am a very intelligent person because of my capacity with reading and writing but at the same time i once had to put together a shelf that consisted of four rods, three platforms and some clips that slid between the rod and the platform to keep it in place: i spent close to half an hour on that shelf and ended up in tears as my motherinlaw came to to put it together for me. one's prowess in literacy is not necessarily analogous to their capacity to follow (often poorly) written instructions
Lmao same, I'm terrible with recipes. I do it a few times and just wing it after that.
i only ever read six books in my life. Death in Venice was one of them and when i started it i was so glad to finally find someone who writes normal underatandable sentences.. until that got spoiled of course when people complained how Thomas Mann was basically not readable.
i suppose even within language we have completely different types of eptitudes.. the linearity of difficulty is a lie.
@@azuregriffin1116 people who insist on following recipes to the word are sus
I'm with you there, 100%!
And yet...none of your "I's" are capitalized! LOL! I'm sincerely just yanking your chain!
I believe Finland has been found as one of the most literate nations in the world, yet even we have 11% of work-aged adults struggling with daily reading tasks. So, in response, social services simplified the language from official jargon to more approachable daily language, since they acknowledged that many of the folks that struggle with reading may at some point need their assistance 😊
that's so high??? like holy shit i didn't realize it was so many people and it's so prevalent even in areas where they have higher support
@@mmtruooao8377 from what I checked sources varied from 6,5% to 11% depending on study, but it's incredibly many people when thinking the education system is pretty bang-on 🤔
Why is it every time I hear about Nordic countries they are recognizing a systemic problem and actively taking steps to solve it? Can the USA take some hints?
@@najarvis I think those of us who want to don't know how/ realize it's a problem and those who do realize it is an issue don't care enough to help.
I just looked up the numbers for the Netherlands. We have a 1.5% illiteracy rate and 7.9% of the people has low literacy. I still think this is too high. I also think a lot of those people are immigrants from poor or war torn places so they had other stuff to worry about outside of learning what symbols on a page mean.
It's unproductive to use illiterate as an insult anyway. Not everybody has to be able to read scientific papers but if someone can't properly function in society we should help them up their reading level. How else will they be able to buy groceries? they need to have a decent level in reading and speaking to do that.
I'm just below a level 3 literacy and have struggled all my life with reading and writing. my parents homeschooled me, but they worked all the time, which meant they didn't have time to teach me so I had to learn on my own. it was so hard and the amount of time I sat crying on the floor because I couldn't read that one word was insane. I'm 15 now and I am doing my high school exams next year, but I still struggle with words, but I don't let it stop me. I didn't get bullied because I spent most of my time bullying myself. it's hard enough trying to read let alone people being horrible to you about it. HELP PEOPLE if you see them struggling just HELP THEM. I was so ashamed of myself for being illiterate and developed an eating disorder because of it.
Good luck with your exams, I hope you do well!
Literacy is a useless skill. If you are dyslexic, then you can never become literate. If you are not you can learn any language in 1 month with just an internet connection. But don't bother because reading is ableist.
As someone who grew up in an affluent “liberal” community with a severe reading disability, the cruelty shown to those who are deemed stupid or uneducated is truly inexcusable. I’ve got horrible memories of needing to read aloud to my peers and even worse ones of teachers ridiculing me for “not knowing” something when I was struggling through a reading even though they had access to my IEP. Reading allowed to someone is still a huge anxiety. I currently work in academic research (which is a huge literacy load) but in my personal life I never read. I’ve finally after years of feeling too humiliated, accepted that I’m never going to be able read at the level I’m able to think at and I’m going to need to use literacy aids and thats fine.
However, I often think about how (as someone who’s highly educated) I’ve been shamed for how I read/write by my class ingroup and how much worse it would feel to be shamed and humiliated by people who in many ways are withholding that skill from you.
I would like to point out that struggling with a style of writing doesn't make someone illiterate either. That woman could clearly read and write as evidenced by the existence of the post. She may just struggle with the way manuals use their word structure. Most of us might struggle with scientific papers were we to causally read them, that wouldn't make anyone stupid or illiterate, it's just the way it is being written that doesn't often accommodate a flow of understanding
things like this are why I subscribe to the idea of different forms of intelligence rather then some simple catch all form of it, you can be smart in math, in writing, in talking or in working, just cause you can't carve a sculpture with your hands doesn't mean your dumb, nor does failing to figure out advanced mathematics, nor being a bad writer. point is just cause your lacking in one form of intelligence doesn't mean you are stupid, it just means your abilities are likely in another. (judging by how I am fairly sure I just insulted a lot of people by calling them lacking in intelligence I clearly am not the strongest writer out there)
I have a high reading level with really good comprehension. Like, was in the gifted program for reading in grade school and was the kid everyone asked to "speak English" because of my larger vocabulary
Now I'm trying to build a house, and the jargon and word structure used for all the paperwork makes me feel stupid. I have CRIED over trying to understand it, and am so SO grateful my mother in law built her own house too and can help me know what the heck I'm supposed to do with this stuff.
It also took me over a month to learn the finer (read: slightly more in depth than basic) points of audio editing because people already into that stuff have what seemed like an entirely separate language to explain stuff.
People already used to working with an issue may not realize their explanations are confusing to others. Sometimes people just need you to explain it to them like they're five, and without ridicule.
Unfortunately official paperwork doesn't tend to care about that sort of thing and, I suspect, likes that people out of their "circles" can't understand what's written.
Also sometimes those instruction sheets are written in font so tiny you basically need a magnifying glass to read it. I have excellent reading comprehension and I'm very good at following instructions to a T, but that doesn't do me any good if the letters aren't big enough for me to read in the first place.
@@EveryDayALittleDeath I really struggle with instruction manuals at times as well. Especially if they’re needlessly complicated, badly explained or printed really small.
Yeah I see this a lot when things are also translated as the instructions when translated aren't always worded right for that specific language making it harder. Just because the words are technically correct, doesn’t mean it's understandable.
I find it really interesting how education, skills and intelligence are blind spots when it comes to otherwise progressive people. It always bothers me when statistics come out that college educated voters were more likely to vote for Biden or other democratic candidates, and liberals and leftists use this information to act as if we're so much smarter than republican voters as opposed to seeing this as a sign that the democratic party does not do enough to meet the needs of lower income, blue collar workers who are often underprivileged.
Thank you! Finally someone said it!
Yes! Finally someone else noticed this
I'm from rural Missouri. We have high rates of poverty, drug use and brain drain. In theory they should be the people the Democrats should most want to help. But for most of them they feel like the Democrats have abandoned rural white folks for urban minority groups. Republicans at least defend their guns and their religion even if the other policies aren't super helpful. The Democrats need to do a better job at fighting poverty in general and not just focus on urban poverty in their narrative.
