There’s a great rebuttal to the latest “intertubes r destroyin ejumacation” narrative - the meme of “the death of handwriting” - by Tim Watts at Tree of Knowledge. Poor old Kevin Donnelly must be upset that he’s been scooped on this one by the dreaded Fairfax press. Perhaps Dr Donnelly was composing his ruminations in copperplate on parchment and so got trumped by someone who knew how to use a keyboard?
44 Responses to “Oh noes! Teh kidz can’t use pencils!”
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WTF is this supposed to mean?
Personality? What, like this pseudo-science bullshit? http://handwriting.feedbucket.com/
I confess to aiding and abetting this ominous trend by setting take-home exams for the course I coordinate at The Real University in Brisbane, because as a shiftless tax-eating commo greenie I lack the work ethic to decipher hastily hand-scrawled exam scripts written with pencils which are not sharpened at any time during the two hours of an invigilated exam.
Perhaps I’m showing my age, but I think things started going downhill when they stopped teaching kids how to scratch the Angerthas Daeron runes on rocks.
wilful @ 1,
The example you ptovided is pseudo science bullshit. The handwriting sample I provided by mouse looked nothing like my usual handwriting and there is no way I could have made it so, no matter how hard I tried. However, graphology can provide some very very broad indicators to the state of mind of the writer at the time they write - are they stressed, angry, in a good mood, etc. And can be used to identify some-one. But, except in the case of the latter, its probably not much help.Sometimes you can get a glimmer of a wtiter’s mood when studying hand-written documents in the archives, but your intuition about it has to be supported by content other similar more sound evidence.Its not a tool to be dismissed entirely out of hand.
Everyone,
I have to come down on the side of the headmasters a bit here.Because I’m slow on the keyboard, my thought processes are sometimes too fast to type out stuff directly, so I usually handwrite evewrything and then retype and refine it on the computer.Except for relatively short book reviews, where the note taking process, done by hand,and an overall memory of the book’s content, refines my thinking before I go to the computer.
However, the idea that kids using text messages, etc is somehow going to lead to the death of great literature etc is clearly absurd. On that logic, the introduction of the typewriter would have killed off good writing in the late 19/early 20 century.
Handwriting has always been illegible. Take it from me, who received lots of letters from grandmother and aunts over the years. The style was beautiful, but I often needed mother to decipher their writing.
How much would Australian culture have been diminished if Arthur Stace had posted “Eternity” every day to blog comments threads rather than calligraphing it on walls all over Sydney?
I haven’t been able to hand-write since the early 80s. Word-processing, email, and a million lines of code will do that. Even during the 70s I’d cramp up during lectures.
I’m with Paul on this - I sat for post-grad exams a few years ago and was horrified to see that they were all long-hand, hand-written (not to mention closed-book) jobs. FMD, I hadn’t written 1/4 that much for 25 years - and that was before middle-age and volleyball.
Needless to say even I struggled to read what I was writing after an hour, and I walked out with an hour to go. Right there I vowed never to sit one of these again. It’s not a psych evaluation - I don’t give a rat’s if my personality doesn’t shine through.
Yes, this is bullshit. My bro’s handwriting was always illegible and my parents’ only marginally less so. This doesn’t seemed to have handicapped them in the slightest in their respective careers, so I was somewhat less than panicked when my son’s writing in the first half of primary school resembled the tracks of a demented insect. But now he’s half way through year 5, with no prodding from me whatsoever, his writing is beautiful and legible. So it can only be the teachers (it certainly isn’t MY good example.)
How much would Australian culture have been diminished if Arthur Stace had posted “Eternity” every day to blog comments threads rather than calligraphing it on walls all over Sydney?
Sod all?
that’s a sydney-centric thing. First most of us heard about it was when it was put on the harbour bridge.
And how many calligraphers are there in a generation anyway? Reckon Banksy uses a computer for his stencils.
TToK poses the question:
Interestingly enough, around 20 years ago it was not uncommon to read job advertisements calling for applications in the applicant’s own handwriting, the reason being that the businesses in question relied on handwriting as a guide to the applicants personality and suitability for the position.
Another historical note. Until the middle of the last century it was common practice for primary schools to cane the daylights out of children who wrote left-handed in an effort to make them learn to write right-handed. There would be no few people still alive today whose early years were made miserable by this barbarism.
Do I get a special prize if i can type 60wpm+ and write legibly with both hands?
