Dictionary.com defines “literacy” as: “1. the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write.” No doubt it seems odd that a librarian is claiming that she is illiterate. In writing. Which she presumably can read. (Are you judging my ability to read and write based on on how many typpos there are in this opnion piece?)
A person can be literate in a variety of languages. After 9AM, I am generally fluent in English, I am lacking true je ne sais quoi in French, and desperately need to spend time with ein gutes Wörterbuch if I attempt German.
Chinese? It’s all Greek to me. I’m utterly illiterate.
Greek would give me uncomfortable flashbacks to calculus, anyway.
I’m not ashamed of these failings in knowledge. I am not proud of them, either. I am aware of them, much like I am aware of my inability to get things down from high shelves unassisted.
I know that the knee-jerk reaction to someone saying you need to work on your literacy skills is to feel insulted. It used to be my first response. Use your literacy skills and critical thinking to determine if they meant something different. A defensive reaction isn’t going to help you learn anything about the world or yourself.
As a library professional, when I am concerned about someone’s literacy skills, I am sometimes talking about reading and writing. Before feeling insulted, ask if you could have missed a critical word in what I was saying. (If I was talking to you before 9AM my brain may not have been properly hooked up to my mouth and skipped something. My apologies – I don’t know why I’m allowed out in public that early.)
“Don’t ask me. I only sleep on books; my literacy skills aren’t meow-velous”
Was I talking about digital literacy? Information literacy? Media literacy? There are so many others.
Reading and writing (literacy-literacy) is a foundation for these and many other types of literacy.
To be fair to Dictionary.com, it does hint at this in the definition – “3. a person’s knowledge of a particular subject or field.”
Different types of literacy overlap in different ways, and it is impossible for any one human person to be completely literate in everything. I am literate. I am also illiterate.
Consequences of Illiteracy
There is a range in the severity of the consequences of illiteracy. At the severe end, an illiterate person must work to overcome the issue or risk death. At the other end, we have relatively benign illiteracy, which a person might ignore without any consequences, or choose to overcome for personal enrichment.
Illiteracy in all its forms may not be that person’s fault. Schools or individual teachers may have done a bad job helping someone learn the skills needed. Perhaps the person fled a war-torn country, and never thought they’d need to know the language in the country they are trying to rebuild their lives in.
Those people should not be ashamed of their illiteracy. They should work hard to overcome their problems. In other words, it isn’t their fault, but it is their problem.
Education could not improve on this purrfection that is Library Cat.
Don’t let shame prevent you from learning, and don’t shame someone for trying to learn. If you want to live in a welcoming and functional society, help them. Learning what they struggle with will help you learn about what your unconscious assumptions are about how society, language, and media work. If you can’t help them, send them to a local library!
More Types of Literacy
Lacking language literacy skills are usually fairly obvious. What other ways can a person be literate or illiterate?
Cultural Literacy
Cultural literacy is a person’s knowledge and understanding of things like how a culture’s social hierarchies work, and what is socially acceptable dress, behaviours, and language. If you are reading something written in a certain culture, you will need both cultural literacy and traditional literacy skills. There is usually significant overlap with literacy-literacy and any other type of literacy.
One of these is a bunny-hug. The other is a bonnet. I don’t think either have anything to do with Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
If I were somehow dropped into the middle of Elizabethan England, the chances that I would accidentally insult or shock someone within 24 hours is essentially 100%. Even if I had period-appropriate clothing with a universal accent interpreter.
No matter how well-read I am on a historical time period, there will be gaps in my cultural literacy large enough that someone might be tempted to drive a sword through them.
This assumes that the historians who wrote the book had good enough references to understand everything…
Frankly, I’d prefer the sword over being burned or hung for witchcraft. Cultural illiteracy can kill.
But that is 400+ years ago. What if I pick something with a much lower sword-per-person ratio?
If I were dropped into the middle of Australia I would… *checks map* …almost certainly die of dehydration before actually meeting a human I can talk to.
Well. That was less survivable than Medieval England. Let’s talk about something else.
Can dehydration cause hallucination? I can’t have survived hiking that far through the outback.
