What Does it Mean to Be Literate?
What does it mean to be literate? Most of us would define it as the ability to read and write. But what if literacy means much more? And when we talk about helping people become literate in things like the Bible, what does that mean?
The Grown Up Digital blog reports on the Ontario Public School Board’s recent discussion paper suggesting literacy is about a full range of abilities to listen, understand and communicate in the most common media of a particular culture:
If literacy is the ability of the individual to articulate ideas in the main medium of society, how relevant are our current approaches? Paper and pen still have their place but there are other powerful tools for literacy that are more relevant to the world in which students live and learn.
I can only imagine the ways this kind of thinking is messing with educators’ heads. Is the textbook a think the past? Is it most important that student articulate themselves through writing? What if they can best express what their learning through creation of other media?
And what about the church? If the definition of literacy is changing, does the emphasis we put on the printed Bible need to change as well? Should we be encouraging students to read their Bibles, or engage it in other ways?
