The Power of Literacy
Is literacy change the discourse and the way of living as a power? If so, how it works?
The answer is "yes" for me, I think, it's the real truth in the growing up process of my
life. It's obvious that everyone in our present society can't live without literacy. I saw
this power throughout all the life I went through to present. If you curious, I will
explain it from my own experience in the following paragraphs.
I still can remember that when I was in primary school, our teacher told me and old
saying which says, "Traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of
books. " As a little student who likes reading books, I thought, does travelling really
has this kind of magic? I just wonder at that time, but maybe this raise my interesting
towards travelling. However I was young, so what I can do is only "reading thousands
of books" but not "travelling thousands of miles". About Chinese literature, what I
firstly read and recite is the poems written by our ancestor centuries ago in Tang
Dynasty. My mother read them out for me before I went to bed every day and then
require me to repeat them. In this way I remember many of them. Some of them
describe the beautiful scenery everywhere in our country, in order to encourage
young-age people go outside to get experience. some of them also encourage us to
study harder so that we can contribute to the society. I still remember majority them
today. One I like most was written by the most famous poet in our country called
Libai, it says, "There must be one time for you to ride the wind and cleave the waves,
you will set your cloud while sail and cross the sea to reach your destination." I feel
enthusiastic every time I read it. As I can see the beautiful view he described in that
poet far away from where I lived. Just then I decided to go to more places and
experience more things, if this world is as fascinating as it described. This poems also
change my discourse as a kind of person that enjoying writing and reading. Because at
that time I found reading can gave me the knowledge of things that I have never seen
and done. I could know some part of the word that I've never been to for the limit that
I can't get over such as time and age. When I read, I know other people's life and feel
as if I talk to an old man which is full of wisdom and experience. Also, I sometimes
want to imitate the author and try to write. I appreciate what my mom did to me
because this made young-age me to be literate and raise my interest to read. It is kind
of power that make me find amazing things in book after that. I'm adopting the
discourse of a reader and writer since then. I believe it's the power of literacy that
made me into this kind of discourse and gradually change the track of me in growing.
Time went on to my high school. In the education system of my country, high school
students are separate into two kinds: science students and art students. Thus, I chose
to be a science student which means I only need to learn physics, chemistry and
biology apart from the main courses. I didn't read much books of literature, history
and culture since then. This decision also change my discourse to be more realistic
than the time I always reading novels before. The changes maybe because I focus
more about our nature world, the mystery phenomenon
happened in our world, the
revolution of the creature and the science knowledge in our daily life. I once read the
book " A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes" written by
Stephen William Hawking. At the end of the book it tells us that the knowledge of
human and the technology has always been develop, the time and the world have
always been changing, all we need to do is to study and get more. The world's future
in on young generation's hand. I have a strong willing to explore this fantastic world
of science at that time. My education in the high school change my discourse again as
a science lover rather than the one who likes art. What's more, it even change my
characteristic.
But when I went to university, my parents ask me to pick the major of economics for
the convenience of my future work. My first economics teacher in my university is
graduate from Stanford University. He told us in one of his class that if we want to
understand the meaning of the translated books we'd better to read the books before
translate. As we know that most of the Economics text books were first written in
English. This may related to the most important reason I study abroad, I want to learn
my major-- economics better because I chose it and I want to make contribute to the
society after I graduate. Because the literacy itself must turn into the real job and
achievement in the society that it can be such a kind of power to influence our and
other people's life. That professor affected me a lot. Also, exploring into the discourse
of economics change my way of thinking and viewing things: I became more accurate
about numbers and care about the price in my daily life. When I saw the changes of
goods' price in the stores I will think about the related reason and the theories I read. I
also gave my families advice to manage the money and investment. I try to get along
with the economics discourse, the education I accepted in this major change my life,
my way of thinking about the money policy, even my criticism when I read a news.
This power is like an invisible hands that change my life and people in this discourse
gradually. I'm happy to see this changes because it makes me more professional in my
future career.
As the essay called "Economics language and assumption" says, "What are the
fundamental ideas of economics that enjoy increasing dominance in social science
discourse? The core idea of economics-- the concepts that are typically engaged in
empirical research-- are relatively straightforward." That is the idea of this discourse,
the theories and the research we do in this subject has it's usage in ordinary daily life
to the learners like me. It affect our whole thinking system. I believe very discourse
influence people's way of thinking and it's literacy as a power that changes people's
discourse.
Through above you can know that I want to talk about the literacy as power, a strong
power that can change our life through the way of changing our point of view, core
ideas, society values and thoughts. We can't tell exactly what's changed but I can
make a metaphor to make you understand better: it's like we go up on a slope, when
we go forward we don't see the progress immediately like climb up a stair, but after a
period of time when we look back, we can see that we are in a higher level, and know
that we do make a progress. We saw in the movie and the novel that a detective can
tell a person's job and experience by their appearance. I think the reason of that is the
literacy of the specific discourse influence people's behavior. People gain ability after
they get literate and just by this they can have jobs, make contribute to their families
and further more, the society. Also, in this way the society can turn round and get
improve by the people who is literate of one kind of discourse. The literacy is power
is more than just education but in every aspect of our daily life. We have a big
education system and the society to get people literate. Thus, why not use this power
to improve our life as a human being?
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4%E7%AE%80%E5%8F%B
2
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