Computing is killing cursive writing
Friday, October 13th, 2006
The Handwriting Is on the Wall
The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it’s threatening to finish off longhand.
As a person with both dyslexia and dysgraphia, I can’t complain. Handwriting is not one of my strong suits nor has it every allowed me to express the complexity of my thinking. Not that it should die off, but I I’m delighted to see it being diminished.
(Source kottke.org remaindered links.)
Wow. You know, I’ve never been a big fan of math (I don’t like being told there’s only one or two ways to do anything), but does that mean I think it should be eliminated? I’ve never understood people who have difficulty with something thinking we should do away with it no matter how many other people find it fun or useful. Neither you nor Kate Gladstone will EVER take my pens and paper from me. I’ll smack you with your own computer first.
Chris: I’m not asking you to give up your pens and paper, just don’t force me to write with them.
So Richard thinks I want to take away his pens and paper … why would I want to do *that*? I give handwriting lessons for a living — check out my web-site!
Kate Gladstone - http://learn.to/handwrite
Oh, sorry — Chris, not Richard, thinks I hate pens and paper! Richard, don’t worry: I don’t force anyone to write by hand who does not want to. (I have, though, seen a number of clients who came to me because they bought a TabletPC and discovered that their scrawls “did not compute.”)
Kate, as I said and you said, it’s not one or the other it’s both. Of course, if someone wants better handwriting they come to you, problem maybe solved. But, if someone is facile with a keyboad and wants to put handwriting on the back burner for a whle, or forever, well, that’s a choice they ought to be free to make.
I know the pain and frustration of not being able to write legibly and fast enough to really use handwriting as a tool for expression. And, i’ts not because I didn’t have my handwriting remediated for years, I did.
In the end, handwriting and keyboards are only a means to another, more important end: personal expression with language. If someone wants to tralk to their computer and eliminate both, fine by me (if they can pull it off).