I don’t think it’s necessarily a handicap, but there’s no doubt that in my industry where both digital and manual expression (doesn’t that sound wonderful!) are used, there’s a difference in what’s going on in the brain between the two.
I’m sure in some areas there would be more favourable results if one was prioritised over the other.
IMO it’s the ability to master both and to know when to apply the tool that’s really valuable.
Throughout my school career my teachers sent glowing reports home to my parents with two exceptions: spelling poor, handwriting atrocious. At parent teacher nights they would express their worry that my handwriting was so bad it might prevent me from utilising my other talents to the full.
I wrote my first few university essays by hand, before shifting to the newfangled word processor. My marks instantly jumped 15%. I think this was a combination of the strain placed on readers from trying to decipher what I had written, and the iterative process Tim talks about.
Arguably I have found other ways to waste my talents, but I can only feel relief that the word processor came along in time to benefit me. Dr Cat, who was narrowly spared having to struggle with my writing, doesn’t know the pain she missed.
The idea that the suffering I and my teachers went through was a good thing is frankly sickening.
Ha! I seem to remember getting a ruler across the knuckles from some penguin over that (or was it the piano lessons? Or both?). Mum, teachers, etc. did their best to convert me, but kids usually win battles of will like this. That’s why McDonalds exists.
We have quite a few lefties at work. One is a Chinese woman, another a Japanese man. Surprisingly, they didn’t cop the treatment I did in what most would expect were conformist cultures. They are about 15 years younger though.
Aw, come on, folks: beautiful, interesting, or idiosyncratic handwriting is a cool thing, and society should try not to lose it if it can be avoided. That doesn’t excuse pointless grouching, though.
A funny story: once, I was in a meeting with a bunch of people, including a witty female colleague, to hear the remarks of some gaseous windbag. The person who was the focus of our attention droned on and on, saying the most ludicrous and vacant things. All the while, my friend was attentively writing in a legal pad, studiously taking notes. I kept wondering, what the hell is she taking notes about, this is nonsense. When the meeting was over and our guest was out of sight, she left the legal pad behind; apparently it wasn’t so important after all. I went to peek at what she’d been writing the whole time.
She was comically “practicing” her signature, in a dizzying array of styles, as “Mrs. Brad Pitt”.
I’m of a generation who had copperplate-writing-with-a-dip-pen thrashed into them. My handwriting is still atrocious (as was my mother’s). These days, I print (reasonably legibly for the most part).
David, I recall my Grade 4 teacher in Melbourne very fastidiously and sternly enforcing the correct procedure for filling our fountain pens from the inkwell and writing without making blots, and visiting condign punishment on anyone who dared bring a biro to school. Then the school capitulated to technological subversion and made biros standard equipment when I was in Grade 6.
I still have visions of my Father using a ruler to guide his handwriting, lest it fall beneath the line…he attributes this to the many lashings from the nuns who taught him…
I don’t think I used a biro until I was in Leaving, Paul. We did get to use fountain pens from Grade 5, though, and it was slightly less messy than the dip-pen.
I’m not knocking handwriting, per se. A lot of the Vietnamese students I taught a couple of years ago had utterly exquisitely beautiful writing. Very l’écriture - like the French do (or the French did 60 years ago). But few of us can do it, or do it quickly and legibly at the same time. And when I put pen to paper (or whiteboard), I print.
I used cartridge ink pens all the way through school & uni which were very consistent, light on the hand, and looked good. Never could stand biros. They’re hard work and I hate the results.
These days I use Artline 0.2mm felt tips which are the closest I’ve found to ink & nib, but without the hassle. I’m plagued by biro users who borrow them and drive the nib into the barrel though.
Still can’t handwrite for crap of course, as any fule kno.
At the risk of repeating what I wrote on the linked blog, you anti-handwriting folk are missing the point. I’m glad I’m not in a relationship with any of you! Receiving love letters, sorry/condolence notes and the like in 12 pt new roman. What a narrow aesthetic and technologism …
And I suppose you text each other shopping lists (hanging the expense and time) rather than writing them on an envelope, LEGIBLY (which was the point the Age piece was trying to make - a point just as pragmatic and functional as the points made against it).
The average person can, with practice…
Think at up to 500 words per minute.
Talk at ~200 words per minute.
Type at 70 words per minute.
Write longhand at 15 words per minute.
