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.
Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited.
Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.
Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime ministers have never yet been invested.
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share of impart, but I didn't know how to ask.
We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.
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