Deer In Headlines II
By Gery Deer
I was a staff writer and later an editor for my college newspaper. During that time, I learned the single, most important lesson from all my years of education. Our administration-appointed supervisor once told me, “Whatever else you learn as you go through your college career,” she said, “learn to write and speak well. If you have that, you’ll be able to do anything.” She was right.
My mother also shared those views, though she had a head start by teaching me to read early. On the other hand, I would depend on my communication skills to pave my way to a multi-faceted career. She was determined to give me every possible advantage, mostly because she didn’t get them.
Literacy is one of the most critical indicators of a strong society. It reduces poverty, bigotry, ignorance, and social and professional inequality. It shouldn’t be limited to the academically gifted. Everyone should have the opportunity to learn effective communication.
Just because you don’t have an interest or aptitude for high academia, that doesn’t mean literacy is less important. I feel fortunate that I had the best of both worlds. I’ve always been an avid reader and writer and a lifelong student of all the sciences. But I also learned to rebuild a car engine, install a new water heater in my house, or change a faulty electrical outlet.
Every one of those tasks requires the ability to learn, understand, follow instructions, and cope with the unexpected. All of my “book learning” occurred while surrounded by some of the best tradespeople in the world. Even better, they were all teachers. One thing that has changed over the years is how literacy is emphasized in our public and private schools.
Do you remember when kids used to get in trouble for reading comic books at school? I will say “we” instead of “they” because I did this too. We put comic books inside large textbooks so we could read during class. From the teacher’s perspective, we seemed engrossed in our educational process. Instead, we were engaged in the exploits of Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man.
Some argued that even reading comic books was good for us because at least we were reading. But it was more than that. Comic books are a good literacy metaphor because they aren’t just about words, grammar, and sentence structure.
For our society to consider itself truly literate, we must understand language, not just the written word but communication. We also need to understand art, storytelling, and critical thinking. In an ironic twist, one way to do all that is by reading comic books. Many of the Batman stories from the 1930s and 40s are loaded with material you only find in today’s best crime novels by authors like Michael Connolly, James Patterson, and David Baldacci.
Unfortunately, some use the comic book analogy to justify spending hours on social media. That’s not the same thing. Reading is calming, focuses our minds, and relaxes our bodies. If anything, social media has dumbed us down and created an entire society nearly paralyzed by anxiety and inferiority. Scrolling doesn’t count as reading.
Still, literacy doesn’t require you to wade through “War and Peace,” “Catcher in the Rye,” or any other long-winded literary work. I supplemented my education by reading everything I could get my hands on. Whatever I had an interest in, I had books about it, encyclopedias, or topic-specific material – there was no internet back then. Now, resources are nearly endless, provided you learn the difference between credible and non-credible sources.
Advanced education isn’t required either. Truth be told, much of what I do for a living was self-taught – thanks to my early introduction to books. Self-education is mainly frowned upon in today’s society. I find it ironic that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others who wrote some of the most important documents in history would be unemployable by today’s arbitrary and unfounded standards.
My point is that American culture currently reads at a U.S. 5th-grade level. That’s unfortunate, ridiculous, and easily corrected. We must eliminate the stigmas of functional illiteracy, focus more on reading and writing in our schools, and spend more time with books than cell phones.
The Jamestown Comet 