Zahra Arraya
Professor George Lambert
English 201: Writing in the Disciplines
17 April 2016
Dysfunctional Definition of Literacy The ex-Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan once said in one of his speeches during his term that, “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope” (Unesco). Thus, being illiterate is not the way to get out of that dark hole especially when you have the access to learn it. However, one might think of being literate as a way to simply get jobs or to survive, and I would not disagree with that, but I think that literacy cannot just be defined as the one only might think of it as. Furthermore, the connection between literacy and the form of literacy itself, which people use as a necessity, was also mentioned in Literacy and the Politics of Education by C.H Knoblauch as a functional literacy, and he basically explains that this kind of literacy used when people process the information, such as “reading sets of instructions” (Knoblauch 76). Even though Knoblauch agrees that this type of literacy is the most familiar one, I believe that there are still ups and downs of defining literacy in a functional way. Ultimately, defining literacy as a functional literacy does not really enclose the process of being literate completely, and there is also a limitation with seeing literacy this way because it simply ignores other purposes of being literate such as helping people who are in need.

There are numerous of people that I personally know who were not going to college or any educational institutions whatsoever, but now, some of them are comfortably sitting in a leading position. Some work in a private bank in Indonesia, and some even have their own coffee shop. One thing that I notice from those people is that they are learning those skills in the field by watching people actually do it, such as making coffee. Moreover,