literacy (was PETA recommendations

[Guest guest]

Hey, that's an assumption a lot of people make. Reconizing it and wanting

to change the way you think for the better is a rare thing. Thanks for

modelling that!

There are lots of studies showing the vast differences in brain structure

between aliterate (people raised in a non-reading society), illiterate

(people raised in a reading society who don't learn to read) and literate

people. A friend of mine teaches ESL to aliterate people, mostly immigrants

from Southeast Asia. Their ability to remember things is phenomenal. My

friend describes the time a student of hers realized that many Westerners

use shopping lists. " You mean you can't even remember what you need from

the store? " she asked, laughing.

One study I read about was very interesting. Four objects were shown to

subjects: an axe, a saw, a screwdriver and a log. They were asked to name

the object that didn't belong. The literate people all said the log as it

wasn't a tool. The aliterate people all said the screwdriver because the

axe and the saw were used to work with logs, but the screwdriver was used in

a different setting. So the literate people showed a more abstract

reasoning, but it wouldn't surprise me if none of them even knew how to

swing an axe!

Then you have learning disabilties, disabilities that affect how one can

receive information, but don't affect intelligence, such as dyslexia. I

worked with adults with learning disabiltiies as an instructional aide. One

student's disabilties were extensive enough that she could not learn to

read. She got all her books on tapes, dictated her tests, and graduated

valedictorian of her class.

So yes, literate and aliterate use very different ways of thinking, but it's

not a matter of intelligence.

RE: Re: PETA recommendations

This was what I was trying to get at, but now I wonder what's

going on

inside my head because I put the two together. On some level I

think

that illiterate people aren't as smart as me. How embarrassed

am I now?