The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.
Interpretation
The future will be defined not just by literacy, but by the ability to learn and adapt.
Alvin Toffler's quote emphasizes that true literacy in the modern world will go beyond the ability to read and write. Instead, it will hinge on an individual's capacity to learn and evolve in a rapidly changing environment, highlighting the importance of lifelong learning over mere traditional education.
In practice
In a seminar about lifelong education, one might quote Toffler to emphasize the importance of learning skills.
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets_x000D_ _x000D_ loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today_x000D_ _x000D_ the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the_x000D_ _x000D_ techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness.
Future shock is the disorientation that affects an individual, a corporation, or a country when he or it is overwhelmed by change and the prospect of change ... we are in collision with tomorrow.
The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.
To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester went broke.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
I don't know anybody who said, 'I love that teacher, he or she gave a really good homework set,' or 'Boy, that was the best class I ever took because those exams were awesome.' That's not what people want to talk about. It's not what influences people in one profession or another.
no subject of study is more important than reading…all other intellectual powers depend on it.
Denying a child even at birth an opportunity for the full expression of its innate genetic potential for physical and mental development is the cruellest form of inequity.
I like to build places online where readers can have productive conversations about books.
If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.
I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion I have learned from Mohamed, the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha.
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