Schools in Indiana (somewhere in the colonies, I believe) are to stop teaching cursive handwriting (story here). Pupils are expected to complete a basic typing exam, though. Teachers are saying that they don't have time to teach both handwriting and typing. And typing is increasingly being seen as more important. BBC TV had some vox pops and a large amount of messages from viewers (I wonder how many of them were handwritten?). People made various specious arguments about how writing helps children learn to sound words - as though there is some kind of connection between phonetics and the glyphs of our alphabet. Which of course there isn't. A letter "a" doesn't sound like anything until you're taught to associate that particular squiggle with a particular sound. It was all a bit sad - people clutching at straws to justify why children need to learn to do "proper" writing, when all they could really say was they felt it would be good and they had to do it when they were at school. That's how I saw it anyway. The studio discussion seemed a bit one sided to me. Felt sorry for Nikki the technology expert who met a lot of opposition from Gail the head teacher, the two presenters, and the disgruntled multitudes who got in touch.
I've worked with computers since leaving education. One result of this is that I can't do joined-up writing. Sorry if that's a shock. I wasn't taught it very well at school and never had the need to practise afterwards. I can print unjoined letters if needed - and it very occasionally is.
How did you understand the word "print" in the previous sentence? I meant using a pen or quill on this occasion. But if you were thinking about a box on a desk with paper coming out, then welcome to my world!
I have a template on my computer for printing post-it notes. But the software equivalents are far superior anyway.
I do wish I'd been taught to type at school though. That would have been vey useful over the decades. By way of a thought-experiment, I imagined that I was my own time-travelling primary school teacher. Then, if forced to make the choice, I would definitely teach my younger self to type rather than to write.
My only concern over children being taught to type is that it may become outdated. Possibly. It hasn't happened yet, although I now trust my phone to call home using voice control whereas I didn't a few years ago. Dragon dictation works better than I thought it would. And the free google app for iPhone can do google searches by speaking into it. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes it gets it badly wrong. And because computers are very stupid, it doesn't know how badly wrong it is.
The question is, is it easier to speak and then make corrections by retyping, or just type the thing in the first place. The balance may changes as computers get slightly smarter.
And so, here's the biblical support for voice controlled word processors:
Psalm 45
1 My heart is stirred by a noble theme
as I recite my verses for the king;
my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.
Location:Shed
Qualified agreement from me I think. As a teacher who has, rather surprisingly, realised that children have far fewer keyboard/word processing skills than I have managed to gain for myself I do think that they should be given the basic skills to effectively use the machines that will probably dominate their lives.
ReplyDeleteAs a craftswoman I think it would be sad to lose yet another traditional skill altogether.
I also think that we haven't yet reached the point where the machines are reliable enough to totally depend upon them - what happens when the power goes down? I have a memory of going into my bank to discover that the computers had gone on strike one day, the older generation of tellers was able to quickly and efficiently revert to its original training and carry out transactions manually, the younger employees were struggling.
Thought I saw a report that the banks had bowed to public pressure and decided to let us carry on writing cheques 'for as long as they were needed'.
It would be ideal to teach both typing and handwriting. The real question is the balance - which I think is badly wrong at the moment. And then there's the question of the balance with other subjects. Especially since the first one to get 'timed out' is often RE!
ReplyDeleteIf the power failed, I'd make sure I had some good solar chargers, and use my phone and iPad.
The only reason I ever go to a bank is to pay a cheque in. So maybe I'm alone in not being too thankful that cheques have had a stay of execution. But I do think it's too early to get rid of them just yet. There isn't a good replacement right now.
I look forward to getting a phone with some kind of NFC payment system next year.
As if to emphasise the point I've just spent the day in school with the children unable to use the computers because the network was down!!
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