The concept of shopping for an attorney can seem foreign to many people, particularly those with little contact with the law. To many, the law seems an incomprehensible enigma filled with Latin jargon, a complex judicial system, and high stakes all aro…

Unfortunately the system has become a monolith and no change can affect the direction and the inertia with which it moves. To think, many years ago I finished high school (grade 10 in Denmark) and spoke five languages fluently, which I had learned in grades 7-10.

Ivan Illich coined the term iatrogenic illnesses, illnesses caused by the medical profession. It is amazing that we do not have a term for the concept that creates dozens of millions of illiterates in N A. Here it is: It is quite simply “didaskalogenic illiteracy”, that is to say, illiterates caused by teachers, or at the very least, the education system.

There are bona fide illiterates, those who were never taught and therefore never learned to read. Then there are the dyslecsics, perhaps 3 percent of the school population. The third group are the didaskalogenically illiterate who probably comprise 95 percent of all illiterates. They are created by the North American school system. (Yes, teachers are in that group too.)

What a waste.

Kind regards,

Capt. Leo Næsager, New Minas, Nova Scotia, Canada