@@Extinctanimals22 That is because this polarization of left vs rigth paradigm that is so simplistic that I cannot Donold Trump pull the trigger and everybody was losing their mind for him. The right trying to adored their idol Donald Trump while Altrighter creating new rhetoric and attracting new audiences for their propoganda. Left winger managed horrendously to this situation and let their hatred to Donald Trump as their main purpose instead of solvung problems like ableism ,male issues, homosexual domestic violence, incarceration problem, veterans ,poor people , working class and etc. Also there is underlying narcissism in both side of the spectrum. They have in common they believe they are morally superior , smarter and represent the people they allegdy trying to save from. There is no nuance , humbliness , debate turn into a sport who better at arguing instead of a learning or searching for truth. The biggest problem ideology trumps pragmatism and turn into something to posture. Worst thing it does not solve problems whatsover and always insulting each other like to rival brother fithing each other instead of solving or gaining new ideas to adress issues. No wonder people search for other extreme ideology like paleoconservativism, white nationslism, black nationalism , comunism, libertarianism , socialism , distributism and etc. People are sick of false promises and not getting results nor being recognized. Sometimes certain are ignored to other marginalized group giving special attention to them and have this weird of sacrificing other demographic because they suffer less than the " minority" and turn into pity party who is the most victimized and other the opressor. There is no middle ground or gray area of the situation. We can just understand that world is not thst freacking simple to just every issue with biases and prejuices. Also , we have a lot problem with regard with existential crisis, mental heath, education, career and relationship. There is a problem of admitting you are wrong and being humble. People nowadays do not have a healthy self love thst is not narcisistic. All of these is not a poltical issues is a human being still not adapting this new reality and facing the consecuences of past decision made for humanity that gave new problems and still it is not solved.
I.. am really disappointed in myself that I never thought about that.....
"or we tell them they shouldn't have children, which, by the way, is eugenics. that's just eugenics." damn.
And the thing is, telling people that seems to be all too common these days. I've heard people say this about disabled people, people with dwarfism, poor people and especially people from the third world.
@@imperator692 idk if dwarfism i genetic but people say it to poor people because they can't afford a healthy life for the kid
@@-Scrapper- Thats not the fault of the poor person, its the fault of society for not caring for the vulnerable in society. Should we also tell black people not to have children because they'll most likely be discriminated against? Its all just another kind of eugenics in my opinion.
@@imperator692 if you asked that question back in the 60s I'd say yes if they had failed to change society. It's not their fault but it's reality
@@-Scrapper- Its a reality that can be changed, but not by telling people not to have children. Its not your place nor is it mine to tell people whether they should or shouldn't have kids.
"You never forget how to ride a bike that's how that works right?"
Me with low kinesthetic intelligence who actually forgot how to ride a bike. T_T
I'm really good with reading though, it just goes to show that people are wired differently. Like I remember hearing about Aphantasia and suddenly all those people I met who didn't understand the appeal of reading made a lot more sense.
Irony here: I was a huge fiction reader as a kid, and while I can make images, they're pretty much entirely vague. I'm very good at imagining character and atmosphere, though. Definitely a nuanced subject.
on that last one - from what ive read about aphantasia, i strongly suspect that i am aphantasic and i very much enjoy reading quite a bit (as well as pen&paper roleplaying games)... but in retrospect i can see why i enjoyed some books more than others and why i had trouble with some aspects of roleplaying
the lack of that eye of the mind and induced mental images meant that my imagination of what was described was a lot more abstract and that lengthy descriptions of vistas, which to others might be incredibly evocative, did nothing for me aside from feeling repetetive...
on the other hand descriptions of political intrigue, deductions or character interactions were highly fascinating, because those always are abstract concepts anyway... and following those thoughts and extrapolating where the story could or will be going from there is highly engaging to me
so i would say that reading can be very appealing to people with aphantasia as well...but it might manifest a bit differently
Aphantasia does not necessarily mean you do not enjoy books. There are even famous authors who are aphantasi...astic? Mark Lawrence for example. He writes about and gives interviews with some frequency.
This hit home. My father is likely a level 1-2 and we always laughed it off, we thought it was because he didn't write often. But now that I look back on it, he did have to take a written test to get his motorcycle license 5 times before he could manage to pass, and then it was only through the innovation of computer-based audio questions that he was able to pass. Come to think of that, even my own name was changed due to this issue, I have a rather simple name because he denied the idea of naming me Xavier, because he couldn't spell that name.
This just gave me a revelation, so thank you! My husband struggles with spelling and now that we have a baby due in a few months, we're trying to choose a name. He hates the idea of a middle name or even a long first name because it gave him a lot of grief growing up. He misspells his own middle name a fair amount. I was annoyed because I hated having no middle name and am partial to long names, but now I'm realizing why he feels the way he does. I really don't know how I never connected the dots on that one! Huh, now I feel sheepish for not being more understanding.
I even have a dad who struggles with spelling. It's been a running joke in our family, but now I'm thinking that we've been kind of rude to him. I really should've known better, since I struggle just as much in other areas. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with your father!
@@songpoetry1 hi! I am not a mum, I am a teenager who should be asleep right now and has very little experience with other humans, so feel free not to take my advice. What you could do is have a name that is simple to spell but isn’t just a few letters long. Something like ‘Madeline’ or ‘Gregory’. You can probably come up with a better idea but those two are the examples I could think of. Something that’s spelt the way it sounds without any random letters sprinkled in to make the word look pretty, ‘ough’s (what is up with that letter combination?) or unnecessary silent consonants. Also, the two examples I gave could be shortened to make them simpler.
I hope you and your baby are okay! Or will be, if he/she/they isn’t/aren’t born yet. I’m not great with the concept of time. Okay, I’m going to bed now.
@@ihopeicanchangethisnamelat7108 Thank you and rest well!
I'm pretty much Math "illiterate". I count on my hands as I find it nearly impossible to count in my head. I function normally in nearly every other aspect. We treat people like trash who have a different way of comprehending a problem or solving it "the wrong way".
Same I can barely say numbers out loud cause my brain is like 'lol no those don't exist' it's easier to hide in some places than my other brain quirks but it's so frustrating that I'm immediately labeled as 'doing it wrong' when I am quite capable of doing a wide range of things
Whenever I notice someone actually having some kind of legitimate problem, I switch my mindset from "oh lol, this idiot" to "I want to and have to be nice, they don't deserve poor treatment". It is just a thing people like you cannot change and it requires sympathy and understanding.
I once had a classmate who had a severe case of "maths alzheimer"(because I don't know the correct term if it exists). They were able to learn the concepts properly, but it was basically deleted from their brain after about 5 minutes of not practicing. It was clear to me that they had to have some kind of disability or a related issue, but the teacher just said to practice more. Like it wasn't suspicious at all that someone would go from being able to do the tasks to not even comprehending it in a few minutes flat. It kinda hurt to not be able to do anything because I had my own trouble to sort out.
@@lpfan4491 I think the term you’re looking for is dyscalculia. Constantly needing to practice/re-cap skills is one of the symptoms. I struggled with this and many other symptoms all throughout high school without receiving any help, even though looking back it couldn’t be more obvious. I’m still fighting at 20 to get diagnosed because my doctor doesn’t believe it’s a real LD, despite being in the DSM-5.
The problem is that most people aren’t really aware of learning disorders outside of dyslexia. Hopefully by discussing these issues we’ll be closer to achieving some meaningful change
It's another form of privilege. "It came easy to me, so it should be easy for everyone." Even if it was actually difficult, but happened so long ago and you're now so practiced that you've forgotten the early struggles.
@@givemethebreadsticks I was just gonna say, it sounds like a form of dyscalculia. It's something I struggle with too. It's interesting because I really love math. I do computer programming as a hobby, and have no problem engaging with hard logic, trigonometry, calculus, etc. The only caveat being that I have to see these numbers in front of me in some form, either on paper, or on screen - I just can not sort or calculate large numbers in my head. I excelled in all subjects in school, but I never actually fully internalized the multiplication table, despite putting in years of practice.
