Worldwide Literacy

by Deborah Hohn Tonguis on Monday, April 26, 2010

World Literacy Map

When I was growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, much public attention was spent freeing the emotions, helping repressed, post WWII individuals get in touch with their feelings. That was a time before the internet and before there was equal access to infinite sources of firsthand information. But now, after reading Dewey, Goleman, Gardner, Locayo, Sternberg and many well written and researched internet articles, I have entered into a personal “renaissance”, a time characterized by a freedom to explore for myself the thoughts of others and after practicing reflective learning, allow them to clarify my own thoughts and feelings. This brings me back to a time in history before the invention of the printing press, when only priests, nobility and scholars were literate and the illiterate impoverished masses depended upon secondhand information their entire lives. How precious the gift of literacy and the ability to find at ones fingertips information once locked away in dusty archives and lonely library basements. The World Wide Web perpetuates it own growth as millions educate themselves and contribute to the growing knowledge base. I am happy to be alive at a time when worldwide literacy could be achieved.