PUBLIC LITERACY: THE TALK ABOUT READING

Public literacy is nothing to ignore, but it happens all the time.

Poor reading skills aren’t something to brag about.

If you’re over fifty and read a third grade level, what do you do?

Hide that fact from ever getting into the light.

Or . . . ?

I know a woman who met The One.

They were a good match and made life plans together.

One day he left a note on the table that showed a literacy problem.

She talked to him about it, offered to help.

He took offense. She dumped his dumb ass.

If someone offers to help you read better and write better, they are The One for you.

Call it Intimate Literacy.

You can keep that secret together.

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Simple communication works better with improved public literacy.

You know what you’re saying, and you know they understand what you’re saying.

That’s a confidence builder. Gone are the days of needing everything explained in detail.

You: Jack and Jill went up the hill.

Them: Went up a hill? Did they walk, hike, wander up a hill? Was it steep, or more of a bump?

If you have Social Literacy in common, ‘went up a hill,’ is enough for young kids to grasp.

Social Literacy:

I was in eighth grade in ’69. It was a good time to be in Junior High.

Thirteen year old me in ’69 was a fan of the people walking away from the life they knew for one they hoped was better.

I wasn’t walking away from anything myself, but those who did seemed like the cool cats of a new generation.

See Me Feel Me was out there some place, just some place I didn’t know.

’69 was the first year I remember a classmate coming back to school in the fall with long hair.

Way to show up, Scott Gallagher.

At my house we still sat in a chair for home haircuts. If we complained it got cut shorter.

Big brother broke out and got a haircut at Pony Village. 

He came home, got some See Me review, and my mom took him back to the barber shop for some extra cuts.

The story I got was the notion of consequences for good and bad decisions.

Reading Lesson For Public Literacy

I searched this blog for “reading.”

I found four hundred and ten posts with reading tags in them.

A YouTube search for reading produced on endless scroll.

You’ll need Video Literacy for this.

Look around and you’ll find literacy needs everywhere.

Health Literacy for the covid pandemic.

Political Literacy for the Jan. 6 committee.

Environment Literacy for climate change.

Educational Literacy

Have your heard teachers complain about funding cuts?

That they have to use their own money to buy school supplies?

Call it Financial Literacy.

These are the people required to hold a Master’s Degree for a job.

A Master’s Degree is spendy.

School loan debt is a burden.

On a good day a teacher reaches their goals under financial stress; on a bad day it’s all about financial stress.

Here’s the problem: People want their kids taught by qualified, licensed, professionals.

However, people also complain about the cost of education. In some places they want to lower teacher’s standards. As if it’s all the teachers fault.

People with Master’s Degrees know what it cost to graduate. And they know their worth.

That’s the problem with Educational Literacy. They know that we know we couldn’t do their jobs.

They also know the difference between what they make and the value of a Master’s Degree in the private work world.

I’ll end with this, and I think you’ll agree: It’s better to know as much as you can while you have a chance to learn.

Otherwise you’ll be part of the population depending on freaking idiots to explain women’s reproductive health, election proceedings, and when to shut the hell up.

Improved public literacy across the board is the best protection against finding more of these morons in leadership positions.

#votingliteracy