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About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

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Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#71

Post by bogdan-lab »

viraptor wrote: post #57
bogdan-lab wrote: post #48

In the article they talk so much about funding schools which will improve immigrant literacy. But I think, that funding is not the problem. When you migrate to a new country you just naturally get into a bubble of your nationals. Its much easier to make a connection with other people from your country because of your common experience and culture. Then you just live in this bubble. You are in US, but all your free ti…

While it's going to apply to some specific communities: > When you migrate to a new country you just naturally get into a bubble of your nationals. Just keep in mind that's a really bad generalisation. There's different groups migrating for different reasons with/without a family. You don't "naturally" get into any bubble unless you seek one, or have an existing connection to.

When I say "naturally" I imagine the situation, when you stand in a "social desert" and there are two people in front of you. They are the same age, the same profession etc. But the first one is from your native country and the second one is local. In order to communicate with the second person you need to use language you are not native in. There is also some cultural/mentality difference, naively you are not sure which topics you should avoid in discussions. Obviously you will feel a lot of pressure, at least in the beginning, speaking with the second person. When there are no such hurdles between you and your person. You can use your language, you know where the social borders are etc.

In order to make a connection and support it with the second person you need to overcome those hurdles. They may be not big for you. But my point is that they are there. And if human has a choice they naturally chose the easy past.

My point is that if you migrate you rather need to seek (work on) making friends with locals. When, surrounding yourself with people from your country will happen by itself.

Of course I do not know what is the situation for everybody. But this is what I see around me.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#72

Post by unforeseen9991 »

spiffytech wrote: post #66
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean they are incapable of taking notes or that they just won't bother to? It is hard for me to imagine how someone would be incapable of taking notes. It is something you constantly had to do in school.

Probably not what the GP meant, but an interesting data point: CGP Grey is a Youtuber who became well known for deeply-researched videos on subjects of nerdy interest. Many years after going full-time doing this, he encountered Zettelkasten and realized that "taking notes" is supposed to including paraphrasing, write things in your own words, and making connections to other facts you've found. (Cortex podcast #105) H…

Zettelkasten changed everything for me, I didn't hear about it until my early 40's myself. I also had no idea you weren't just supposed to be summarizing verbatim.

It did take a huge amount of effort to go through the conversion process of my notes, but now it makes things much easier and works how my mind works to link concepts and ideas.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#73

Post by Jensson »

illiac786 wrote: post #63
Jensson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can write code then you are literate for sure.

No, you can have very low skills in English and still be able to code, like many coders in Asia. Hence, it definitely can be the same for native English speakers.

I assume those coders are literate in their native language, why do you say that is evidence you can code without being literate if you learned to code in English?

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#74

Post by illiac786 »

Jensson wrote: post #73
illiac786 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can have very low skills in English and still be able to code, like many coders in Asia. Hence, it definitely can be the same for native English speakers.

I assume those coders are literate in their native language, why do you say that is evidence you can code without being literate if you learned to code in English?

I assumed you thought you had to be literate to write code because it’s in English.

I think I disagree twice then. You do not need to be literate (as per the definition of the post), neither in English nor in another language to be able to code, I have seen with my own eyes people who struggle to write a simple email being able to produce code. (Please keep in mind the definition of literacy as per the post)

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#75

Post by RichardCA »

Jensson wrote: post #59
fvdessen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business / Analysts / POs. Programmers as well, although it matters less.

If you can write code then you are literate for sure.

"Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English."

Source: https://github.com/eunuchs/unix-archive/blob/master/PDP-11/T...

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#76

Post by RealityVoid »

fvdessen wrote: post #20

I am bewildered by the low literacy ability of a significant amount of the people I hired. People with advanced degrees; can't take notes, can't really read either. Not idiots, but illiterate. How did they end-up there ? Do we now need to test for literacy in interviews ?

One sample here, but I hate taking notes and I am not good at it. I have very poor handwriting. I do scribble stuff but it's mostly useful for local, short time sketching of problems and when the issue is so complex I can't keep it all in my head.

Anyway, I am also quite literate(I think) so I am confused by the bundling of note-taking with literacy.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#77

Post by viraptor »

bogdan-lab wrote: post #71
viraptor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's going to apply to some specific communities: > When you migrate to a new country you just naturally get into a bubble of your nationals. Just keep in mind that's a really bad generalisation. There's different groups migrating for different reasons with/without a family. You don't "naturally" get into any bubble unless you seek one, or have an existing connection to.

When I say "naturally" I imagine the situation, when you stand in a "social desert" and there are two people in front of you. They are the same age, the same profession etc. But the first one is from your native country and the second one is local. In order to communicate with the second person you need to use language you are not native in. There is also some cultural/mentality difference, naively you are not sure w…

It sure happens, especially for the secondary people (family migrated because one person got a job). But I disagree with this as a generalisation. There's people who move explicitly to get to the new culture, those not connected to their home country, those just curious for something new, etc. I migrated multiple times now and I've seen lots of variety. You'll run into people from X who move specifically to the Xs neighbourhood, and people who resent X-specific meetings. It's really preferences and situations and many are shared/common but not something "natural".

Keep in mind that it's easier to see the number is Xs hanging out together in an Xs neighbourhood than how many random Xs are there individually in the city. (That you may not even realise where they come from)

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#78

Post by saagarjha »

ArnoVW wrote: post #45
saagarjha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what kind of site you're on

You’re not wrong. But have you considered the difference between mainstream social media (video postings of 15-30 seconds) with HN (share a complex or long article, then have a text debate about it, using sophisticated English)

Your opinion of Hacker News is too favorable

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#80

Post by ArnoVW »

saagarjha wrote: post #78
ArnoVW wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not wrong. But have you considered the difference between mainstream social media (video postings of 15-30 seconds) with HN (share a complex or long article, then have a text debate about it, using sophisticated English)

Your opinion of Hacker News is too favorable

I’m just comparing with Facebook, Instagram and the likes. Admittedly that is a low bar, but compared to them you’ll pick up more on HN.

Because we were talking about the linguistic level, not just the informative level. Not much text on FB or IG, except for the captions perhaps.

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