This has limited me from a lot of service sector jobs that involve any sort handling with money directly in a fast paced environment (like 99% of service jobs).
But if I'm working with finances laid out in a spreadsheet, and using complex formulas, I have no issue. In fact, I've done a lot of accounting/finance work just fine. But if you handed me a $20 dollar bill and asked me for change in quarters, I would not be able to do it with ease.
(As a test, I just tried to do the math real quick, and it took me about 6 seconds. I had to use my fingers to visualize the 4-quarters-in-a-dollar, and then realized that I could multiply 4 by 2, to get 8, which meant 80 quarters. I CAN do simple mental math, but I need full concentration, and it takes me SIGNFICANTLY longer than an average retail worker -- I can not work at a "competitive" speed in those kinds of positions. And this was something as simple as 20 divided by 4 (or technically 200 / 25, in cents))
This sort of thing also comes up in second-language learning contexts. When I was doing my ESL (English second language) teacher training, my instructor told us the story of another student he's had. This person was also training to be an ESL teacher, but was treating their beginner-level students with a lot of disrespect. Finally, one of the ESL students in the class stood up and said, slowly and deliberately, "We're not stupid. We just don't speak English." That story has stuck with me since then. Honestly, most of the ESL students I've taught over the years have been driven, intelligent, and fascinating people... who just don't happen to speak English very well. I respect them all immensely for putting in the effort. I've been learning French for decades and still consider myself intermediate at best.
Hey Zoe. I just wanted to express how much I appreciate this video. My dad struggles with a lot of what you mentioned in the video. Growing up, and to this day, I always partially resented hin for not trying, despite knowing that he has tried in the past and received no support. I'm a social worker by trade. I live and breath the discussion of systematic oppression and how to deal with it, but I never saw literacy learning as a part of that in any sense, despite it being literally right in front of me my whole life. I want to make sure you know that you gave at least one person perspective on an issue that was sorely needed. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Literacy learning is not a part of that in any sense. There are no benefits of knowing how to read and right.
It was a humbling experience to realize that my ABE students were smarter than me in many ways (have to be to get by without advanced reading skills)-my only real virtue was privilege
Oh yes absolutely. I met a man in our local literacy org who owned and ran a business until he retired. Once he retired, he decided to finally learn how to read! Incredible.
I've been a literacy ableist without realizing it. Thank You for providing an opportunity to recognize and correct that.
Just want to put it out there that there is probably another reason why most American's don't know somebody who is illiterate: they just genuinely don't know somebody who is.
I'd hazard a guess that lots of illiterate adults are part of communities that for one reason or another suffer immensely on the educational side of things. Like people who live in a ghetto or otherwise poor neighbourhood. Everyone around them who 'knows' them is probably in the same boat. Meanwhile, one neighbourhood over, a community of middle-class Americans who are either almost entirely or entirely literate look at each other and think that illiteracy can't be that common. This phenomena is called social sampling - you overestimate how many people resemble people in your social circle.
Fighting illiteracy and the stigma surrounding it - just like fighting racism - is going to involve putting these people on a more level playing field with society so that being illiterate becomes disassociated from being poor or living in a bad neighbourhood. Empathy for people in discriminated groups tends to shoot upwards when everyone has at least one 'illiterate friend'.
Thanks for putting this video out. I hope that America takes steps to fix its abysmal education system.
"Fighting illiteracy" is ableist some people can't learn to read or wright.
"it's eugenics, thats just eugenics" THANK YOU. I was literally going OFF about this this morning.
I obtained a master’s degree years ago, but instead of pursuing a career, I decided to stay at home with my kids. But even then, having to read dense texts and doing technical writing was so difficult it’s a wonder I was able to succeed. I grew up low income with the whole “white trash” diet you mentioned in your previous videos, received bad grades and attended low ranking/performing schools. Attending grad school and, even after graduating, I felt like a major fraud.
Today, watching all these leftube and philosophy videos, I just feel super inadequate because it’s hard for me to follow most of them. The speaker talks so fast as if they’re reading from a script and use a lot of vocabulary I just don’t know the meaning of. It’s very hard to find simple, practical anarchist videos or reading for folks on that lower side of the literacy scale. I definitely think that mine and other low-income folks’ education, or lack there of, was by design. Because if everyone were raised with an equal access to reading and writing, as opposed to school to labor and school to prison pipeline, we would all be able to read and practice philosophy and better advocate for ourselves in this capitalist hellscape.
I want to thank you for such an easy-to-follow, conversational video. You created such an inviting space that I finally feel confident to say something in the comments section. I see so many people in these leftist comments sections insulting each other, it’s intimidating. I really hope you post more and I really appreciate you using an example from parenting as that’s also lacking in anarchist material on TH-cam.
I take it you've been watching some of Philosophy Tubes videos lol, she can be pretty wordy for sure.
I can suggest some channels for you to try out, I dont if they will be your cup of tea, but it's always good to share good content:)
Thought Slime, Renegade Cut, Contrapoints, Salari, Lindsey Ellis, Hbomberguy, My Take, Graham elwood... etc.
Actually, you should probably just ask r/breadtube for their recommendations (reddit). There is probably a bunch of people who have similar struggles and can give you a better curated list. Anyways, welcome comrade:)
Watch Shaun, José or Big Joel! They're somewhat easy to follow and very nice, calm people. English isn't my first language so when I first started getting into breadtube, I had a hard time following creators like Contrapoints, Lindsay Ellis, Sarah Z or For Harriet because of the topics they elaborate on and the vocabulary they use, but watching this type of content almost daily helped me understand their arguments a lot better in the long run.
Just wanted to send you some love and let you know that I empathise. If you ever want someone to talk about left tube videos with I'm down. Verbal or written. You can @ me in comments anywhere, but I also use this same user name on instagram and most social media if you want to reach out. I'm Indigenous and the first generation in my family not forced into residential schools. Most of my family struggles with reading and writing. I have the privilege of helping them with all of their formal paperwork and a lot of informal stuff (like youtube comments and understanding vocabulary in media). Ironically, my dad has gotten super into "bread tube" recently, but doesn't understand most of the vocab. It's been really fun getting to talk to him about some of the ideas in the videos he's been watching. I'm also a disabled, non binary, low income, single parent and firmly in the anarchist category politically (for added context lol)
@@rosemali3022 philosophy tube is a woman, actually!
@@altoclef4989 Oops your so right! Corrected and thank you :)
Did you notice Matt (thought slime) is now using male pronouns?
Also: stop laughing at people who don’t know left vs right! It is a form of dyslexia. Cannot stress how damaging this is
wait this explains everything fuck
Yes! I'm dsylexic and I've got like a little red bracelet on my right arm (because both have an r in them) to help me. Its like a string bracelet but you can get them in loads of styles. That way I can just look at my wrists. Somebody I know also dose this with nail polish as well.
Wait what? I was told I couldn't have dyslexia because I don't struggle with reading. I thought I was just dumb
@@idioteza definjtley not dumb! i’m no doctor so i can’t say for sure about the reading part, but it’s a common symptom :)
Yeah, some dyslexic people also say the opposite of what they mean to say. If you know that they're dyslexic it's usually pretty easy to tell what they're saying from context, but that has to be pretty annoying right? And on top of that people being demeaning to you about something out of your control that ultimately shouldn't matter in most situations.
The classism that exists among many "woke" people is something that desperately needs to be addressed.
