Comments on: Coming US Challenge: A Less-Literate Workforce

By: Diana Aventina

Diana Aventina — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:15:54 +0000

Hi Michael, I tried to leave a comment 2 days ago and then again yesterday and got an error message (page not found) so maybe that’s why there haven’t been many responses.
Anyway, my take on this is that in the future people will be getting more and more illiterate, but not due to immigration. Every teenage kid I know spends their time playing computer games. None of them read at all. They neglect homework etc. because it interrupts their playing. I used to work for IBM and all of the young guys just out of college were always playing games too– no one read but me. If this keeps going, the future will have many adults who have a minimal reading level but will have great hand to eye coodination

By: Michael van der Galien

Michael van der Galien — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:18:03 +0000

What surprises me is that… only a few people seem to find this subject interesting enough to leave a comment.

By: dj

dj — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:39:26 +0000

Heck, never mind the children of immigrants being able to speak English correctly… I’m sick of hearing everyone in their teens and even 20s start sentences by saying, “Me and my brother went…”

It’s become something of a badge of honor among even the smartest of kids to use the crappiest grammar and spelling possible. Good luck with those job hunts, kids.

By: lurxst

lurxst — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:29:40 +0000

Looks like Mike Judge’s Idiocracy isn’t that far from reality.

By: golden

golden — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:25:54 +0000

What’s extraordinary about this?

I’m assuming that by 2030 we are talking about the children of the people who have immigrated here entering the workforce many of whom will have been born and educated in this country so this is just a matter of schools doing the job they are supposed to be doing.

Just like the schools did for many people of the supposedly so literate baby boom generation who were the children and grandchildren of immigrants.

Could we stop looking at the prescence of immigrants and particularly the growing Latino population like they are some dirty bomb about to go off?

Oh and btw, when you saw literate boomers are you talking literate like George Dubya or what?

What’s the standard in terms of the language skills that are needed for the future. I work with software engineers who have a hell of a time expressing themselves.

I’m not saying that’s a good thing but let’s not so closely equate the language skills required for say academia or the arts to what you would find in the IT field.