Media Literacy
Media literacy is the ability to understand and interpret what a piece of media is trying to communicate. This can include things like recognizing propaganda based on word choices or understanding the meaning of symbols and foreshadowing in a work.
There is a lot of overlap between literacy-literacy, cultural literacy, and media literacy.
The first time I watched a Bollywood movie, I was surprised by who the final couple ended up being. The friend who showed me the movie didn’t understand how I could have missed the obvious foreshadowing. I missed it because most of the things she mentioned either aren’t used at all in the western media that I normally consume or are used to foreshadow very different things. I am illiterate in Indian media and culture.
I really hope this isn’t a scene from a funeral
Another time that media literacy could interfere with understanding is when I’m reading a book outside the genres I normally read. A moustache might suggest “evil twin” in science fiction. If that is true, should I be concerned that the curiously shirtless Scotsman in the medieval romance book has a moustache?
Fortunately, I have rarely been involved in well choreographed life-or-death musical numbers. Nor have I been whisked away to medieval Scotland to land at the feet of some improbably well-muscled Laird. But recognizing when a politician or person is using propaganda in an attempt to radicalize someone might be life-or-death. Media literacy can help you recognize dangerous paths that loved ones might be travelling down before it is impossible to intervene.
The one with the moustache might be down to…. Hmmm. The one with the moustache might be up to something? That isn’t exactly right, either. He probably has fiendish plans? Cultural and media literacy is hard.
Want to learn more about Media Literacy? Try this YouTube Series about several sub-types of media literacy.
There are more types of literacy that a librarian is concerned about.
Digital Literacy
Digital literacy includes skills relating to finding, interpreting, and creating online or digital things.
Even though I help people learn digital literacy skills regularly, I’m not perfectly digitally literate. I wouldn’t survive long in a video game. There is a range of digital literacy skills, like with any type of literacy.
Library cat says, “if I can’t eat the mouse, I’m not interested.”
Brains? Is that what they feed on?
In modern Canadian and Western societies, knowing what “double click” means, or being able to send an email are critically important digital literacy skills. I’ve decided that being so digitally illiterate I wouldn’t survive in Minecraft is a benign form of illiteracy. There are enough creepers in the real world, I’d rather work to fight those.
Want to learn more about Digital Literacy? Try Alberta’s Digital Literacy Program, or the more in-depth US based DigitalLearn.
Information Literacy
Librarians are also extremely passionate about information literacy. The abilities and skills required to find, evaluate, and use information is basically what our careers revolve around. Teaching information literacy is the entire reason I started this blog.
Look at all the possible blog subjects!!!
Want to learn more about Information Literacy, but don’t want to wait for my next blog posts? Read what the University of Toronto Libraries, or UNESCO have to say. You can also read Emily Metcalf’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Information Literacy.“
More Types of Literacy
Some more types of literacy I don’t have time to go into depth about include:
- Numerical literacy or numeracy: abilities, skills, and knowledge allowing a person to understand and use numbers and math. (More from the UK’s National Numeracy.)
- Financial literacy: abilities, skills, and knowledge required to manage your personal finances. (More from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.)
- Statistical literacy: abilities, skills, and knowledge allowing a person to understand statistics and data, and the way they are communicated. (More from the International Statistical Literacy Project )
- Medical or health literacy: abilities, skills, and knowledge required to make good choices related to people’s health. (A guide to evaluating medical research.)
- Legal literacy: abilities, skills, and knowledge required to understand the legal framework of a society. (From the Canadian or American Bar Associations. )
Final thoughts
There are more types of literacy than I could possibly list. Every person needs to decide what holes in their literacy-related abilities critically need to be filled, what they want to fill, and what can safely be ignored.
This is the most helpful approach you can take to holes in a person’s knowledge on any subject.
If you meet someone who is illiterate in some form, help them, or offer to help them find people who can teach them if it is interfering with their life. The library is a great place to start.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find out if there are more cultural ways Australia could kill me. I suggest you go and read something to make certain no one will unjustly accuse you of having wits as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard.
How dare you, sirrah! I am no illiterate fool!
Your moustache makes you suspicious in my eyes!
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
This post has been updated from its original version due to images and image sources not displaying properly for all images.
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