The sponsors are coming! The sponsors are coming!

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Ellen Cushman, et.al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. pp 555-569.

Work, church, home, school shape literacy, but political social and economic structures limit people. All of these factors web together to create a unique tapestry that is an individual’s literacy. Work allows literacy to grow in a specific field, depending on the nature of the job, of course. Church allows people to worship and develop their “souls,” if such truly exist. In the home life, especially with younger siblings or children involved, one may assume the teaching role and simultaneously reinforce their literacy level and teach it. In the school system, at least the public school system, a diversity in knowledge is fostered that provides a launch pad into a specialized field. In this way, it is easy to understand the very liquid nature of literacy. It seems (to me) that literacy is not as standardized as one would perceive it to be. Is it laughable to assume that, given all of these factors, that individuals that differ in some aspect of sponsorship will reach an equal literacy?
New generations of specialists will replace multi-skilled workers as “the history of literacy is in fast forward” (566). I don’t know about anyone else, but this reading gave me a new perspective on the constant evolution of literacy, and also develops questions in my mind of how important literacy as we know it truly is. I am apprehensive to recognize the destructuring of the multi-faceted and multi-literate human literacy level. The gloriously crafted time piece that exemplifies the inner immaculate nature of the human mind is being reduced to mere cogs. Will individualism take on a new meaning? Will being a unique worker/person denote that you know one thing better than anyone else? I certainly hope not. And what new sponsors will arise unprecedented? I hope, for all of our sakes, that literacy does not become unrecognizable to us through such sponsorship.