Thank you to Erik Jacobson for pointing out what could be considered a
classist (at least) bias in this report. I was also a little surprised that
literacy was equated with literary reading, since that barely figures in to
the kind of literacy I teach, because it's not really the kind of literacy
my students need every day. The literature we do teach tends to be
children's books, partly because we are teaching parents of young children,
and partly because good children's books are excellent in terms of
developing language skills.

The report makes the assumption that if people aren't reading literature
then they aren't thinking and they aren't involved in the culture. I agree
that we need to question which culture we are talking about here. Part of
what we do in our program is to help Hispanic immigrants to find their way
in to the society, which involves all sorts of negotiation. We need to
realize that they have a lot to offer us in terms of cultural richness, and
accept that along with offering what we have, and not get too narrow-minded
about what constitutes valid culture.

That said, I do believe the report is chronicling a very large shift in how
we teach and learn, and in culture in general. The shift to electronic
communication is at least as revolutionary as the introduction of printing,
changing our ways of thinking and how we do things, to an extent that we're
still discovering.

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Sylvan Rainwater  mailto:sylvan at cccchs.org
Program Manager Family Literacy
Clackamas Co. Children's Commission /  Head Start
Oregon City, OR  USA