Wisdom isn't an old guy on the top of a mountain with a loin-cloth and waist-length hair. Wisdom isn't an answer. Wisdom is a question. I went to see a shrink once. And I was so disappointed that the shrink didn't have a big bag of answers. I came to be very grateful for it later, that what they have is a big bag of questions. You have the answers. Wisdom is the constant questioning of where you are.
Billy Connolly
It's International Literacy Day today. This is a re-post of a piece I did a year ago. I hope you'll read it and think about how lucky you are to be able do so.
I teach creative writing courses in a continuing education department of a college. Most would consider these to be “special interest” courses, which people take for enjoyment. And that’s great – one of the reasons I teach these courses is because I enjoy it.
But there is another really big reason I do it. It’s because I believe that lifelong learning is a fundamental right of every human being, and that lifelong learning makes better citizens, communities and countries. I teach courses because I want to help people achieve that feeling of satisfaction and power I get when I expand my own knowledge. When a learner says to me “I’ve changed because of this course” the sense of gratification I feel in having engendered, just a little, someone’s personal growth and the power they feel at having told a story is enormous.
But adult learning is so much more than that which I promote in my own little world. According to UNESCO, one in five adults is not literate. Two-thirds of those adults are women. 75 million children on this planet are not in school. You want to talk about how literacy is about personal empowerment and human development?
Then think about what it means that that 776 million adults lack minimum literacy. It means that 776 million people lack the skills necessary to overcome poverty. 776 million people lack access to information about how to take care of themselves and their children, about how to find help and support, how to achieve gender equality and how to carry out sustainable development so they can support themselves and their communities. Literate parents raise literate children. People who are literate participate more in their communities and they make their voices heard through actions – like voting.
And just as literacy is a tool of personal empowerment and human development – illiteracy is a tool of oppression and domination. We all know the Taliban work hard to oppress and dominate by withholding education. It’s not a new idea – it’s been going on for centuries, and continues around the globe.
Today is International Literacy Day. Stop for a few minutes and think about what literacy means in your world. What your access to education and information affords you and those around you. Think about what it means as you sit at that computer, accessing and contributing to the world of ideas and information on the World Wide Web.
Think about the sheer courage that girl in Afghanistan must drum up just to go to school in the morning because she probably heard stories about angry dudes throwing acid the faces of girls who go to school. Think about your laid-off neighbour who is suddenly faced with navigating the “information society” for a job his high school education didn’t equip him for all those decades ago. Think about your new neighbour who has escaped an oppressive regime but lacks the language skills to read a simple street sign, a carton of milk, a prescription bottle or the newspaper.
And maybe instead of buying coffee at Starbucks this week, give that ten bucks to an organization like this one or this one or one in your community (check your local library), and imagine the possibilities for a world in which 776 million people don’t lack basic literacy skills and have a chance to rise above poverty and oppression. Literacy is power. Share the power.
“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”
~ Frank Herbert
I've had a couple of conversations with people lately about a yearning I'm feeling this summer – that some sort of change is wanting in me. I'm not exactly sure what that is, I need to get with a journal and paints and do some serious reflection about what the hell it is that I want.
I've been here before – and it was summer then too. Maybe it's just a desire to hang on to the summer, or to engender in me the feeling of peace and "slowing down" that comes with it. It's summer, but there's peace missing.
Something's off balance. It's not a particulary bad feeling – if one weren't up for changing or growing or enhancing, life would seem pretty dead-end, wouldn't it? Or maybe that's just the ever restless me. I don't feel balanced unless I'm moving, otherwise some sort of vertigo sets in.
Face forward, that's my strategy. If you're always looking down you might miss the signs.
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
~Albert Einstein