Learned

Our state has recorded over 80% literacy. However the ground reality reflects a strange trait. Half the citizens show a lack of ability to follow simple instructions. Cars zoom past signposts that restrict speed. No parking boards become pegs for parking vehicles. Spit accumulates under the panels that have bold instructions of do-not-spit.

This is surely a common civic phenomenon all over India. It is not about the ability to read or the lack of literacy. It is about the attitudinal paradigms which annihilate the ability of the literate. Where the literate may not be learned!

In fact, most civic signs or instructions are visually graphic enough to be understood even by illiterates. But we literates tend to veer to civic behaviour which we ourselves might find uncivil, offensive or even boorish, when committed by others.

We must examine whether our literacy measures up to the standards of learnedness. We must confirm whether our acquisition of the ability to read is followed by the consecutive learning. Knowing to read, actual reading and appropriate response based on such reading can be totally dissimilar in terms of genuine behaviour.

Robert Pike said that ‘learning has not taken place until behaviour has changed’. It is not enough to be literate; we must use the literacy to good effect and display that learning has happened. We must align our actions to what we have really learned!

The learned don’t just read the sign-board

They align actions to the responsive road!

~ Pravin K Sabnis