I've never made fun of people who can't read, specifically because of that one scene in "a league of their own" where that one character cries and becomes embarrassed when she can read if she made the team or not. okay maybe that's not the only reason. this is a very thoughtful video that really go in depth and explains why you shouldn't shame people for being illiterate. you did a super good job and i really hope it teaches particularly stubborn people why shaming people can be a bad thing all around.
That 52% statistic literally shocked me. This video was really eye-opening. It's certainly made me reconsider the way I think about and treat illiterate people.
Thank you for making something important.
Generations of citizens voting for parties who consistently de-fund education will inevitably result in these numbers and higher. There is also a reason Orwell invented Newspeak.
@4Freedom4All Your evidence of the real rate of illiteracy in the US?
@4Freedom4All Interesting. According to a Forbes article from Sept 9, 2020 "According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level"
Now we will argue about Illiterate and functionally illiterate and low literate I suppose?
www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=17c697b94c90
@@dinnerwithfranklin2451 Honesty it's a cycle. There's a reason why the south is mostly red and has lower education scores. As someone who's lived in Georgia my whole life the cycle continue to happen there are small improvements but it never feels like enough for certain kids to catch up
@@jamarsh09 Cui bono?
when you asked what percentage of adults fall below level 3 i cynically muttered 50% and then the real number was slightly higher. and i have about as negative a view of the failures of the american education system you can imagine. jesus christ.
Personally, the way I see it is those with dyslexia and similar learning disabilities get a pass as they didn't decide to be born neurodivergent, those who the education system failed get a partial pass with the understanding that they try and improve but the timeline for that is none of my business just that they try and better their situation, and those who simply want to wallow in ignorance get no passes because there are two things which I absolutely loathe, willful stupidity and self-centeredness (probably why I became such a misanthrope when reality too often didn't match my naive expectations).
HenshinFanatic or, maybe everyone deserves a “pass” because without it, they’ll likely fall into a cycle of poverty and state-sanctioned abuse. You may see someone not working on literacy as willfully stupid (which is the exact mindset this video critiques, imo) but why is that so? How is an illiterate person supposed to find an adult literacy class when they can’t successfully navigate websites or get a drivers license? How can they pay for those classes when they can’t work a well-paying job? How are they supposed to make time for classes when they have to work crazy hours to survive in our broken economic system? It’s just cruel to say that anyone deserves poverty or to struggle in life because of something like literacy.
You can be literate and have dyslexia, those don't cancel each other out
@@HenshinFanatic Please don't. It's enough I feel dumb for still struggling with reading due to my learning disabilites and would never want anyone to deal with the mockery people have given to me over it.
I worked at a library's literacy dept. and honestly when you're mindful of literacy restrictions it really helps to communicate things more clearly in general. I've learned to break down things like computer instructions, loan applications, and business documents into simple language bc of that experience so I highly recommend volunteering if you can.
I’m “functionally illiterate” however I’ve managed to get a PhD,
At work I hide behind IT & are mostly undetected,
I can’t write properly (legibly or spelling), words are essentially pictures to me making reading very difficult.
Say I’m in a restaurant & see a new word, I can’t read it, it’s a picture. Friends often tease me when this happens. A waitress once ridiculed me while I was on a date.
I’ve come to accept if I was ever arrested I would need someone to read everything out loud to me.
how did you manage to be illiterate, could you tell me if there was anything stopping you from being as literate as you could be? (like for example; dyslexia, learning disorders, et cetera), how did you brain get "wired" to interpret writing as pictures instead of language?
@@1leon000 I’m dyslexic, I knew I was different about age 7. It took until I was about 13 before school thought something was wrong. My IQ percentile is in the top 2% (but it’s not a very good measure) so it was fairly easy to hide. I’m learning a language at night school and the teacher noticed something about me was different last week. It’s hard but I’ve had to adapt to the reality of it 🤷♂️
@@joshw5559 Oh. That is entirely on the school system.
I actually recently posted a video that led to a friend "coming out" to me as dyslexic, and it was a real eye opener. I cried that night thinking about callous things I'd said over the years without ever realizing how this person was struggling, all the times we'd "joked" about them being illiterate, and reflecting on my own struggles with learning through ADHD. Thank you for doing the work of helping us realize our own meanness so we can start the hard work of eliminating it.
I've spent nearly a half year learning a second language and the amount of reading it requires is incredibly humbling. When you are raised in a way that enables you to become literate it is easy to look back on that time and forget what a struggle learning to read and write was and is. Learning a second language with the added difficulty of new writing systems puts you back in that place of essentially knowing nothing. It was incredibly frustrating for a time.
I know, right? I mean, I started with German. We have most of the same alphabet, but re-understanding how these sounds interact etc. was so irritating. I hate not being able to express myself, and I want to do better, always. My command over English is pretty damn good, and it's humbling.
I was just looking for a comment like this. I've spent the last few months learning the basics of Japanese, since it can be done safely online during a pandemic without spreading disease. It's definitely taught me some empathy, especially for people who come from different writing systems into English. I've said to everyone who will listen, it's a good thing Japanese doesn't take the same inconsistent approach to pronouncing its words English does, because I would have given up months ago. It's humbling, especially as someone who falls in the 48% of Americans who do not struggle with literacy. I'm lucky to be in a position of privilege where I can study Japanese and drill kana/kanji; I can't imagine having to try and get by and make money and survive at my current level of the language.
After four years of studying Japanese at a college level, I definitely agree. My literacy is probably about that of a highschool level now, approx. 1000 kanji, JLPT N2 grammar literacy, and I find most things intended for my age (22) completely inaccessible even still. When I was applying for an exchange program, I needed my native Japanese friend to help me. (And then when I got accepted, covid happened so I never got to go...)
@@teaja211 Well now it's been 9 months and this is kind of a pathetic comment don't you think? It would have taken you less time to be less rude.
@@teaja211 Rude was a word I used to be kind. The proper word is asshole.
No one said you couldn't comment on this. I was just telling you it was a shitty comment. Everyone else who replied shared their experience, your comment was made purely to antagonize. It's not conducive to the conversation. I hope you find better ways to spend your time than shitting on people for learning of all things.
I expected to learn important things from this video, but I didn't expect to find out that I'm an adult literacy learner.
I didn't realize that my severe difficulties filling out forms, writing a CV, spelling without autocorrect, writing essays or articles, and following written instructions qualified as a literacy issue.
I thought that since I can read fiction, communicate with friends over text, and speak eloquently I must be fully literate.
This really recontextualizes all the times I've cried in confusion at job applications, starred blankly at pages of instructions, and panicked in front of written tests about things that I am good at.
I once tried to explain to my bemused comrades that I can't write an article for our anarchist newsletter and I'm still not sure if they get it.
By the way my literacy issues are definitely because of my neurodivergencies (ADHD and autism), and it gets better whenever I find more accessible ways to learn a literacy skill.
Calling someone illiterate is an insult only to the society that failed them.
idk, I think it hurts them too
Also installing a car seat? Wouldn’t that mean this person is having or just had a baby? I can’t imagine the issue with her not wanting to deal with the instructions not having to do with the stress and exhaustion of birthing a tiny human. :( some I wish the group had more empathy
That group was really, just a meeting of bullies from school who never grew out of their “stupid and jerky” phase, and that mother joined without knowing 😢
@@icantthinkofaname8139 oof
@@icantthinkofaname8139 the progressive rules of the group worrying allow them convince themselves they are the good guys too and that their bullying is a crusade for bettering the world
While I agree with your point the seat looked more like a forward facing seat meant for a 1+ year old. Still a lot of work and all that still applies fairly well.
