information
Literacy and numeracy are generally considered to be fundamental skills. They are both general skills applicable in a million ways and places. Much of the early years of our education is devoted (or, was devoted–who knows what they're teaching kids now :) ) to learning to understand and manipulate letter and numbers.
Once we have learned how to handle data, we move on to learning to deal with information. Often, this is taught in a much more specific way than we are taught our letters and numbers. Instead of learning to deal with all kinds of information seperately, in english, biology, math and music class, might it not be better if we learned the basics of information handling in a general way and then applied it to each situation?
Just for the record, this idea is half-baked. For starters, I don't even know what I mean by "the basics of information handling". Essentially, I've got a suspicion that things would be clearer if we were explict about the methods we use to write and interpret whatever information we are dealing with.
