What people who are literate aren't reading.

The Humble Pages pt. 1

The humble pages Pt 1.

What people who are literate aren’t reading.

It is effortless and comfortable to think everyone had the same opportunities as you. They should be at least as successful as you are, or they did something wrong. We ignore the possibility that they didn’t have the same opportunities we had or they may have endured something that we never had to endure; giving us a way ahead. Not only are extraneous circumstances ignored, but we don’t even ask if they exist. Similarly, we assume if we were able to deal with something easily then shouldn’t other people be able to? If we learned something a long time ago there’s really no excuse for someone to not know what we know right? These ideas and questions seem logical, but they are some of the most prevalent yet dangerous thoughts for communities and societies.

Quick Story:

I was in a courtroom one time for a class. We were observing something called ‘short court,’ where a judge takes a look at the progress of someone in drug treatment and determines if they should be jailed shortly for failure to complete the terms of their release (usually missing drug treatment meetings) or if they’ve done everything well and should receive some positive reinforcement for getting closer to having the charge removed.

A young man (probably 21–22yo) steps up to the stand and the judge takes a look at the paperwork of his progress. He says “I got a letter from your case manager and I’d like you to read it out loud.” He hands the young individual the paper. He stairs at it for a moment his mouth moves a little like he’s reading. The judge reiterates “read it out loud.” The young man politely declines “I don’t want to read it.”

At this moment, I and many other people in the room caught on. This young man can’t read. If you looked around you’d see faces all over the courtroom with expressions that portrayed how painfully awkward this moment was. One of the only people who had not picked up on the young man’s illiteracy was the judge who was engaged in a back and forth exchange with the individual attempting to convince him to read the letter out loud. Then the court reporter leaves her typewriter walks up to the judge and whispers something (we all know what it was) in the judge’s ear. He replies “oh” his face floods with the realization and he terminates the verbal tennis match he was having with the young man.

Of course part of me wants to ask the question how did you get to 21yo and never learn how to read? How did you possibly get by? These questions inevitably make me look down on someone. I mean, I learned to read when I was near 1st grade. He couldn’t pick it up somewhere between 1st and 12th, and 21yo? There it is. I’ve neglected his life and essentially made him me. That is to say, I made this assumption that he had everything at his disposal that I had, but I don’t know the young man.

Here are some reasons I can read that may not be true for everyone, or this young man. 1. I had parents who read to me and prioritized reading, and school for that matter, in our house. 2. I had teachers who cared that I learned to read and comprehend. 3. I liked reading and I was good at it. If you’re not good at reading, it takes a great deal more effort to complete than people who are good at it. If I were to put it in a context I can identify with it would compare similarly to how I view math. I’m not good at math, it takes longer and more effort for me to complete math stuff . . . equations (??) than others. I have friends who are engineers, if a math problem comes up in life even if I bring it up, they know I’m not really thinking about the answer and I’m expecting them to solve it and just tell me. When it comes to addressing math problems their brains think in a way that makes it seemingly effortless for them, mine does not. Regardless of how simple I think reading is, It may not be that simple for others, and they may not have had the support I did. So when I want to judge I need to first think compassion and then think positive impression.

Thinking compassionately wasn’t a big issue for anyone in that courtroom, it felt like everyone who wasn’t oblivious to what was going on wanted to save that young man, but in a courtroom you have to hold your tongue. Thank God for the court reporter. It had already gone on a painfully long time and didn’t really feel like it would have ended until she intervened.

Here’s where I was impressed. I did not know this man couldn’t read until the discussion began. When he grabbed the paper I thought he was reading. He wasn’t, but he’d learned over time how to get by. He’d adapted to others expectations that he should be able to read. This means he’d obviously learned how to fake reading well, but more than that he’d learned how to draw context from everything going on in order to participate without ever having to fully comprehend complex messages from text. That takes a certain kind of intelligence; An intelligence that people who read well are possibly handicapped to. I don’t know if he graduated high school, but what if he did? He got by every English class by listening to discussion drawing inferences based on what other people were talking about and even having to create his own as to avoid plagiarism, and he completed this all without the ability to read well. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit maybe he simply plagiarized. Maybe, but even the ability to cheat and not get caught for 12 years of school takes a certain intelligence. Maybe he just skated by on special education exceptions, this is possible but I wouldn’t characterize it as skating by. When you read well you skate by. If a person struggles to comprehend words and has to slowly process every word in a sentence to gain insight into context that can’t nearly be characterized as “skating by.”

When we eradicate our first inclination to judge and replace it with compassion it opens us up to community. When we think someone just didn’t work hard and that’s why they are how they are, we separate ourselves. I’m not like him; I want nothing to do with him. When we acknowledge that there may be more going on we might think instead, he likely has worked harder than me his entire life, I can find space to help him. I can take a risk for this guy. The court reporter took the risk that day.