The theme in “The human cost of an illiterate society”
Illiteracy has been manifested very clearly as the main theme in the book the human cost of an illiterate society. Illiteracy has been among the things that drag the society behind. Mostly, quite a good percentage of the population is illiterate therefore generally dragging the development of a community behind. Illiteracy also lowers self -esteem of the culprits as they can’t even read the simplest texts or orders. In ancient times, illiteracy was not a big deal but with the current times, everything involves reading and writing hence a great challenge to the illiterates.
According to James Madison, “a people who mean to be their governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives”. This means that illiterate people will have to be governed forever, they cannot be their governors. He further says that a government without popular information and a way of acquiring it is a tragedy. This is manifested in United States illiterate seldom vote. During the voting process, the illiterates cannot make right decisions when involved with printed papers hence depend on being helped. Allegedly, it’s due to high illiteracy number of people in United States population that led to Ronald Reagan winning the presidential seat in the 1980’s presidential contest. From that text, it’s evident that illiteracy can fail a whole country.
Illiterate people face misery every day when performing their daily activities. I quote ” Illiterates cannot read a menu on a restaurant. They cannot read the cost of the items on the window in the restaurant before they enter”.Kozol wants to express himself and show how It’s heartbreaking as food is a basic need as a human being can need it any time of the day. The illiterates have to get some help in even getting to know what restaurants offer when It’s written down in a menu and this might put them off. They will prefer to stay hungry instead of humiliating themselves in food eateries.
Also, he continues to say that, “Illiterates cannot read the letters that their children bring home from school. They cannot study school department circulars that tell them of the courses their children are taking”. Kozol point is that illiteracy deprives its victims even the right to give their children the best. These parents cannot write letters to their children’s teachers in case they want any clarification. They cannot go to school because of the fear that they might embarrass their children in front of their teachers and fellow students. It is even worse that these parents cannot help their children do their assignments. On the other hand, the children lose too as they cannot have the bonding time as they help they do homework together with their parents.
“I couldn’t understand the bills”, a woman in Washington D.C says. How unfortunate is that? How do they know if they are paying the correct amount of money? She continues to say that, she couldn’t write checks to pay them as they didn’t know what they were. Kozol main intention here is to explain how disadvantaged illiterates are in society. What if those offering to help are dishonest people and they just want to steal from them? They are not even interested in checking their balances as they can’t even read the numbers to know the balance they have.
Another saddening bit as Kozol states is, illiterates cannot read instructions on a bottle of prescription medicine. They cannot find out when the medicine is past the year of safe consumption nor can they read of allergenic risks, warnings to the diabetics and the potential sedative effects of certain kinds of non-prescription pills”. In short, they can administer poisons in the body thinking that they are treating themselves or their close ones. Not unless it’s the medicine they know from the look and smell, yet most of them resemble yet they treat different diseases. Kozol wants to show how helpless illiterate people are when it comes to even the issues that concern their health. They cannot read how they are supposed to take the medicines, they cannot even take their medicines without help or else they will overdose or underdose.
In conclusion, illiteracy has been a major challenge that many people have been facing. Unfortunately, it does not only affect the illiterate, but also those around them too. Illiteracy as a theme has been manifested in very many incidences, for instance, not even understanding what written on health insurance covers. As a result, illiteracy can cause risks like Stephen who knifed a man for calling him “an illiterate sub-human according to Kozol and hence it would be important to eradicate all illiteracy from the society. Its never too late to learn how to read and write.