Handwriting: Should it continue to be taught?

[Magnatek]

While waiting for my shift to be over this morning, I took a look at one of the newspapers that were delivered, and found an interesting article.

From USA Today [http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-08-30/China-brushing-up-on-the-lost-fine-art-of-calligraphy/50197474/1]:

BEIJING - Li Qixuan enjoys shooting pool, drawing cartoons and chatting with friends on his computer. But the fine art of calligraphy?

"I don't like it, and most of my classmates don't like it, because it's very boring," complains Li, 11, who takes two calligraphy classes a week at his school.

Come Thursday, the start of fall semester, students nationwide will have no choice but to learn the art of elegant brush strokes. China's Ministry of Education has ordered elementary schools to hold a weekly calligraphy class for grades 3 to 6. High schools, too, must offer optional lessons and after-school activities related to calligraphy.

In the USA, most public schools have de-emphasized handwriting as students spend more time working on computer keyboards. In China, increased use of computers and cellphone texting has weakened students' ability to write Chinese characters by hand, says the ministry.

Besides delivering better writing technique, calligraphy lessons also will "nurture patriotic feelings" among the young, and "improve the national quality," the ministry said.

"Chinese kids should have more classes like calligraphy to teach our traditional culture," says Li's father, Li Po. "I think Western culture is too strong in China now."

Adults also are increasingly forgetting how to write certain characters, worries calligraphy master and educator Ma Tiankuo, based in the tradition-rich city of Xian. "I feel a strong sense of crisis."

But some Chinese say schools do not have the funds to train and supply calligraphy teachers.

"There are still many village schools that don't have enough teachers for the main courses," says Geng Shulong, an elementary school teacher in Dingxing county, Hebei province.

His daughter Geng Ruohan, 8, says she'd like to try calligraphy on one condition: It must not increase homework that already takes her four hours a night.

Contributing: Sunny Yang
By Calum MacLeod

This got me thinking. Are other nations already further down this road? Will all of us eventually abandon our own handwriting and begin to just use keyboards, typing our stories until the end?
On a side note, I was also thinking "When will the first shift people get here?", but that's another story.
So, I thought to bring this matter here to you, fellow Escapists. What are your thoughts on the article? What's your stance on handwriting/typing? Should schools still teach handwriting, if only to keep a part of our respective national histories alive? Post your thoughts and discuss here.

EDIT: It appears that I haven't quite said my stance. It's similar to a lot of what's already been said, to be honest, though I DO wish it was taught a bit better over the course of a few more years. The last little bit of handwriting lessons I had, for example, was in third grade. You can likely imagine the result there (still legible, but more scratchy than anything).

 

[Radelaide]

As a writer, I use my computer an awful lot for well, writing. But I prefer to write down my posts in a book somewhere so I have a physical copy of my posts.

Hand writing is incredibly important.

 

[Doitpow]

hells yeah it should continue to be taught. My shitty handwriting has caused me so much trouble its actually quite rediculous.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

No, that's honestly completely idiotic.

Relying on technology like computers is foolish. Writing with Pen and paper is just plain simpler.

It reminds me vaguely of the US trying to make a pen that wrote in space while the Russians just used a pencil. This is a similar principal.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Handwriting should and probably will always be taught. We'll always need it and thinking otherwise is just plain stupid. I highly doubt we'll ever abandon it. It's not a feasible outcome.

 

[Fiad]

Handwriting in general, no. That is still very important. Cursive on the other hand, past learning to sign our names I don't see the point. I remember all my teachers telling me that I would use it every day for the rest of my life. How many times have I used it other than to sign my name? Probably about twice in the ten or so years since I learned it.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Hand Writing is incredibly important for the development of the brain so I would say it's necessary

 

[Dumbfish1]

Its important for quick notes, so no.

 

[Mr Thin]

When you say hand-writing, do you mean cursive, or the act of writing stuff with one's hand?

If the former, christ no, all cursive does is make your text unreadable. If the latter, of course it bloody should, we're not living in the matrix just yet.

I've been printing since primary school; my writing may not be pretty, but it's very legible. I can't say the same for most people who's writing I've seen.

 

[staika]

Well seeing as I have terrible handwriting, I wouldn't mind if they kept teaching it if it could prevent others from going through the torture that I have to go through with bad handwriting.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would say yes, but I would lack the smarts to really explain why. It's important just because...

I guess it's important to be self dependant and not be tied to a machine to get your words across.

 

[Andalusa]

OF course it should. Although many people write more with a keyboard than by hand these days, it's still very important. I prefer hand writing, to be honest. If computers crash and handwriting hasn't been taught how are we expected to document things?

 

[Queen Michael]

That cursive handwriting we were taught to write in school is honestly pretty useless - it's more difficult to write than regular handwriting, so you're doing the reader a disservice. But there's nothing wrong with replacing some lesson where you're taught useless trivia with a handwriting class.

 

[Jordi]

Hand Writing is incredibly important for the development of the brain so I would say it's necessary

Can you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious, because the two reasons that this might be true that I can come up with (fine motor control and language skills) can (I think) also be achieved with typing on a keyboard. Do you have a reference perhaps? I'm genuinely interested.

