Defining Literacy and Its Decline

On the crisis in literacy.

Poet, podcaster and teacher, C. Derick Varn – who has taught in Mexico, Korea, Egypt and the US, at various levels – joins Alex and George to interrogate the coming "post-literate society".

• What do we mean when we say 'post-literate'?

• This seems a global problem – so is it a problem of the education system?

• Is it as simple as blaming smartphones?

• How else has education become degraded? How have progressives and conservatives combined to do this?

• Are we becoming on oral culture again? What are the consequences?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Are we becoming a post-literate society?, Sarah O'Connor, FT

• Have humans passed peak brain power?, John Burn-Murdoch, FT

• Visible Learning (synthesis of meta analyses), John Hattie

• Why Knowledge Matters, ED Hirsch, Harvard

• Seven Myths about Education, Daisy Christodoulou

• Insensitivity Readers!, Nina Power