Who are these people trying to dumb down our education system by forcing kids to write by hand?
Graeme says: “you anti-handwriting folk are missing the point”. I haven’t missed your point Graeme, I just disagree with it. The preference for dead squid blood on paper rather than the use of a printer is a conditioned one. It expresses no less love to type a note than to write it. I am afraid you are a victim of your age!
… but I still scrawl (illegibly) my shopping list on the back of the old envelope.
Went on longer n’ that. I was forced to write right-handed. No cane. Just a lot of screaming.
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I’m not sure about this handwriting palava. I think people should learn how to write with their hands and do all sorts of other things to. I kinda think you’re leaving someone short if they’re useless without their laptop.
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Computers also cover up all sorts of sloppiness and lacks of skill. I designed a graphic course once. You’re not allowed near a computer in the first semester.
Kevin Brady types: “It expresses no less love to type a note than to write it. I am afraid you are a victim of your age!” …. but look at Mercurius just above you:
“Type at 70 words per minute.
Write longhand at 15 words per minute”
When you write (carefully) you’re deliberately giving more of your time to the person. Handwriting style is unique and when I get letters from friends I not only get the news, and hear their voice, I ’see’ them, in their handwriting too.
Kevin you might be a victim of your age! Maybe when you’re older and you’re older relatives are dead, you’ll come across, tossed in a drawer years ago, a birthday card from your mother: “Happy Birthday Kevin, Love Mum” in her distinctive handwriting. It’s very different from anything typed.
Handwriting is another way of presenting yourself to the world - you could just get out of bed and go out into the world in crumpled clothes and with unbrushed hair, you can have illegible handwriting - but handwriting that looks good is an accomplishment.
j-p-z [15]:
Like it. She was using her time purposefully. L=O=L
David [16]:
Had the delight of learning to use a steel-nibbed pen and bottled ink when I was a kid; never forced, thank goodness; so I still enjoy handwriting today though I usually print out of ingrained professional habit.
Down and Out of Sai-gon [20]:
You are absolutely right about the Vietnamese and their beautiful handwriting - we must seem as writing cripples to them. I recall they would embellish a mundane typed document with little artistic touches too.
Feral Sparrowhawk, thank you for sparing me the pain of your handwriting. Reading student handwriting in large quantities is indeed torture.
While I’m mildly sceptical about graphology (though as someone’s said, it’s commonsense that one can deduce extreme emotional states from handwriting), I think it would be a terrible shame to lose the power of personal presence that is inherent in handwriting. I wrote a whole post about this early in my blogging career.
I am convinced that neither my spouse nor my offspring (all educated here in Australia) can write by hand legibly due to the quality of direction given by the state education department on the many styles and frequent changes of handwriting scripts taught in primary school in their first few years of exposure to the art of writing.
Even drawing on rusty calligraphy skills, I found it difficult to make those “scripts” either elegant or legible. Thank goodness they all learned to type!
I’ve got RSI so I’ll just link to a previous observation on this issue.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/28/caught-in-the-web/#comment-380662
Nabakov [31]:
Thank you for the link Good Sir; excellent comment.
Everyone:
1. It is very annoying to find that hand-written or hand-printed documents no matter how neat, legible, well-composed, relevant and whatever are either ignored or devalued by the government department to which they are sent.
I’m currently looking at a matter where the Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs manifestly skimmed over - without bothering to read properly - the very legible correspondence of a veteran who had neither computer nor typewriter …. yet fell for a load of codswallop churned out by word processor from another party in the matter. Sadly, this problem is probably not confined to one government department.
2. Keyboard skills are great. Every schoolkid should learn them but …. But how are you going to cope with The Great Unlearning in the not-too-distant future when the horrible QWERTY keyboard is finally thrown out? …. And don’t schoolkids have the right to learn alternative and very widely used operating systems too?
when the horrible QWERTY keyboard is finally thrown out
Dream on. I have fantasised about going dvorak on many occasions, but it’ll NEVER happen.
As for ‘gov’t departments’, you should know that’s rubbish, ‘departments’ don’t have views about handwriting, people do. Sounds terrible but not too surprising that a person would ignore a letter because it didn’t fit with some neat preconceptions, but it isn’t just limited to whether it’s handwritten or not.
Exactly! My version of MS Word has Fiolex Girls which is a much better font for this sort of thing.
Spent time in archives reading letters of correspondence from scientists and bureaucrats. Some appalling handwriting, but it flowed. They were in a hurry - had lots to say and limited time.