I just want to find that girl and help her with her car seat, I hope someone did, the amount of damage done by the people in that parenting group is unfathomable!
And it’s not even (completely) a literacy issue! Our local fire department does car seat installations because they’re so tricky to do properly. If she had just said that she was having a difficult time doing the install I bet people would have been sympathetic. But because she was honest about her problem, she was insulted and mocked. No wonder people don’t ‘come out’ about struggling with reading!
Few people are nastier than “mommies” and “mommy groups.”
If you take it to a fire station, or hospital/pediatrician they should be able to help her.
My grandmother, an absolute gem of a human being, struggles with writing a lot. From what she has told me, her upbringing in poor, rural Ireland and her schooling massively contributed to it (she was hit across the hand with a ruler for trying to write with her left, her natural hand). She is massively embarrassed by her writing, to the point where she gets my Aunts to write addresses on envelopes. Thank you for this video. You get it.
I’m not illiterate but this reminds me of when my friend used to make fun of my borderline illegible handwriting but it turns out it was cause I was disabled.
This one is really good. I've worked with so many people who would be considered illiterate. They are definitely not stupid. Being able to talk-to-text on your phone and watch videos to show you how to do things really help, our world is becoming more accessible and yet more hostile to these adults. My nana raised three children as a single mother, and didn't know how to read above a second grade level until she was 48. She's the most kind and emotionally intelligent person I've ever met. My co-teacher at my daycare has difficulty reading in her head and doesn't read books to our class, she's extremely smart and always figures out how to do complicated curriculum activities that I struggle to grasp. The failures of education, of a system that doesn't prioritize understanding but memorizing and test taking, the failures of capitalism and society to provide resources to these people are not their failures, they are being failed.
Sometimes I think about the kind of life my nana could have lived if she had been able to continue school after 8th grade, if she had been born in a town that didn't just have a single room school house, or to a family without six younger siblings to take care of. She could have been a nurse, or a teacher instead of working as an unlicensed beautician and a waitress. Poverty is the ultimate barrier.
Just wanted to say thank you for your service. I have the utmost respect for teachers who care about their jobs.
As a privileged literate person myself I am guilty of contributing to this issue. Thank you for enlightening me. I'm going to share this with some of the groups I'm in and one of my lecturers in the Sociology department at my university.
So am I. Most of my "contributions" to this discourse have been throwaway jokes about George W. Bush.
I've always conflated with adult illiteracy in the developed world with right-wing and fundamentalist ignorance even though I know it's objectively false.
I also stopped being a grammar nazi when i learned that it’s just a way to hurt poor people
Yeah, I feel pretty called out here. Gotta watch my arrogant ass from here on out.
TFW you find out you're the monster...
I'm so happy you recognized this in yourself and are working on changing your mindset. You are already halfway there with this mentality :)
Literacy is irrelevant of wealth, its about encouragement and interest.
Really awesome work. I'm a #UX designer by day and part of my job is making software and websites easier to use. Your video is so important for my industry to remember because we are the people designing those awful government websites and horrid web forms and so on. I'm going to make this mandatory viewing for future interns and people that work with me because it lies at the heart of why we do what we do.
Oh my gosh - hi! I love your work!
It's also so great to hear that my video could help to have an impact on something, like, REAL.
Thank you so much, both for your kind words and for fighting the good fight!
Literacy is really about privilege. When I was 12, I was middle class and at a college reading level. My family became lower class when my sister was very little. She is 12 now and still can't read. She's just as smart as me, but the limitations of our economic class have kept her from learning. She thinks she's dumb because of how many adults in her life have mocked her and called her lazy. It's very upsetting.
An internet connection is all you need to learn to read. Even if you are extremely dyslexic.
Re: Voting. Voting is hard - even being literate, sweating at the polling station because I am nervous, the instructions are incomprehensible and I don't recognise some of the candidates feels embarrassing. I try to find ballot papers online to look at the instructions and research candidates in peace and print some out to give to others. Having some extra time to look at the layout and so on may help. For elections where the candidates are not well known (eg local elections that aren't hotly contested), my friends and I have held pre-voting parties to research our choices together. It can't really be unbiased, but at least you'll know more than before.
guess they didnt cover ableism in their rules smh and these people are supposed to be parents. the irony
As an autistic person, trust me a lot of parents are ableist and don't consider it an ism
@@HopeGardner3amed I feel that :/
Growing up, I knew an adult, E, who was illiterate. He dropped out of school so that he could help his family. His siblings went to school, but he didn’t. I lived over a funeral home and he was the “porter.” It was a job he could do but someone else had to order all of the cleaning supplies but he couldn’t read. I think he was also paid under the table, because when he retired, he did not qualify for Social Security-or he could not fill out the paper work needed. The only benefit he had for all the years he worked was a life insurance policy. A policy that his younger sister took from him claiming that she would help him when he was dying of cancer. He made his “mark” thinking that he was leaving the policy to the mother of his children. Instead all of the funds went to his sister. I have always argued that the illiterate are not lazy or stupid. There are always supposed examples of people who just don’t want to learn, but the reality is more complicated than that. They may have had to drop out like E, or they may have a disability and attended in a rural area where the school lacked teachers who could work with them, so they were progressed through to each grade because there was nothing else to do with them. As a teacher of adults, I have teach a wide range of students. As a country, we do a huge disservice to many of our students, allowing those who are “Other” to fall between the cracks. This issue will only become worse as more states move to easing restrictions on child labor and doing everything possible to kill the public school system. Illiteracy will only get worse.
As someone who struggled in his youth with literacy due to the lack of formal education of my close family I loved this video. I am currently in college for math education and I am taking several literacy classes to cater towards children who struggle with literacy, I feel my literacy professor would love this video.
I’m so glad you made this video. I really hope people learn more about this. I am dyslexic and didn’t learn to read until I was 10 years old. It’s something I still struggle with. I never actually got diagnosed, all throughout school teachers and students just said I was lazy or the R word. I now tutor children in reading and writing. 80% of my job is telling parents that it’s ok if there kids are a little behind and working with them to help there kids fall in love with reading.
I struggled to read as a kid. Like, basic reading, spelling, anxiety having to read a loud. Turns out I had trouble seeing the letters, and because my family was poor I didn't get a vision exam as often as I needed. Once they figured out I needed bifocals at about 8 and a half, I started reading old Archie comics and my moms vintage Nancy drew books and took off! Even though I am now a ravenous reader, I still struggle to spell, and with some pronunciations.
Same here, I didnt realise i needed glasses until i was 10, i used to read with my face literally pressed to the page. Luckily my dad read the hobbit and faraway tree books to me every night for years. Parents! Read to your kids!
I told people in 1st grade I needed glasses. I did see an optometrist but he said my eyesight will get better on it's own, it didnt. I saw a different one 4 years later he said I should have gotten them earlier.
As someone who reads a lot and speaks very little, some of the pronunciation mistakes I make are absolutely hilarious. I will just misread a word and from then on, that correct spelling no longer exists to me. I pronounce loads of words like they would be pronounced if English was a sane language, like Spanish (pause for the appreciation of Spanish’s phonetic consistency) and then there are things like the embarrassing amount of time it took for me to realise that ‘thorough’ and ‘through’ are two separate words and not just the same one re-used like the lazy little doorknob English is. Also, ‘pronUnciation’? Seriously? It just went, “oH, yOu KnOw WhAt ThIs LaNgUaGe HaS fAr ToO mUcH oF? *MATCHING WORDS!* i’D bEtTeR jUsT- [
There's a TV show in the UK called The Write Offs who follow a group of adults who struggle with literacy. It seems to address a lot of what you mention here and has a fairly diverse group of people, in regards to why they struggle with literacy.
