Paying attention more to the Resnick article, I found a few things rather perplexing about how literacy used to be, especially in France during Revolutionary War times. I found the idea that literacy was often judged as whether not you could recite a few certain pieces of reading a little bit strange (especially in the late 1600s in France). They did not ask for any writing or either comprehension. Then, later in the work it claims that in the 1920s, “the ability to understand an unfamiliar text, rather than simply declaim one, became the accepted goal and new standard of literacy” (Resnick 382).
So, my question is why do you think it took over 300 years for this idea to become the expected value of literacy? Do you think there was an advantage by just memorizing familiar texts in the late 1600s? Or was it just that teachers and parents back then were unable to truly help children understand what they were actually reading?
I feel as if at the time of the war, the war was most of the focus and higher education was not. The low literacy ability could be a way of completing a national goal of literacy surveying in a way that makes literacy rates seem high so that people don’t dwell on it and focus on the war. In addition, they may not have had funding to run a more intensive study. I don’t think parents and teachers were unable to teach reading and writing beyond memorization, I think that this skill may not have been relevant at this time of war and fighting. Keeping the country peaceful was more important than literacy.
In the 1920’s, however, long after the war, prosperity was most likely more important which makes literacy development more important within a national scope. Literacy became more important as time went on and people realized that improvement in literacy was important to the continuation of a thriving nation.
Going off of this, I think additional factors like resources and technology played a huge role in the slow spread. When most of the popular is at a near poverty level (such as in pre-Revolution France), there isn’t much opportunity to read and learn. The main focus, for them, would be on apprenticeships and learning some sort of marketable trait. While strong literacy skills could be marketable, these levels weren’t attainable to most due to my second point, technology.
The weaker forms of technology halted the spread of technology by limiting its ability to travel. 300 years ago, books were more expensive and less common than now, meaning fewer people would have access to them. Thus, there would be less interaction with reading, and less learning and reasons to learn.
As communications improved and more jobs became ‘brain’ based rather than ‘body’ based (the rise of technical, secretarial, educational, etc. over hard labor jobs), education became more valuable, and to a wider range of people. Thus, the spread of literacy. Additionally, some of this time can be attributed to generational differences like we discussed in class, where children learn to read better than their own parents.
To the second point about being able to teach, I definitely think the two go hand in hand. When there’s more need for education, there will be more educators, and more efficient methods. Additionally, when children start to learn more than their parents have, the parents lose some of their ability to help. However, this seems to be the case even with our generation, especially when it comes to mathematics and science.