Anyway, aside from the above, I think that it is very important that people continue to be able to write. However, as some people have already pointed out, I don't consider cursive and calligraphy important at all. All "nice" documents will be typed out anyway. The only thing that is important is that you are able to make notes when computers aren't conveniently available (e.g. in the margin of an article, a sudoku in a newspaper, most schoolwork if they can't afford to use computers).

 

[Von Strimmer]

Hand Writing is incredibly important for the development of the brain so I would say it's necessary

Can you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious, because the two reasons that this might be true that I can come up with (fine motor control and language skills) can (I think) also be achieved with typing on a keyboard. Do you have a reference perhaps? I'm genuinely interested.

Anyway, aside from the above, I think that it is very important that people continue to be able to write. However, as some people have already pointed out, I don't consider cursive and calligraphy important at all. All "nice" documents will be typed out anyway. The only thing that is important is that you are able to make notes when computers aren't conveniently available (e.g. in the margin of an article, a sudoku in a newspaper, most schoolwork if they can't afford to use computers).

I dont have references on me. HOWEVER I was talking to some Neurosurgeons and other people of the like and funnily enough this convo came up. They say that you use more brain capacity and and it requires finer motor skills to actually write something than to press a button. They were much more technical about it that I am and it went for longer but that was pretty much the gist of it. It also develops better cognitive pathways or something like that :S. hope that helps somewhat?

 

[Vakz]

Yes, it should. Even with portable devices becoming more common, and handwritten essays being very rare, I can't imagine pen and paper will die in the foreseeable future. I have a lot of friends who can't write for shit, with handwriting that is barely recognizable as letters and numbers. Usually, they can read it themselves, but it's a real pain for anyone else to read it. Pretty annoying when they've been taking down notes or something like that, that others are supposed to read as well later.

Also, above the first part of the article: Does it really matter if the kids think it's boring? Honestly, how many kids finds every subject great? Sure, you can probably find one or two in each class who think math is fun, or reading, or P.E., but the majority will just be doing those subjects because they're told they have to.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Of course handwritting should still be taught. I mean increase computer using will only made our eyesight worst and we shouldn't be that relying on technology that much. I mean what happens if there is a blackout or when we can't use it at all? I mean let say you have to send a letter the old fashion way but the person can't read it at all due to terrible mess that suppose to be letters?

On a random note, I would love to take some calligraphy lessons.

 

[Jordi]

Hand Writing is incredibly important for the development of the brain so I would say it's necessary

Can you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious, because the two reasons that this might be true that I can come up with (fine motor control and language skills) can (I think) also be achieved with typing on a keyboard. Do you have a reference perhaps? I'm genuinely interested.

Anyway, aside from the above, I think that it is very important that people continue to be able to write. However, as some people have already pointed out, I don't consider cursive and calligraphy important at all. All "nice" documents will be typed out anyway. The only thing that is important is that you are able to make notes when computers aren't conveniently available (e.g. in the margin of an article, a sudoku in a newspaper, most schoolwork if they can't afford to use computers).

I dont have references on me. HOWEVER I was talking to some Neurosurgeons and other people of the like and funnily enough this convo came up. They say that you use more brain capacity and and it requires finer motor skills to actually write something than to press a button. They were much more technical about it that I am and it went for longer but that was pretty much the gist of it. It also develops better cognitive pathways or something like that :S. hope that helps somewhat?

Yes, a little. I did a little Googling around and found some popsci articles on this. It seems that most of the referenced studies didn't really properly compare kids trained in handwriting to kids trained in typing, (it's either compared to untrained typists or doing nothing).
However, I can see now that it would indeed engage different fine motor skills and more importantly that it would simultaneously engage visual and motor processes in the brain to a greater extent that pressing a button/key with an image on it would. It seems likely to me that this may facilitate the development of better "cognitive pathways" as you say.

I do think that typing should also be taught from a young age though (and it probably is nowadays). I think the fine motor skills needed for it are slightly different (since you use both of your entire hands, instead of just three fingers of one), and I think faster communication would facilitate the expression of ideas (since the printing would be less of a bottleneck). One of the articles I saw actually made this latter claim, but they said that handwriting was faster than typing, which seems really odd to me if the individual is trained in both.
Furthermore, I imagine learning multiple input methods is a little of like learning a new language (except just for your hands/fingers), which is probably also good for the brain.

 

[SomeBrianDude]

It reminds me vaguely of the US trying to make a pen that wrote in space while the Russians just used a pencil. This is a similar principal.

You do know that's a myth, right? Firstly, using a pencil in zero gravity isn't a good idea. The tip can break off can be dangerous to the electronics in the spacecraft, as can graphite dust. Both NASA and the Societ space agency used them at first, but they both ended up using space pens. Secondly, the development of the space pen was an entirely private endeavour. They were created and manufactured by Fisher and sold to NASA and the Soviets, and NASA never approached the company and asked them to develop space pens, or gave them any funding to do so.

OT: Computers will never completely take over, there will always be times when a note has to be hand-written, even if those times become increasingly fewer and further between. Being able to write legibly will always have some importance, so yes, it should be taught. There's not much that annoys me more than when someone leaves me a note of what needs doing at work and it's so poorly written that it can't be read.

 

[Bigsmith]