Stop Teaching Handwriting

The importance of learning to write has little to do with the “romantic sense that script expresses identity.” It has to do with expressing ideas. Written communication should be possible even away from a keyboard. A pencil can be a wonderful tool; it’s portable, lightweight, needs no electricity, and if legible (and that’s what learning handwriting is really about) you communicate your words and ideas. Also: have you ever grabbed a scrap of paper on the spur of the moment to jot a note to yourself? I do all the time, and wouldn’t be able to “hold that thought” until getting to a computer hours later.

i just finished 5 years of college. and let me tell you, handwriting is still a necessary tool of civilization. i wrote inclass essays, i filled out endless forms, i responded to teacher’s comments.

writing is necessary.

now i’m a teacher, and i write more than ever. on the board, on students’ papers, in official memoranda. the list goes on. and i know from experience that my handwriting — especially as comments on papers or as notes on the board — means a great deal to my students.

if you think handwriting is obsolete, go to class tomorrow and ask your students to take notes without a pen.

According to a recent Newsweek article,

“A new study to be released this month by Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham finds that a majority of primary-school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produced written assignments that were superior in quantity and quality and resulted in higher grades—aside from being easier to read.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/67956

Thank you for “writing” this. My son, too, has trouble with his handwriting although he is a creative thinker and interesting storyteller. Too often he’s graded on the neatness of his handwriting and not on the strength of his ideas. Although we may always need or want handwriting to sign things or jot down notes, increasingly there will be cheap and available technology that will allow people to make notes by talking into devices–no need to run to a computer. Indeed many cell phones come with this ability and iPods and other mp3 devices do as well. We need to think beyond the way we’ve always done things and work on ways to make it possible for people who want or need to get words from their heads to the screen or page to do so.

And just a comment about the study showing that handwriting is correlated to better grades. It could also be teacher bias. I know from experience that many teachers believe that students who are neater are smarter. Not necessarily true.

the sentiment, however, I don’t think that we’re there or we will ever reach that point. Cultivatingthemind wrote a great response that I completely agree with.

How is one to learn a language properly if they cannot write? I like radical concepts but I don’t think it’s feasible to this away.

What’s next, putting programming chips in our brains?

What about the cultures that either don’t use or don’t have technology in abundance? If someone who only knows how to communicate via some device finds themselves in a non-tech culture, and they don’t speak the language, how do they navigate that community?

Also, what happens if a non-handwriting person has a spectacular idea but their battery has died? How do they record/remember that idea?

I’m no Luddite, I teach technology, perhaps that’s why I’m familiar with the failings of it.

I wish your son’s issues with handwriting didn’t result in him feeling he’s a bad writer. But to make this reason for abandoning the teaching of handwriting is a little strange… jotting down quick notes, leaving someone a note before heading out, filling out all sorts of paper forms, digital divide, technology breaking down… the need for handwriting is going to be around for a while.

ahh a trip down memory lane.

one must realize that writing cannot easily allow a child to fully utilize their own creative ability.

when I was young, I could write fine and type very well even from a young age, but as a child you simply have not (and, as far as I am concerned) cannot type or write as fast as you can come up with the idea’s and thoughts you wish to inscribe.

I eventually had my mother help me by simply allowing me to dictate what it was I wished to put down on paper/computer, and with her 120wpm typing ability (as compared to my meager 60-70wpm ability) it considerably improved the quality of whatever report I happened to be working on.

even now typing at 100+wpm doesn’t fully allow me to use the speed in which thoughts come to me. I’ve gotten good at quickly backtracking and re-writing a sentence several times (if necessary) until I have the appropriate form that matches what I feel is closest to what it was I was trying to put down in the first place.

Although the ability to write is stressed often in academic settings, I can honestly say I have not written, by hand, any important document (save government forms, but even the majority of those have migrated to the digital equivalent) for the past 5 years.

whats even more funny is how the author brings up the keyboard being an outdated interface (which it is quickly becoming). Many people seem to forget how truly archaic a QWERTY keyboard is.

bravo!

After reading Ms. Trubek’s article, I can’t help but wonder if she also considers learning how to count, add, subtract, and multiply as “arcane” skills as well. After all, we have calculators, so why bother, right?!! It’s a shame the time she spent writing this essay wasn’t instead used to help her son deal with the fact that there will be some things at which he will excel, and others things that will surely challenge his patience and will. That’s just life, and it works that way for all of us.

I think there’s a middle ground: yes, we need to be able write – probably always will. But, cursive? I remember spending all kinds of energy as a kid working on my capital cursive “Q”. I’ve written precisely zero cursive capital Qs in the past 30 years. So maybe we teach print, and skip cursive?

To me, it’s about practicality. I talked to a recent high school graduate the other day. She mentioned she never took a typing class: she couldn’t type. When she starts working somewhere (anywhere..) which skill will she need? Typing or capital Qs ?

