The population of India is well over 1.2 billion people. Second only to China in size.
Roughly a quarter of that population can’t read or write. Or, depending on who, how and when you count, there are something like 300 million illiterate people in India.
This is a problem that is worth fixing.
But how? Teaching 300 million people to read involves an awful lot of schools and teachers and books and lessons and time and money. This is not a small task.
Until you challenge your assumptions.
- The ability to read isn’t a simple two-way split: literate / illiterate
- It is split three ways: literate / neo literate / illiterate
Somebody who is neo literate understand letters and the sounds they represent, they simply can’t string the letters together into words and sentences.
This bit of extra knowledge spurned a very cheap solution…
Same language subtitles, or putting the lyrics to your favourite Bollywood song along the bottom of the screen.
India is not the wealthiest country in the world, but the economy supports plenty of T.V.’s and — as anyone with a daughter who has seen Frozen will tell you — the desire to read and learn the lyrics to your favourite soundtrack is very strong.
Subtitling films may not be as effective a way to teach literacy as 11 years of schooling, but it is an amazingly good step, and a whole lot cheaper.
Assumptions kill creativity
Coming up with innovative solutions is a much easier if you challenge your assumptions and really understand the problem. There is a small but significant difference between illiteracy and neo literacy.
Defining the problem, and not jumping to the first conclusion, is everything, if you want a truly creative solution.
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions ~ Albert Einstein
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Listen to another opinion
Image by Paul Bence
When we challenge conventional thinking – especially when that thinking is based on limited knowledge or lack of bigger picture thinking or lack of really understanding the problem or the job to be done – that’s a powerful thing. I like the connection to innovation and thinking outside the box.
Besides, you know what happens when you assume, right?
Annette :-)
I do Annette, do you have a picture that goes with it? That I would like to see.
James,
I’m going to play devil’s advocate to this a little. When you say ‘This is a problem that is worth fixing’. Worth fixing to who? The people who aren’t able to read and write very well or to someone else?
Adrian
Maybe both?
Dear Sirs,
Thanks for the insight and statistics. Indeed Alarming and is of concern.
Rotary International after the elimination of POLIO from INDIA is now focused on TOTAL LITERACY by 2017 – TEACH PROJECT
Pl see WEB STIE – http://rotaryteach.org
Best Regards
Rtn.Sampathkumar Iyengar
Thanks very much for the link.
Hello James,
I thank you for sharing that illustration – you have helped me to learn something. Fascinating: that which opens up when we view the same phenomenon/challenge with ‘fresh eyes’ or a ‘beginner’s mind’.
Now the thing about assumptions is that it is not so much that we make assumptions so much as assumptions make us. More accurately, assumptions lie at the ontological level – to be human is to be pervaded through and through by assumptions. And in particular assumptions that never show up and thus are not experienced as assumptions. Which is why it is the ‘outsider’ that is most likely to see the assumptions that lie behind the cultural practices and ideology.
What am I leading to? If you are really up for challenges your assumptions and opening up the path to creativity then it is useful, and perhaps even necessary, to invite others (preferable those not shaped by your background-cultural practices-ideology) to the table. And work on the challenge at hand together – welcoming differences, heated discussions, challenges to one’s taken for granted ‘what is so’.
Left to our own, we are hindered in seeing our assumptions because these assumptions are us. If you doubt that which I say then ponder what it is that you can actually count on as being true. And you arrive at the position that Descartes found himself in. How did he rescue himself? By invoking God – another assumption!
All the best
maz
Maz,
You are absolutely right. So why is it that people who work in the insurance industry only ever attend conferences about the insurance industry, or people who make soap powder for a living only ever mingle with other FMCG personnel?
We believe that what the others have to say is not relevant and that is a big mistake.
James