ignorance by Choice

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”

Mark Twain

Every once in awhile you run across a quote that hits something that you have been thinking about right on the head. Literacy is a tricky thing to quantify. Depending on what numbers you want to look at USA has a 98% literacy level or an 87% literacy level. The second reflects whether someone can truly grasp what they are reading. Let me attach a number to that for perspective. 39.5 million. That means about 39.5 million people in the US are illiterate. Another number for you to ponder. 8.0 million. That would be 13% of US children under 15 who would be illiterate. Why do I point this out? Two reasons.

1. If we are supposed to be leader of the free world we need to figure this out. I know it is unreasonable for me to think this way but having one illiterate child is unacceptable. And don’t anyone give me some crap about today children not wanting to work at learning. There isn’t a child under the age of 10 who isn’t steeped in 360 degree curiosity in life. Shame on us if we don’t feed that curiosity.
2. People who don’t read (books or online). What a waste. I didn’t even attempt to showcase the the good and bad literacy numbers for a variety of other countries globally. Doesn’t matter. If you don’t read you have wasted an opportunity life has given you. Shame on you.