Did you read your own article. It is absurd. writing is just a basic skill like arithmetic. Your son isn’t writing a novel here. Help your son learn how to write instead of formulating rationalizations on how writing isn’t that important. He will thank you for it.

I think it may be how your son is instructed that is at issue… However handwriting is going to be with us for awhile. Surely you don’t type your grocery list.

How nice that you can afford technology with either a keyboard or a voice recognition prop. I don’t think everyone can.

in response to “myexcuse,” slowing down is a good thing. and being able to slow down one’s thoughts is a good thing as well.

so your son can’t type 140 wpm. this isn’t always a problem. in fact, it could be a good thing. if he can’t type as fast as he thinks, then perhaps it’s because he thinks too fast.

i had that problem. i blamed it for a lot of my academic failings. do you know how i fixed it? i slowed down my thinking when it came to writing.

now my writing is better. instead of blurting out whatever i feel, i revise before i write it.

yeah, he’s a little kid. and rambunctiousness has its place. but not in an essay. who was that said good writing is an overflow of powerful emotions remembered in tranquility? 140 wpm is hardly tranquility.

What I got out of this article is that schools should put ideas and creativity first, then give students a variety of tools to get their thoughts across to others. All tools need to be given equal ground when taught, without bias. Then students should be able to choose what method works best for them and become proficient in it.

I was one of those kids in school who got high marks in every subject except handwriting and was baffled at why, if I could read my writing as well as my teachers, it mattered if my letters perfect matched the ideal. I eventually gave up trying at the age of 8, much to the anger of most of my teachers who called me “lazy” when I thought I discovered a way to write faster, and I am doing quite well in life. Though my handwriting has not changed since elementary school, the only problem I face because of that is purely social. I get a few derogatory remarks on how “whimsical” and “child-like” my writing is every now and then, but I can deal with that. What I find sad is that if I were a less confident person, I probably, like the author’s son, would have given up on writing altogether. But what I find hopeful is the advances in technology that can help anyone bring ideas into the world that otherwise would never leave the mind.

Weather you realize it or not, if you don’t go the extra mile to teach your kids to write well when they grow up to college level and they can’t take a single readable note in class or can’t inscribe a single love card for Valentine’s they wil hate you for not encouraging them to write better. Regardless of the college level education they complete, when they are in public and asked to write a single line and they scribble like six years olds, everyone will look at them as if they are illiterate. So do your kids a favor and teach them. School is not always easy but that’s why they are in school- so that among all else they can learn how to cope with challenge and overcome the difficulty. If a kid thinks he/she can’t write because the teacher told them they scribble then the parents of the kid need to teach him/her how to deal with difficulties in life without loosing self confidence. You can’t grow a strong kid if you tell them that the way to deal with difficulty is to run away form it. What if your kids have difficulty to add and subtract, will you encourage them to abandon maths because there are calculators? Just for the record, handwriting analysis is being used by the FBI and is just as good as a finger print, good or bad handwriting, doesn’t matter it is still a person’s unique motion set in ink and it does reflect one’s personality.

Hmmm, advocating abolishing writing for all school age children because YOUR son has a difficult time writing. I suppose your follow up essay will explain how children from economically disadvantaged homes will acquire the keyboards (and devices that they are attached to)that will replace their virtually free pencils. Not all children have parents who are professors.

I do concur with your displeasure at the state requirement for handwriting skills. I remember taking handwriting as well and hated that it actually affected my gpa (yes, I was really concerned about maintaining my gpa in the 3rd grade). No child should be subjected to that for a grade, especially if the child may have a problem writing- my boyfriend must’ve experienced the same thing, for he has has trouble handwriting.

Yet, while handwriting shouldn’t be graded, handwriting still is an important skill to learn as best as one could. Yeah, children shouldn’t need to conform their handwriting to a certain font to be deemed legible or worthy of fulfilling state requirement, but it’s such a basic and essential skill nonetheless. Everything cannot simply depend on a computer (or lack of a keyboard, as you’re arguing)- we’ll just all become too robotic. As other people have commented, students still need to take notes, people still jot down notes to themselves. Handwriting is not obsolete, but it should no longer be a school “subject” that determines a child’s movement to a higher level.

I taught 4th and 5th grades for ten years and now train teachers to use technology and constructivist methods. I have to agree with Trubek. The overemphasis of handwriting has got to end. Teachers spend valuable time every day focusing on nothing more than handwriting. Those same teachers are clueless as to why their students don’t perform well on standardized tests and why some students hate to write. My theory was that if I can read it, it’s fine with me. Let’s focus on the content, not the form.

I realize that we are still very dependent upon handwritten work, but that is changing. Whole novels are now written on cell phones. States like the one in which I live (Missouri) are committing more and more money to improved technology in classrooms.

Besides, the last time I checked, doctors have the worst handwriting, and they’ve made out OK.

