“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Saturday, August 1, 2015

"Let's Abolish the Teaching of Handwriting"

Many are thinking of getting rid of it or have made steps towards that goal. Their reason: we don't do much of it.

There are all sorts of reasons why not to get rid of it, of course. The thick region between writing and drawing, for example, learning one is learning the other, the hand-eye coordination, the joy of moving a tiny stylus around, and on and on.

But let's just consider the logic.

We titrate even less than we write by hand: so let's get rid of chemistry.

We differentiate very infrequently in "the real world": so let's get rid of math.

More to the point: we use calculators all the time, so let's get rid of math.

1 comment:

D. E.M. said...

It's an old art; you're right! It makes a child pay attention to the letters themselves. My kid loves it. And there's been a recent study that writing by hand on paper accesses creative thinking better than a computer sometimes, so it's good to switch it up.

I hand write lectures because I write write on a computer. Need a break. Like to practice curlicues