Functional illiterates are among us, they do not sit isolated in colorful villages, forgotten by time and infrastructure. Functional illiterates work in city administrations, in multinational companies or are small private entrepreneurs. They are present and active on facebook, insta TikTok, Youtube or Tinder.
It’s full of functionally illiterate people around us, we’ve all met a bunch, in the family, at school, high school or college, in the country, in neighborhoods, on vacations or on TV. Some have scrubbed our parquet, some have curled our hair, some have controlled our tickets, and some have run our country, being part of the parliament or government.
Half of people are functionally illiterate.
The usual definition of functional illiteracy is the inability to understand the point of a story. I mean, it’s when you read an article in the newspaper and you don’t understand what the author is trying to say. Thus, the difference between an illiterate and a functional illiterate is that the illiterate does not know the letters. The similarity is that neither understands anything of the string of signs in a paragraph like this, even though the functionally illiterate can read it, or pronounce the sounds of the syllables in the text. The actual content of ideas of a text is inaccessible to both categories of illiterates.
Depending on their ability to understand and express logical concepts, people can be classified into several levels of cognitive performance.
Level 1, the lowest, is represented by the illiterate, i.e. those who cannot read. There are enough sources of information for them today (radio and TV, since they still need to know the letters for YouTube), but direct access to information is practically impossible for them. Illiterates are associated with the culturally handicapped.
Level 2, are what we conventionally call functional illiterates. They can read, sometimes they can memorize and reproduce what they have read, but they fail to understand the content of ideas in the text.
Level 3, are still functional illiterates but disguised by a fine nuance. There are those who understand the ideas in the text but are unable to relate them to past experiences or current life. Thus, the content of ideas, although theoretically understood, cannot be used as a resource in a future enterprise.
Level 4, the one where functional illiterates are no longer included, contains individuals who are not able to formulate their own ideas, but manage to thoroughly assimilate the ideas of others (mentors, teachers or politicians).
Level 5, rather a sub-category of level 4, represents those who, although developing ideas of their own, are unable to express them. They can also be called creative functional illiterates.
Level 6, the others, the smart ones, the cream of the world or whatever we like to call them. They are the ones who can read, understand the ideas in a text (or any other form of information content), are able to reproduce them or relate them to real life. In addition, they develop their own ideas and are able to express and argue them.
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It is not clear where the line is drawn at functional illiteracy, or if any line needs to be drawn.
But it is certain that the functional illiterates are the victims of the inefficiency of the national education systems. They are the ones who didn’t understand additions when it came to multiplications.
In adulthood, they become a greater social cost to the community than an educated citizen. However, they are able to function in small communities with few social rules. They can learn a trade, such as driving a car, raise families, and get a loan from the bank.
They are not bad people, just some to whom you have to explain many times to understand. They are therefore difficult to adapt, difficult to cope with progress, are alien to technology and require human assistance in any enterprise.
The easiest way to identify a functional illiterate is to observe the range of words used to express themselves. To read an article, it is necessary to know about 5,000 of the 65,000 words of the Romanian language. Of course, in everyday conversation not all, but just over 1,000 different words are used every day.
Functional illiterates only use about 150-200 words daily.
Simple characterizations such as good/bad serve for them a very wide range of attributes, such as functional/defective, durable/fragile, tasty/scarce, in the case of objects, or authoritarian/indulgent, generous/stingy, honest/quack, in the case people.
Nature is described in a narrow spectrum, limited by the limited vocabulary available: big/small, much/little, beautiful/ugly. The verb fund is equally poor: Go/come, climb/descend, pull/push, drink, eat and pay.
One of the most obvious handicaps of a functional illiterate is the inability to accept this status.
After all, completing a number of classes, usually 12, can make him believe, rightly so, that he is sufficiently well trained to face life.
Most of the functional errors of the various systems around us are caused by the lack of logic of some functionally illiterate people. But even this idea is inaccessible to them. Fundamentalists of their own truths, they rarely understand or accept their handicaps. Not even understanding the concept of functional illiteracy, they have good opinions about their own evolution. They are prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect, of overvaluation.
Functionally illiterate people are either skeptical of everything or outright gullible. They do not manage to climb higher than the second step of Maslow’s pyramid, that is, their energy is entirely consumed by fulfilling natural, basic needs. Psychological needs are rarely manifested, and their expression is, as we have seen, difficult.
A functional illiterate signs hundreds of official documents in a lifetime, without understanding concretely, but only broadly, the content of the texts or the effect of his signature. Socially, the most worrying consequence is the electoral effect of this half of the population. As everywhere in the world, current laws give the right to vote to all adults, even those who have no idea what they are doing. Millions of functionally illiterate people vote without understanding how, for example, a parliament or a political party works, and obviously without understanding the utility or consequences of their vote.
Functional illiterates are the most exposed victims of manipulation.
Every human can be a functional illiterate in certain situations.
That’s why it’s important to communicate on a level that everyone can understand.
You have to listen, understand at your level of understanding, be able to reproduce the communicated idea yourself and be able to make a decision.
