We repeat and I have observed it for years when I was teaching at CEGEP: far too many students – and citizens in general – have difficulty writing, reading and understanding a text that goes beyond an instruction manual for assembling an IKEA piece of furniture. They are said to be functionally illiterate.
When teachers make this observation, they are accused of being dogmatic and against any reform, as if this serious literacy problem could be solved by removing the circumflex stress on certain words, by allowing students to write “onon”. instead of onion or by simplifying the past participle agreement!
No, the problem is much more serious. The fact, for example, of confusing “its”, “these” and “it”; “We” and “have” or “a” and “à” in a text, far from being a simple careless mistake, represent as many obstacles which hinder the comprehension of a text.
Not having a vocabulary, not knowing the basic rules of grammar, not knowing how to construct coherent sentences prevents thought not from being expressed, but more fundamentally from taking shape in the mind of the person.
Thus, contrary to what many believe, language is not a simple tool to communicate a thought that would pre-exist in all its purity somewhere in the limbo of the mind, but rather the raw material in which this thought can be. sculpted to exist.
Culture gives wings
What is said here about language must be extended to the whole of the symbolic universe which we call culture. Learning to read words and then simple sentences is essential to survive in society in 2021. But to live and flourish fully, human beings must also rely on a general culture which will allow them to dissect, deepen and develop. understand all these texts which speak to him of something other than his daily routine.
In short, it is thanks to this spatio-temporal grid that we call culture, that is to say to all the knowledge and benchmarks assimilated during his journey, that the human being manages to read between the lines, to be grasped beyond the text he has before him the context to which the author implicitly refers.
In the introduction to his Critique of pure reason, the philosopher Immanuel Kant alludes to a dove which, feeling the resistance of the air on its wings, imagines that it could fly much faster in a vacuum, unaware of the fact that it is precisely thanks to this substance invisible but essential that is the air that it manages to move so gracefully in the sky.
Some educational reformers, pedagogical advisers or techno-pedagogues behave a bit like this dove when they perceive general culture and knowledge as bulky and dusty baggage that is preferable to store somewhere in a digital cloud in order to be able to use it. have access only when it is “useful”. They do not understand that, far from being a dead matter which clutters the brain, general culture is a living substance which, when well digested, allows the human being to grasp the essence of a text and, above all, to build his identity, to weave meaning and to understand the complex world in which he is immersed; all themes that I discuss at greater length in my essay The amnesic school.
Yes, culture gives wings and here plays the same role as air for Kant’s dove: it is this which allows human beings to access the second degree of a text, to grasp the irony. or the subtlety of an analogy, for example; it is this which allows us to gain height and take off in order to have a better overview of reality; it is this which gives us the means to develop a broad personal thought and, possibly, a much more insightful and critical look at the place of the conflicts which tear or tear our societies.
For a real national chore
Tackling functional illiteracy which affects nearly 50% of the population of Quebec and which plagues our social fabric represents a titanic task that the government should take head on in order to make it a real national chore. Unfortunately, all of the successive governments in recent years have instead chosen to tackle the symptoms of this scourge with small piecemeal measures, to work in silos as is the case at the moment. to the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, while persisting in thinking from the constructivist ideology that is at the heart of the latest reforms in our education system, where words like knowledge, knowledge and culture have almost been banned from official documents to be replaced by the concepts of competence, learning, information, know-how or interpersonal skills.
Watching things go, it makes you wonder if the dream of those who are in charge is not, contrary to the official speech of the Legault government, to train a docile and cheap workforce just able to occupy the beautiful jobs that the Amazon of this world will offer them.
What do you think? Express your opinion