I once worked with a group of people in a middle school building. During registration, a mother came in asking for someone to help her with the registration process. She was told by several staff to just "read through the website". In front of other parents, staff, and a few students, the mother had to admit that she was struggling with the directions on the site and needed someone to sit down with her and take her through it. Several office workers scoffed at her and pretty much told her "good luck". They then gave me nasty looks for insisting on sitting down with her and taking her through the process myself (I had other things to do, but this was important). She told me that she was afraid that her daughter was suffering from the same reading issue and wanted her screened before she started school. It breaks my heart that she was just desperate to not have her daughter suffer through the same literacy struggles she went through. It DISGUSTS me how critical and closed minded the staff was. SCHOOL STAFF! We're the very people who should be the FIRST to understand. Ours is a toxic culture: especially when it comes to those we don't understand.
I'm a translator and translating instructions manuals is a large part of my job. Instructions are written in a very specific way, different from the everyday language we normally use. Over the years I've noticed that the quality of such instructions lowered significantly. They're often confusing or even simply incorrect, this applies especially to small electronics. If you ever struggle with instructions for a thing you just bought, there's a good chance you're not the only user who does.
I know that's the case when I couldn't understand something, only to find out that my family doesn't understand either. I should point out that both me and my mom are translating texts and movies on regular bases so I can say that comprehension is something I am good at (and not just me).
However there is also another problem. Sometimes you can't literally read what is written. I am not sure why every single instruction is forcing the ever smaller letters and numbers, but it is a serious problem. Out of 4 us in family only I don't have glasses and I have very good sight overall. However, sometimes I am forced to read instructions for my parents, not because they are stupid, but because they can't physically see letters and while I can read it, sometimes I struggle too. This not only hinders people understanding instructions (the main purpose of manuals) for no reason, but it damages sight. Sure, my sight is good and my parents can figure things on their own, but what will happen when my sight fails? My parents when I am not around need to use magnifying glass with their glasses to read. I wonder how much they damaged their sight that way. Sometimes, I wonder if there is a conspiracy to make people comprehend less and damage their sight in the process.
It's so surprising because i thought there was a culturally uniting thing that people rarely read manuals and try to play with what object they're given or bought with. And that people who make products try to make them as intuitive as possible so people buy them more, etc.
Okay, I'm about to link this everywhere. About 1/4 people in my country (Scotland) are illiterate.
Edit: source: Scottish Survey of Adult Literacies 2009.
As a Scot who had to get literacy & numeracy lessons at 21 after leaving school at 15, I am going to do the same.
Is that true? That seems like a ludicrously high number for a developed nation.
@TheJesusaurus it does sound like a lot, but the illiteracy rate in the US is more than half. A quarter of the Scottish population doesn't sound so extreme in comparison.
@@thejesusaurus6573 Scotland has many issues we need to tackle tbh. lots of deprivation, Also substance abuse, Scotland has the highest proportion of drug related deaths in Europe.
Scotland had so much potential, the inequity and wealth divide hold us back so much
Well, this was a rude awakening to something that I'm embarrassed not to have already understood. The literacy bubble is quite insulative it seems. Thank you for making this video, I need to make some adjustments to my behavior.
I wish more people where as willing as you.
If you have a internet connections you have no excuse.
This might be one of the most impactful video's I've watched on this platform. I think my local library has a literacy program and I am going to inquire about volunteering there.
This video was extremely powerful to me. The main subject for sure, but that one line in passing "that's just eugenics". As soon as I thought about it I realized exactly how much rhetoric that falls into that category I have heard and not disputed. thanks for that!
'Eugenics' isn't limited to what the Nazis called their failed and ill-founded racial purity programmes. CRISPR is the future-'Eugenics' literally means 'good genes'. Genetic justice for all is the next crucial frontier of humanity.
It was that line that soured me on the video. It may sound a bit antinatalist but having a child when you know that you are not able to give them the care that they need is a bad thing. It is cruel and society failing you is not an excuse to do that to another person. Painting all criticisms as eugenics is irresponsible.
@@Captain_Chair any group of people who deny the right of bearing a child to someone based on some arbitrary standard, like literacy, is eugenics. Even if someone cannot read, if they are not abusing or neglecting the child in their care, they have the right to parent that child. I recently watched a Mia Mulder video in which she discusses her transition. At that time, the government sterilized trans people as a matter of policy, as they considered trans people to be unfit parents. That video hit me deep in my soul. Fortunately, the government changed their policy and by some miracle she was eventually able to recover some of her fertility and have a sperm sample frozen to use if she decides she wants biological children. It felt awful hearing her talk about the sterilization policy so matter of factly, and I would never want to force another person to go through that.
@@jwick2520 But someone who cannot read to their child is inherently neglecting their child. It's not their fault but it is a passive cycle of abuse that needs to be addressed systemically.
there are audio books. by that logic all blind people are abusive to their kids
It makes me sad that I can really see this stigmatizing behaviour around me and how quick people are to write off others as stupid and not deserving of help or financial aid because they are "lazy". We are so willing to define a persons worth based on their skills in something they often have little influence over. And the 52% number really shows that this is a society that fails more than half it's members and doesn't really care.
As someone who works in literacy, It's great to see a video on this! Idk about other countries but many Australian schools are behind in implementing actual evidence-based literacy teaching methods, so it's awful to hear people here be jerks to people who like, don't spell correctly, considering their schools probably weren't equipped to even teach them properly.
This video really amazed me and touched me, in fact I'm in tears as I write this.
I went to an adult high school, where people who were beyond the compulsory schooling age chose to go back to school and finish year 11 and 12. It was a really important experience for me because I wouldn't have been able to go to university without going back to school and sitting my exams to earn my ATAR (the Australian national ranking of high school students in a given year who wish to go to university). While I was there I met so many amazing people from poorer backgrounds who were making this amazing step in trying to improve themselves; from 18 year old's who struggled with mainstream schooling and just needed a slight adjustment to how they were taught, to people in their 50s and 60s just trying to make up for the opportunities they missed earlier in life.
I never looked at my experience going back to school as being related to my literacy level, but that is exactly what it is and it was life changing for me and so many other people. Thank you for helping me realize that adult illiteracy is a massive societal issue and isn't as simple as a person not being able to read basic sentences.
As someone with dyslexia, to this day I can not stand when people say ''You just need to read''. Read what? People don't take into consideration how hard it is to read when what you are trying to read is not interesting. You need to actually be interested in what you are reading to be able to concentrate. I tried finding things to read, but I couldn't concentrate, because everything was boring and I though I could be doing so many other things instead of reading this one sentence over and over again because I couldn't remember what I had read. I tried to find books for people my age at the time, but it was exhausting trying to read someone waxing poetry about the sky for 5 pages instead of actually getting into the plot. Newspapers, kids books, ingredients on a food label? What are we suppose to be reading? I don't think people know or understand how much time people have to use on finding something to read to be able to actually practice reading. Also not everyone has access or time to find something they would be able to use for reading. I found fanfiction at 13 and that was the only thing that was able to keep me interested enough to struggle through it. They were short and didn't usually go on a 3000 word tangent about how a characters life is like a tree. I was privileged enough to have access to all kinds of literature, but what is a fully grown adult with a job and/or family suppose to do?