Calligraphy is a beautiful thing though, worth learning by those with the inclination. Communication as art.
Good handwriting suggests to the other person that you care enough to communicate clearly, and important part of social intercourse. Tho’ bad handwriting does not mean you’re a bad person …
But the argument that poor handwriting is a sign of lapsing edumacation standards is of course bunkum (channelled from Ferdinand von Mueller, 19th century Victorian botanist, champion letter writer and master of the sprawling copperplate (Arachnascriptus blotto)).
Question for those who say they have crappy writing - how are your drawing skills?
I’m thinking along the lines of writing being a low level drawing skill. No-one would ever suggest an inability to draw well reflected “lapsing edumacation standards”.
Well, Pollytickedoff,
I actually would suggest a lack of drawing skills are a sign of lapsed educational standards. Mid last century we were taught art compulsorily in primary school, and expected to be able to draw insects, plants, flowers in Botany Books. (I’m not sure if they still exist today.) And surely botanists, biologists and certainly archaeologists, require drawing skills that they have to use in the field.
Or is it all done by computer nowadays, when you get back to the office?
The only drawing I do is with a gun. Yeeeeeha!
I’d like to challenge the person who claimed another was showing their age because they prefer the uniqueness of notes, cards etc written by hand. I’m 26 and I think handwriting is a lovely thing in that regard. One example… about two years after a friend died (he was a year younger than me, and he died just before turning 21), I came across a message he wrote me in my 21st birthday card (you know those great giant novelty ones). Just tucked in amongst everyone else’s messages. Nothing profound. But it made me so happy to find it. It’s just one more little very tangible thing that reminds me he was around.
I really don’t understand the fuss about all this. Excellent idea to embrace technology, even use computers for exams if you can do the infrastructure - but surely handwriting is a useful, basic everyday skill for little lists, notes, etc? I mean what do you do if the power dies and your laptop can’t go on? What do you do if you live in a less-developed country than Australia? Seems silly to me.
I draw and paint quite well, although it will never happen professionally. My hand writing is atrocious. I blame the French.
On the other hand, I use a tablet pc for work and it recognises my cursive far better than printing. I use it mainly for diagrams, but also tend to scribble across slides and make margin comments in documents.
It’s best feature for a frequent flyer is the program that lets you write music freehand then play back 6 instruments at once
Worth it just for that.
Wilful [33]:
Alright then, does “arrogant, lazy, ignorant officials IN government departments” sound better?
Once an attitude - in this case, placing a lower value on what is hand-written as against what is printed - becomes entrenched in a corporate culture, nothing will ever shift it.
Not a really a bright idea to be so dismissive of what happened to this particular veteran though.
Somehow, I think the problem is a lot more common than might be supposed. Wonder if something similar has an adverse effect on students’ results at university?
I’d imagine most of it could just be done with digital cameras and more advanced tools which allow you to very quickly generate 3D models of even large areas using lasers (and a computer). Of course if you run out of power you’re stuffed.
But isn’t this mostly just about making sure the basics are taught? Eg teaching kids how to add/subtract/multiply/divide manually before allowing calculators to be used? And as is pointed out in the article and comments - many exams are still down by hand so if you can’t write vaguely legibly fast for long periods of time you’re going to be at a disadvantage.
This depends on the content of what you may have illegibly scrawled with your unsharpened pencil. Markers will tend to respond to this sort of thing by going glassy-eyed and awarding something like the average mark. If what you’ve written is seriously good you’ll be disadvantaged. On the other hand if you’ve written nonsense it may be in your best interests if the marker isn’t able to discern that it’s nonsense.
My drawing is atrocious too, and I agree that handwriting is pretty much a specialised form of drawing. It is just that no one ever said my inability to draw would harm my life.
I agree elegant handwriting is a thing of beauty. The world would be a poorer place without Arthur Stace’s Eternities. I’d rather receive a love letter in good handwriting than typed.
But the thing is that not everyone can do this, no matter how hard they are taught. The world would be a poorer place without John William’s guitar playing, and I’d rather have someone play me a love song by hand than almost any other form of expression. Does this mean that every person needs to learn to play the guitar, and must keep going to be merely moderately bad even after they’ve shown they have neither aptitude nor liking for it? Of course not.
Once handwriting was the indispensible skill. Now it is just another art like many others.