I was reading MetaFilter yesterday (as I do everyday) and I stumbled across an article from the Washington Post about how US students are no longer receiving much handwriting instruction in the primary grades because many educators say, “penmanship instruction seems a relic”. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive (that’s joined up writing for you Brits).
This article made me kinda sad. I don’t mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but where is this world heading?! Sure, I agree that learning to type correctly is also a valuable tool in today’s modern era but, as this article argues, studying penmanship plays other roles in one’s mental development.
But what really made me upset was reading the comments left by the MeFi community. The overwhelming majority of the people who left comments were in favor of the extinction of cursive writing! I got the feeling that most of them were annoying little US teenagers who had some sort of a vendetta against their third grade teacher. They use arguments like, “No one can read my chicken scratch anyway. Good riddance!” I bet if Shakespeare or calculus were removed from the curriculum these same kids would be dancing in the street because they never excelled in those subjects either. Same kids who can only tell time using digital clocks. They probably can’t wear shoes that don’t have velcro, either.
According to the commenters on MeFi, this appears to be a strictly US trend at the moment. But who’s next? I don’t like the idea of Emily not being able to write in cursive. Though she’ll undoubtedly be able to type better than I can. This train of thought has inspired me to learn how to touch type correctly. I have spent the past two hours online going through typing tutorials and exercises. Looks like I can “hunt and peck” at around 40 words per minute but, at the moment, I’m touch typing at around 16 WPM. I even tried to type this blog entry “the correct way” without looking at the keyboard but the first paragraph alone took almost five minutes and so I got frustrated and gave up. I guess practice makes perfect.
But I digress. I’d like to know if I’m alone in my sadness on this one. If you have a moment, read the article and (more importantly) the comments and let me know how you feel about these times that are a-changin’.
I never said it was pretty
Your teachers told us not to worry about your poor spelling because all computers will have spell check. These are probably decendents of your teachers. If learning is fun, children love learning. As long as you make learning fun for Emily, she will enjoy learning new things, encourage, excite and compliment, and most important teach by example.
Miss you guys, Mom
At the Adult Literacy League we tell new tutors about the importance of cursive but ultimately leave the decision to teach it up to the student since our goals are their goals. I’m a pro-cursive girl myself for exactly the reasons we tell our new tutors: being able to read a hand-written note, reading fancy fonts on menus and invitations, etc.
I love the fact that handwriting reflects peoples personality, something you can never say about typing, and it would be depressing to see that disappear. But you’re right, I think it’s just an American thing – my niece started to leaqrn joined up writing at school when she was five, something I never did till I was 9!
But using computers all day at work has certainly changed my handwriting, and it’s true that sometimes I have trouble reading stuff I’ve written in a hurry, but I kind of like what it’s turned into to.
You know what your post really needed? A scan of your own handwriting, I’ve never seen any and am trying to imagine what it looks like!
PS. where are you learning typing online, I could do with a few lessons myself!
I find that really interesting; it had never occurred to me that writing might become “old fashioned” until last year when someone commented on how bad “everyone’s handwriting is these days.” As someone who takes great pride in my handwriting, and the cursive/print that I’ve developed in handwritten letters, I took offense.
But I’m starting to see the trend. I don’t think it’s practical; there will always be someone who needs to read your handwriting, like a teacher’s edits on your typed paper, a boss’s note or scrawled memo, a drs. note they didn’t have time to type and print.
Ask and ye shall receive.
Kids can’t write or tie shoes and they have no patience and no one listens to anyone anymore and Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb? I think THAT’s the way the world is going. Meanwhile, the last time I checked I touch-typed a mean 70-75 wpm. Could be faster now, but I get sore arms if I don’t use an ergo keyboard.
I took a typing class in high school, which was great. It wasn’t mandatory, but I wanted to because when I was a kid I watched my mom type on her IBM Selectric (this is a thing called a “typewriter” which they had before computers, Josh) and she could continue typing while looking at me when I walked in the room, a skill I later wowed coworkers with. I was surprised my coworkers couldn’t touch-type and now many still can’t.
I learned on a typewriter that didn’t even have the letters on the keys! We had to keep our eyes on an image of the keyboard at the front of the class. Try that for an exercise. If you can print out a big image of the keyboard layout and hang it above your computer and keep your eyes on that and practice your “quick brown fox” or something a bit every day, you should improve. It’s like learning another language. You just have to practice. And also, it’s harder as you get older! Good luck!
(P.S. If you need any term papers typed, I charge ten bucks a page.)
(P.S. to “Nana”, if that’s your real name. Don’t even get me started on the spell check, or I’ll have to tell you the story of the time in the early days of my career when my editor slammed down a copy of the just-distributed magazine on my desk and pointed accusingly at the term “pubic sector” in an article I had proofread … and had run a spell check on. Woops.)
Research on handwriting shows that the fastest and most legible handwriters don’t use cursive. They write only/predominantly print-like letters, occasionally (not constantly) connected — using only the easiest joins, and skipping the rest. Plainly we should teach this or something very similar, such as the Italic handwriting style which graced Europe’s first handwriting textbooks (during the Renaissance).
For more on print and cursive and what I think we should do instead (and why), visit http://learn.to/handwrite — which also hosts the World Handwriting Contest.