Comics and role play games, that helped me. But still after years it's constant hard work.
If you'd like to enjoy books specifically, audiobooks are great. You still get all the story or all the knowledge without using so much energy to get it. It's good to practice reading, but it's okay if you just want to enjoy something in a way that's less draining!
Maybe a bit weird but there are books for language learners that are written using simple sentences and can be interesting for people who speak English (or what have you) as a first language too.
I am from Finland and my elementary school teacher used to say that there’s no such a thing called “stupid question”.
I think that the mother on video was smart because she tried to ask instead of getting stuck. I think that people were unnecessarily mean to her when she has a genuine, important safety, question.
We don’t know this lady’s background but she might have had dyslexia, ADHD or other disability (or simply not speak English as first language) and thus had difficulties to understand written text manual.
💯
Or the instruction manual could have been very poorly written.
I run therapy groups that involve a lot of reading as part of my job. Since I work with adults in the justice system, an even higher proportion are adults with literacy needs. I’m saving this video, thanks for always having helpful info!
My jaw actually dropped open at the 52% statistic. Makes me think of all the people I’ve met in my life who have struggled with literacy. You’ve made me really interested about this issue and I thank you a lot for that
I'm a decent writer. But, I've gone through creative dry spells, and depressive states where I didn't write for several months, or even a couple years, at a time. Each time coming back, I realize just how rusty I am, and it takes a little to get back into the swing of things. If you've a skill, and you don't use it, you've the chance to lose it. If you are made to use a skill, that you don't want/need/use in your daily life and then don't use it for a while....it makes sense.
Weirdly enough, I used to find it very challenging to write in clear simplified language until I began volunteering with a local intellectual disablity charity. As alot of the clients I worked with loved to communicate by text message. I had a few months of them texting 'I don't understand what you just wrote', every so often, until I finally learned to compose my thoughts in more direct language.
I struggle with over explaining due to childhood trauma, but my bf is dyslexic so whenever I’m texting him I know I need to be short as possible so it’s less daunting for him to read. I’ve gotten a lot better about it outside of texting just because of the practice I have in texting him.
I NEED TO LEARN THIS.
Do you have any tips to get better at this? I believe i suffer of the same problem in my mother tongue
Thank you for putting this issue out there, much appreciated. I remember I was discussing this problem with my friends and they just didn't believe me when I said that over half of US adults are functionally illiterate.
I 'd never seen someone say "fucking lazy" in such a professional manner. Earned you a subscriber!
I could read by age 3, and my intelligence was all that I had going for me.
Now I have a 9 year old son that is probably dyslexic and has trouble reading. I feel so bad about ever criticizing someone's reading ability. I guess I was hurting and I lashed out at my peers with the one thing I had that they didn't.
Hey I know this comment is 10 months old, but your son should try reading through blue tracing paper. I find it locks the letters in place and stops them moving around so much.
This is a topic you don't see a whole lot of people talking about. I grew out of my "grammar nazi" phase in my early 20's. I'm in my 30's now, what can you do, people weren't exactly woke about a whole lot of things pre 2010.
When it comes to literacy, we've probably actually taken a few steps backwards in some ways, since the evolution of technology has lead to so much more communication being done through text rather than speech. It's bad enough without us ACTIVELY working to ostracise and shame people further for struggling with reading and writing.
I *want* people to correct my grammar. I've written things wrong for years because no one online would correct me. For example I thought "believes" was the canonical plural of "belief".
@@MrCmon113 It may be the "incorrect" way to pluralize belief, but I also think it's English's fault for being so darn bespoke. Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions...
I'm dyslexic. I can devour nonfiction but I struggle with fiction. Remembering characters, what they look like, location etc. I can read fiction but it takes a long, long time. It's funny because I've finished Howard Zen's A People's History Of The United States (a door stop) cover to cover but gave up on Coraline after about a month of trying. Reading out loud is pretty much impossible for me.
Not sure why I'm sharing this except maybe to reiterate Zoe's point that there's many stages to literacy.
Living in rural California and Oregon I've met people who were almost completely illiterate. They could spell and recognize common words well enough to use the internet and finish school but they needed help. I believe being able to read is very important, every person who plausibly could learn to read should. But people who are illiterate still deserve to have jobs and be treated with basic respect. Society as a whole should use more communication and signage they can easily understand.
The first time I came up against this was doing informed consent for health research studies. The consent form needed to be written at a Grade 8 reading level and we all really struggled with that, partly because it wasn't something that we had really had to do before (all college-or-beyond educated researchers, technicians, physicians) and also because the boilerplate they had for us was so far beyond Grade 8 level. We would talk to people verbally about the consent, which helped, I think ... but I always felt so bad that we would follow that up by giving them a 14 page dense document to "take home and look over" like who the fuck has time for that??
In our org we try to inform healthcare providers on lower the reading level of forms. I’ll tell you, if you give us a form at an 8th grade level we would try make it 3rd grade lol. 8th is usually too high honestly
When I was a kid, the Australian Reading Writing hotline was a banger designed to get into kids' heads, and I hope that helped destigmatise it a bit, and also get the info into an aural text. I hadn't thought about it in years.
I tutor, and it's amazing how much missing one or two steps of learning mess with your whole knowledge base. Teaching a kid that a) it's fine not to "get" spelling, or multiplication, or reading; and b) the actual *content/ skills* they need is just incredible
Yes, I haven't seen an ad in ages but it let me know to study at school or study later. And gave me an understanding that not everyone can read, even though I still take everyone reading for granted most of the time. I still remember the phone number. 1300 655 506.
I still remember the number after all these years!
I love this video, this is something I feel strongly about. I used to be one of those people who would ridicule adults who happened to be less literate than myself. Since I grew up poor and spent most of my time in middle school and high school doing drugs and playing music, I pretty much made straight D's and F's for a good 6 of those years. So I virtually had no real actual education by the time I was 18, but I made a choice to take classes, start reading a lot, and basically just get interested in things, I had a lot of intellectual curiosity. I'm very humiliated nowadays to admit this, but for a number of years I walked around with a false air of superiority because I, quite inaccurately, assumed everyone else had at very least an equal, if not slightly better, foundation of literacy than I had. I, however, learned to read overnight when I was 5 years old and never had any real problems learning English or grammar, a part from severe laziness. My grandmother taught school for forty plus years, both of my parents were college educated, and avalanching mountains of books were commonplace in my household. I don't say these things to brag, to the contrary I wish I understood advantages I had many years ago. I used to shame people to their faces and snicker behind their backs for being, not even necessarily, for want of a better word "stupid" ( which btw is a terrible word, and is the most, if not offensive, then perhaps "offending" word in the English language ) but for simply being "less enlightened" than myself in terms of literacy. You will never inspire a person to improve any aspect of themselves by making them feel stupid or inferior, conversely it drives people to despise an area of knowledge as something for inherently arrogant and privileged assholes, when you highlight their intellectual deficiencies and degrade them for it. Ableism is hypocritical and a means of projecting our own insecurities onto the less fortunate. If we ever want to see things improve we have a duty to be empathetic and generous. Our public education systems are highly flawed, ass-backwards and draconian institutions that were designed to raise obedient unquestioning factory workers, and the larger bulk of us have in a sense been victimized by these systems in one way or another, from a young age. The great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurielius cautioned us to be "tolerant with others, and strict with yourself." And to end this inappropriately long raving rant, ( for a YT comment section )I shall also quote the late-great John Lennon, who sang, "You better learn to recognize you brothers - Everyone you meet."
