Literacy and the "Individual"

My Question: How do the benefits of literacy for the individual affect other "good" reasons for literacy? Or do they?

While reading chapter one in the Literacy Primer, I was deeply impacted by a quotation from a thirty-year-old Afghan woman and student in an adult literacy class. She stated, “Without knowledge I am blind.” (Gall, 2002, 1 as cited in Blake & Blake, 2005, p.3). Since we are born and introduced into this world, it is expected that we are to grow up and become educated, literate, and self-sufficient individuals. However, this is not always the case.

In our society, we often associate personal well-being and satisfaction with success and wealth. As Blake and Blake suggest, “…in order to become prosperous, the people of that country must become literate and skilled” (Blake & Blake, 2005, p. 8). Although achieving a level of economic and social stability is imperative, it is not until you develop self-confidence, assurance and motivation that the fear of failure and disappointment subsides.

On the first day, when I could actually read a book to my little brother I felt the same sense of freedom mentioned by another woman in the text. I feel that it is the passion to learn within the individual that will encourage them to become confident enough to be viewed as an equal member in society. Without feeling “good” and "happy" with yourself the other benefits and reasons for literacy will not make much sense! Once YOU begin to see literacy, the rest of the world becomes much clearer.

Paul Friere, on acquiring literacy… “It is an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in one’s self.”