The true axis of evil: illiteracy, poverty and mental illness

David Rothman writes “Literacy programs in isolation just won’t cut it in many cases. What if some people are too depressed to attend? And what if they’re just distracted by the general hassles of being poor? Could literacy programs be missing the people needing them the most? This is old wisdom to clueful poverty warriors, but I’m glad to see it getting some airing in a British educational consortium‘s report summed up in the Guardian. While e-books (my own little cause) can help fight illiteracy, they are hardly a panacea–nor, even, are literacy programs themselves. Needless to say, cause-effects can go in all kinds of directions. (Found via Bookslut.)”