I know I'm late to the party (curse you, Cake Wrecks! :D), but I had to chime in on this one.
In my elementary school, we started learning LOGO programming in first grade; BASIC programming and keyboarding were formally introduced in fourth grade.
We also learned penmanship -- which is good, because my penmanship was initially quite atrocious. Now I do Edwardian-style calligraphy for fun.
The long and short of it is that penmanship and computer skills are not, and should not be considered, mutually exclusive. There's no reason one can't learn both.
Besides -- a good, old-fashioned Post-It note on somebody's monitor is both more enduring than a text message and harder to ignore than an email :)
In my elementary school, we started learning LOGO programming in first grade; BASIC programming and keyboarding were formally introduced in fourth grade.
We also learned penmanship -- which is good, because my penmanship was initially quite atrocious. Now I do Edwardian-style calligraphy for fun.
The long and short of it is that penmanship and computer skills are not, and should not be considered, mutually exclusive. There's no reason one can't learn both.
Besides -- a good, old-fashioned Post-It note on somebody's monitor is both more enduring than a text message and harder to ignore than an email :)