My fondest memory involving “literacy” (or at least as we have attempted to loosely define it in our class discussions) was actually not so much from my childhood but was around a year ago. I was studying abroad in London and strange enough, what affected me most culturally speaking when I was living there was not so much the accents or the architecture or the people (though I loved all of these things), but instead, it was books. Almost everyone over there reads at least somewhat casually, and they do this all..the..time.
As such, I found a new appreciation for reading as an intrinsically worthwhile activity; I started reading a lot of relatively dense literature (most of it philosophy) that I would normally only read in a classroom setting. I wanted to see if I could read it without having someone more knowledgable than me pointing to which parts “mattered”, per se.
I picked up a book called “Meditations” by Marcus Aurellius and without carrying on for too much longer in this post, it truly changed my life. It was the first time in recent memory where I had read something not just attention grabbing or well-written, but almost absurdly practical for my everyday life. I always considered my self “good” at reading (whatever that means) but for the first time in a long time, I was doing it for me.
Though somewhat late in to the game in my life, that moment has sharply and powerfully molded my perspective on what literacy “is for”… Yes, some things are worth reading because they are well-written. Others simply because its important to know them as “citizens” or “humans”. And yes, some things are just plain fun to read. However, in my view, it is the passages, books, etc. that directly mold you and improve you as a person that make literacy truly worth it.
I find it very interesting that when you went and studied abroad in London, you noticed that almost everyone reads. Similarly, I went to Germany over the summer and found almost the same thing. People in large towns and cities would just be sitting on benches and sidewalks reading and taking in some sun. Something that I feel like you wouldn’t see very much over here. I also found it interesting that in the last paragraph, you denoted literacy almost entirely to books. I just find it interesting because the past few days in class we have been talking about how literacy can be essentially anything it wants to be.