At my junior high, there was a big emphasis on the English program. When first enrolled in the school, every new student had to take two weeks of ‘pronunciation’ classes. Every possible sound that could be made with each letter was beaten into our heads. That’s fine and dandy and it also helped to become a near-perfect speller. I find many adults are actually terible spellers, but that’s another story.

To go along with this emphasis on language, pronunciation, and spelling was handwriting. Every damn day we would spend at least an hour writing cursive in our journals. Every day! I still have nightmares of getting the precise curve on the letter ’s’ or making sure the connection between a ‘r’ and ‘a’ was seamless.

Sadly, I have somewhat sloppy handwriting and hard as I tried, I did no better than earning a ‘C’ in handwriting. That’s where my issue lies.

Grading handwriting? It’s ludicrous. If every letter can be deciphered and read, who cares what your handwriting looks like? No matter how much someone may focus on their handwriting, it’s only going to be so pretty.

Now getting graded in junior high isn’t a big deal. But what if that went on in high school? Can you imagine being a perfect student but you get your GPA lowered due to your handwriting grade? What if your GPA was lowered to the point of not getting into the college that you wanted? All because your handwriting wasn’t “pretty” or “good” enough.

Teach handwriting. That’s fine. But don’t grade and put the fear or writing into kids.

One last note…At this junior high of mine, they put the fear of god into all of us that we would never make int through high school, college, and never get a decent job if we couldn’t write perfect cursive. So what do I find 14 years later? I’ve never had to write in cursive once!

And then I go and have multiple spelling errors aobve…

I sincerely hope this woman one day has the following scenario with her teenaged son:

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?”

“My computer crashed and I couldn’t find my voice recorder.”

Because, you know, leaving a NOTE still requires that you know how to write. It’s absurd that this boy will one day require technology to scribble a shopping list because his mother decided her darling offspring shouldn’t have to do anything that he finds challenging in school.

I appreciate that some subjects are more difficult for some students than others, but this does not mean that the entire system should modify to meet those students’ needs. I couldn’t figure out geometry for a long time as a kid. Does that mean that geometry is outmoded, since all sorts of software surely exists to do the job for me? Does it mean that math is unnecessary, since calculators exist? Absolutely not, and I’ll tell you why:

Watching the girl at the supermarket be unable to count my seventeen cents worth of change out is unbearable.

I have questioned the industrial age education system that we so eagerly support. Besides being antiquated and for the most part useless, it creates tight little boxes that only demonstrate that students can conform. Innovation, creativity, and invention can’t survive in an environment where we are fixated on cursive writing, long multiplication, or GPAs.

A story, about a college drop-out. When Steve Job quit college, he continued his education by sitting in on classes at Reed, most often those of Lloyd Reynolds. Reynolds had been credited with restoring handwriting, especially Italic calligraphy, in this country and fostering a revival of the elementary school teaching of simple and elegant penmanship. From Reynolds, Jobs not only took the idea of incorporating an italic font in his Apple computers, but also a new orientation in his life. He began to appreciate beautiful design and to take pride in his own execution of letters. He thrived on the contemplative attitude, and he now attributes much of his creativity to the mindfulness and attention that good penmanship.

A good part of what Jobs learned is the importance of well-designed tools. The problems faced by Anne Trubek’s son are in good part due to a steep decline in understanding how writing tool and beautiful forms are related. When Michelangelo wrote—even his laundry lists—in Italic cursive he was using a broad nib. It is the broad nib and the a45-degree angle at which the nib is held to the paper that creates the beautiful forms not only of Italic but of dozen of other fonts developed over the centuries. Good writing doesn’t depend on an artist’s ability to copy forms or on any contortions of hand movements or pressures on the pen; it is the work solely of the correct instrument and its angle on the writing surface. The secret of Michelangelo’s ability to “draw” a perfect circle, as he explained, had nothing to do with art, but with his broad-nib pen.

The broad nib all but disappeared when a ball point could be manufactured in metal. The ball point, which required pressure to make thick and thin strokes, allowed professional calligraphers to make the special flourishes of ornate eighteenth and nineteenth century fonts that did, indeed, depend on artistry—and the pain of finger tension. In came the painful Palmer method for the less than gifted, and the rest is downhill. Now we require our children and ourselves to write everything in the instrument least adapted to ease, elegance and sense of accomplishment—the ubiquitous ball-point throwaway. It is no wonder that Trubek’s son is discouraged is frustrated and angry. I sympathize with him, but I think his mother has mistaken the target of legitimate wrath.

Just as I read Anne Trubek’s blog I was initiating a discussion with the faculty of an inner city and experimental school where I help mentor students, many of them suffering from the attention deficit disorder that is pervasive in our culture, about giving the children instruction in handwriting. Not just so that they can delight in expressing themselves in beautiful letters, but also to give them some experience of the mindfulness and creativity that inspired Steve Jobs.

uv cors no nied 4 riting nw. luv qeebord.

noah mor fngrpnting 2….cmpootr rt iz bezt!!!!!!