Is the ability to understand to public documents a privilege or a right?

As Sandra Fisher-Martins eloquently argues in the below TED talk, being able to understand public financial, legal and medical documents is not only everyone’s right but a daily necessity.

The problem is that the vast majority of public documents are written in language that is too complex to understand. Just pick up a standard leasing agreement, mortgage loan document or medical waiver to get a sampling of the complex language that is typically used and you will see what she means…

The standard language that is used is complex language understood only by those employed within that specific field of knowledge but foreign to nearly everyone else.

Further compounding things is that there is a huge gap between the average literacy rate and the language level of public documents.

Personal Vignette

Before even having the chance to listen to Sandra speak about the right to understand, the concept immediately spoke to me and reminded me of an experience I had during my first year’s placement at a women’s health clinic.

I met for first time a person who could not read or write in either English or her native tongue. The woman did not tell me that she could not read or write; I suddenly sensed this may be the case by the way she was responding to some of the things I was saying and/or showing to her on paper and my computer screen.

Not knowing what else to do (but needing to know to ensure her understanding of the information I was providing her), I gently asked her whether she can read and she acknowledged her illiteracy.

Without going into specifics to protect her confidentiality, I needed to give her some information which I would have normally provided in writing. However, now I needed to be able to rely on being able to provide this information only verbally and ensure that she understood it well enough before she left so that she would remember it after she had left.

Thankfully, she managed to absorb all the information I provided. Afterwards, I remember feeling shocked and upset to encounter this degree of illiteracy in today’s time in our country. I could not understand how she had not been provided with some assistance in this regard.

My inclination was to want to find out about some sort of class to help her…but my supervisor restrained me because this was my need and not a need expressed by my client. I couldn’t even imagine how this woman managed to get along in life being totally illiterate although she clearly did…

At the same time, I had immense respect for my client’s strength and resilience because she had obviously found and developed various coping mechanisms to survive in our modern times despite this handicap. Thinking about it now, among her strengths, she probably had developed above average memory and listening skills in order to compensate for being illiterate.

That said, there is no doubt in my mind that her life and the opportunities she has available to her are severely limited as a result of being illiterate. It wasn’t until my encounter with her that I realized how fortunate I was to be educated…

Going back to Sandra’s TED talk, there is a huge gap between the average literacy rate and the level at which public documents are written. The personal vignette demonstrates an extreme case scenario in which a person is totally illiterate; this particular woman relies upon her husband who reads some (simple) English for comprehension of any documents.

What can we do ?

We can become more demanding as consumers and as citizens. This means that the next time (and every time) we receive a document that we don’t understand, we don’t just let it go and pretend that we understand. Instead we ask the banker, government official etc. to explain that part in the document, contract etc. that is unclear until we understand.

Those of us who are lawyers, public servants and writers of public documents – we can start communicating in a simple and clear way; we must write to be understood so that every reader understands what we write the first time they read the documents we create.

As Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

How Do You Write Clearer?

As Sandra recommends, think of writing to your grandmother; that is, with respect and without patronizing her and then:

1. Start with what’s important
2. Use short sentences
3. Use simple words

By becoming more demanding as citizens and asking for documents to be written in a clearer manner, we will be helping not only ourselves, (those of us who are fortunate enough to be educated and literate) but also those who can only understand simple documents in English; i.e. everyone!

What are your thoughts about the “right to understand?” Do you agree that the ability to understand is a right or do you think it should be a privilege?