Missouri University School of Journalism, original photo by Mollie Sterling that went viral some years ago- via Losing Context
We've posted about the (purported) obsolescence of cursive handwriting on Neatorama before, but should all forms of handwriting be dead? Yes, according to Anne Trubek. The Oberlin College associate professor argues that handwriting is a technology that's just too slow modern times (and even for our minds) that we should just do away with it:
Nevertheless, people seem to think that school kids should be spending more time honing their mastery of the capital G. A 2007 U.S. Department of Education study found that 90 percent of teachers spend 10 minutes a day on handwriting. Zaner-Bloser, the most popular handwriting curriculum used today, deems that too little and is encouraging schools to up that amount to at least 15 minutes a day.
But typing in school has a democratizing effect, as did the typewriter. It levels the look of prose to allow expression of ideas, not the rendering of letters, to take center stage.
Trubek went on to explain the evils of handwriting, at least in grade school:
Does having good handwriting signal intelligence? No, not any more than it reveals one's religiosity. But many teachers make this correlation: It is called the "handwriting effect." Steve Graham, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies handwriting acquisition, says that "teachers form judgments, positive or negative, about the literary merit of text based on its overall legibility." Graham's studies show that "[w]hen teachers rate multiple versions of the same paper differing only in terms of legibility, they assign higher grades to neatly written versions of the paper than the same versions with poorer penmanship." This is particularly problematic for boys, whose fine-motor skills develop later than do girls. Yet all children are taught at the same time — usually printing in first grade and cursive in third. If you don't have cursive down by the end of third grade, you may never become proficient at it.
While we once judged handwriting as religiously tinted, now secular, we transpose our prejudices to intelligence. The new SAT Writing Exam, instituted in 2006, requires test takers to write their essays in No. 2 pencil. Not only will those with messy handwriting be graded lower than ones written more legibly, but those who write in cursive — 15 percent of test takers in 2006 — received higher scores than those who printed.
http://miller-mccune.com/culture_society/handwriting-is-history-1647 - Thanks Janice Sinclaire!
So, what do you think? Should we just get rid of handwriting altogether?
But i am of course, with my 37 years of age of another generation than you kids.
Anyway, it's a mistake to think that everyone has access to keyboards at all times - and if you need to handwrite anything ever then you'll need to be adequately proficient.
Though I do still agree that cursive is wholly unnecessary.
I think the SAT -test policy described is somewhat prejudiced. However, that does not mean we should get rid of handwriting - but of prejudices concerning the matter.
In my country (Finland), majority of students in my university still write by hand, though you might see a laptop or two at the lectures and the amount is increasing. So I find Trubek's suggestions somewhat elitistic - not every one has access to computers. Moreover, I think pen and paper is one of the most ingenious user interfaces that exist. You do not need complicated machinery or electricity - heck, you do not need even paper or pen, just something to write with and some kind of surface. I think that is something to be cherished.
At the lighter side, I personally prefer pen and paper because I also use to draw while I write notes - something you can not easily do with computer :P
What worries me more is the linear thought involved in typing. The mind-Map camp will tell you that it's a very constricted way of creating prose and not efficient for note-taking and in a more informal way, handwriting can be quick, messy, scrappy, open to speedy revision while keeping disguarded ideas and can blend into drawing in terms of exploring rough ideas. I'm sure that a lot of the best well organised tightly written fiction and non-fiction started off as a sprawling hand-written mess that couldn't have got there any other way.
On the other hand, do any of you still carry a notebook or some sort around, even long after your college lectures?
Cursive may be dificult to learn, but in a way it express cohesion of thoughts. In my country (Argentina) cursive is the rule, every1 writes that way.
The article just sounded as an anoyed scientist bitching about how dificult is to "write".
I don't know, i feel like writing by hand is a gift and an advance in our society, and as someone else said, maybe the average american student that can afford a laptop can do it, but not the average world student.
Also, I remember so much better when I write than when I type. The vast majority of our exams are on paper, so there's also some semblance of muscle memory going on when I re-write my notes before I'm tested.
I don't like cursive at all, and even though I tried to use it for years, my printing is far quicker than my cursive.
But I have my neurofibromatosis (genetic defect) to blame for my reduced fine-motors. I am 19, and I dare to brag that I'm fairly above average intelligent. Before Christmas, my IQ measured up at 128, even though I screwed up and selected "copper" when I knew the answer was the alloy "bronze". Then again, I'm not the very creative person.
But the plus sides of typing are seemingly ignored. If you do a misspelling when handwriting, I'll need to get out your eraser, squiggle it a little, and resume your writing. On a computer, you simply put the marker where you went wrong and correct it without hassle. But if you want to edit an entire sentence, you're screwed if this was in the middle of your document. Even worse if you use an ink pen instead of a pencil. And if you want to redo the entire thing, instead of wasting paper, you just press Ctrl+A and backspace.
But as mentioned, handwriting increases the fine-motors, but demanding it to look like it was traced from a chart, is simply a poor display of ancient attitude.
And I noticed the matching laptop phenomenon, too... (rolling my eyes) Must have been an Apple-sponsored day. For the record, I'm lost when I try to use the Oh So Simple (supposedly) Apple. Not that it matters...
I can't speak for his penmanship, not having seen it, but Paul Auster (whose prose definitely qualifies as "tight") writes all his novels by hand in notebooks before typing them.
Don't think my subject would work to tach without the ability to change into notes, handwriting, scrawl and diagrams without pen and paper. Certainly not with current technology.
I think those few minute everyday are well spent. Motor control, coordination, the ability to back track easily to notes. All important!
Keep teaching cursive, but stop force feeding the ultra-bland modern D'nealian, Zaner, etc., styles in favor of Spencerian or other styles from the golden age of penmanship.
Make it art (again) and people might want to write nicely. Look at any shipping manifest written by any dummy from 1890. Grocery lists are worthy of framing. Modern kids ooh and ahh over it; there's no reason they can't do it, too.
Also, I went to law school from 04-07, and I took all my class-notes by hand. As R Pies notes above, you can't easily do things like make diagrams and charts on a keyboard.
College Computer Stores often have discount programs and many colleges include laptops in the required materials portion just like lab fees. When my brother went to Berklee they required him to buy a mac and an Oxygen8 Keyboard, even though he had the same programs on his windows laptop and was a guitar player.
This doesn't happen when i type things. I have run across things that I'm not sure i came up with simply because i typed them and didn't have the unique muscle memory of recording them like i would have with a pen and paper.
However, when essay writing I much prefer using a word processor. It is much faster than a pencil and you can make infinite revisions without wasting paper. Of course... it's still much easier to edit printed work on paper than on the computer.
I'm 18 years old and put a lot of conscientious effort into cursive during high school when it was no longer necessary (grades 5-8, if you didn't write cursive, they didn't mark your work). I think it's beautiful and a wonderful art expression and I hope they don't take it out of schools.
My boyfriend (18) seems to use cursive primarily as well, if his grocery lists are any indication.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtY6gbjkrSs
I think this is proof some professors can formulate half an idea and publish. Otherwise known as BS.
I love writing so much I have a journal.
Why would I want to lose that?
Is it worth the wasted energy in booting a computer, when a quick scribble says: "be home at 5. love you"
?
Personally, I can't stand to take notes on my laptop. I find it too restricting.