One of the most fulfilling jobs I've had was working at a private tutoring service and school called Lindamood-Bell, specifically designed to improve literacy. Lots of great kids there. I met a few who were absolutely brilliant but had the simple bad luck of being dyslexic. They were years ahead in language comprehension if it was spoken aloud; I hope they find it easier now to access written content.
Also, one of my co-workers was stricken by the connection between struggles with literacy and going to jail (which we learned a bit about during training), and she said it was one of her big motivating factors in continuing to work there.
Now if only they could find a way to get that insane tuition down...
Why literally is useless.
im not really illiterate but i do really struggle with comprehension, like my mind just totally blanks out and i wont be able to understand anything that i read. it would be so much easier if things were worded in a more simplistic way. for example in ap chem and all of my history classes. i especially hate those questions that intentionally try to trick you, like im supposed to be tested on if i understand the subject, not if im good at figuring out a weirly structured question. i also dispise how standardized tests are timed, i naturally read really slowly, which means i have to try to read fast and possibly skip over or misinterpret important information. It makes me feel like im being tested not to help me in any way, but just to be weeded out. i know its kind of ironic and weird that i left a long comment on a vid about illiteracy, but i hope that for those who read it helps to understand how even with someone like me who isnt really that illiterate, that the school system really puts me and people who have it worse than me in an underprivileged situation. its just not fair
I consider myself a good reader and there are times where that happens to me as well. (like I can read the same paragraph 5 times over and still understand nothing)
"Illiterate" used to be my favorite insult. I'll make sure to take it out of my inssult vocab! Thanks!
Don't forget to take out the word retard to.
oh and if your insult vocab has (INSERT ANTI-SEMITIC K-WORD HERE), then delete it! But i think you have common sense and it isn't in your insult vocab
@@1leon000 I don't even know what word you mean :D
me too, instead I'll just insult people for things they have control over
My grandfather was 16 when he left home and travelled to the far side of the country and made a life and home for himself and became a net worth millionaire. I was in my teens when I finally realized he wasn't able to read. He could read a little bit and when he asked others to read for him I assumed his eyes where bad. He was extremely smart and I have never and probably never will respect a man as much as him. May he rest in peace miss you grandpa.
I tend to get frustrated by people who seemed they just couldn’t understand things in writing. I’m disabled myself (autistic) and I could learn how to read - I did so basically completely self driven. Why couldn’t they?
But as I’ve started trying to learn a second language, there’s a whole lot more that I understand now with this video. I am definitely illiterate in Japanese despite my work at studying, and there’s not a small chance I will ever be truly literate. And being autistic, I’m definitely socially illiterate- I have to constantly ask people to clarify memes, intent, etc, simply because _I do not understand._
Don't judge others for their struggles, realize that you might have an ability that not everyone has and use it to lift others up rather than putting them down. Easy to say, but hard to do in this society. Let's all try to improve together. Thank you for this well laid out video essay! Lot's to think about.
This reminds me of one time when a good friend of mine showed me a birthday card from their grandma. It was full of spelling errors and looked like it was written by a 6-year-old. They explained to me that their grandma was a child during WWII (I live in Europe) and had to drop out of school because of the war and therefore never properly learned how to read and write. She had only recently started to learn it again.
I was moved to tears. Giving someone a handwritten birthday card is something considered so normal in our society. And this woman overcame the immense shame I am sure must be associated with that, all so she could give her grandchild a handwritten birthday card. This woman has my utmost respect!
Our literacy problem also extends to outdated psychology and sociology on what books to read in different communities and in schools. As a child, I read everything and every book I touched was read until Middle School where I was not allowed to read books at my own pace and we read depressing books like The Outsiders. Things got worse in High School with There Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury where a robotic house is so lonely it blows itself up, The Crucible and Inherit the Wind made me feel terrible because I was agnostic, and Animal Farm and 1984 was the breaking point. Comics and Manga were not even considered literature or art at my school not even greats like Charles Schulz, Bill Waterson, and Tezuka Osamu, and fantasy was seen as not high brow not even Lord of the Rings or Joseph Campell. English class or any language art class should inspire and encourage people to read and not scare them into submission. Also, cancel Ayn Rand and Diary of a Wimpy Kid for the damage they have done to the curriculum.
The only literacy problem we have is that people think it's a skill worth having. Debunk that and the problem is solved.
My great aunt Lucille has a hard time reading, she has severe epilepsy and couldn't finish school because of it, among other things. She is in her early 80's and needs help and often asks me to read something aloud to her and I have no problem helping her. She also calls my grandmother when she needs help with a word. Her sister in law will tell her to figure it out and will not help her, and is hateful to her in general and makes her cry. She tries to read and has been working on her handwriting lately. I don't know why people have to be mean.
My grandpa is illiterate and didn't learn to read until high school. He had undiagnosed learning disabilities and no one had helped him for a really long time. He still struggles to read, spell, and pronounce most words. Growing up my brother and I would laugh at his 'simple' mistakes and looking back I feel really bad. I hadn't realized how prevalent illiteracy was and I'm glad you've made this video to inform people. I'm proud of my grandpa for the progress he's made and for helping his children and grandchildren learn to read.
I work in a library and see people who struggle with this illiteracy every day. We help people navigate their emails, taxes, and applications for government benefits and jobs. Something I notice often is how self deprecating these people are and how they see themselves as worthless because they don’t have this literacy. I had never identified it as “illiteracy” but it helps explain why so many people are afraid to seek this help in the first place. You’re right on that they are ridiculed for it. This is a great video! I need to share this with my coworkers
Being Autistic myself, it's very appreciated that you are covering this topic. I've always struggled to navigate through a lot of institutional systems, whether it be school, government sector, Universities, workplaces, and even the doctors. The worst part is that my issues are largely not taken seriously because I don't "look Autistic", which I think ties into certain expectations you mentioned in the video, like the idea that only "people who voted for Trump" are illiterate... Which is an idea I don't even know how to unravel, especially since people who smugly say that are people who often rave about "social justice". Least to say, ableism is still a touchy subject in left leaning circles, despite how much they like to pat themselves on the back for pretending to care. People like that actually annoy me more than actual ableists.
Obviously I'm a lot more articulate now than when I was a child, a youth, or even a young man in my early 20s. I worked really hard to present myself as "normal" to most people, however that has had the unexpected effect of me being required to work harder for help because I'm apparently too good at behaving like a neurotypical person.
Luckily my wife is around to help me whenever I have questions. She is the best :D
I'm autistic too.
I love bashing people who are illiterate, because it makes me feel better about my own place on the totem pole.
That sounds terrible, doesn't it? Well, punching up is too painful when you can just punch down.
My dad told told me a story once about how in his childhood, all his siblings quit school all at once, and their mom just let them. They were incredibly poor, and my dad would’ve rather gotten a job then continue High school. He was the first to protest. Their mom barley put up a fight. Then my aunt....and then finally my uncle.
The youngest, my uncle, dropped out of the sixth grade. He had a lot of trouble reading his entire life. He Had to stick to manual labor, like painting for jobs. He struggled with a lot of things, but he was the sweetest person ever. RIP.