4 ms·

This was, without a doubt, one of the dumbest articles I've read on HN in a long time. I wish I had better handwriting, and I don't think I've ever met anyone

This was, without a doubt, one of the dumbest articles I've read on HN in a long time. I wish I had better handwriting, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who wish they wrote less clearly.

whacked_new 18y ago
Agreed! A third grade kid who confuses the direction of the hook of a 'G' when writing it himself does not indicate that writing is obsolete. It indicates a failure of parenting. Now I wonder if this sort of article should be tolerated simply because it generates discussion...
- queensnake 18y ago
  He might be dyslexic or something. She's got a point.
  - michael_dorfman 18y ago
    He's dyslexic, therefore schools shouldn't teach handwriting? Care to fill out the missing steps in the syllogism, to make the "point" you think she's got?
  - whacked_new 18y ago
    I did consider the case of being dyslexic, in which case he wouldn't just have a problem with handwriting, but also with reading and writing in general, regardless of medium. At the age of 8 or 9, you'd expect the kid to already have it diagnosed and actions taken. But you made me re-read the article (actually the middle three paragraphs, which I skipped because the intro and final paragraphs weren't interesting). Fair enough -- she has a point. It could be about cursive, stupid teachers, bad curricula, schooling, or just handwriting in general. Not sure which, and that the title is incendiary and that she stated her profession in the intro just doesn't do it for me. I admit my comment was untamed though.
    - timcederman 18y ago
      The arguing from authority really bugged me too, and as such I also skipped the same stuff...
robg 18y ago
And yet, this is an "intelligent" reply? If handwriting is still being taught in schools, it's being extremely overvalued. When's the last time a kindergartner, or any elementary student for that matter, was required to take a typing class? And yet, those students learn to type at a passable level. Teach touch typing instead. The children will learn the same fine motor skills but with something that will be much more important throughout the rest of their lives. They'll pick up handwriting as necessary, but public education shouldn't hand out grades and devote significant resources to its teaching.
- anoved 18y ago
  I went to a public school in NY. We had a weekly touch typing class in 5th grade (during the mid nineties). It wasn't rigorous enough to make great typists out of us, but it provided a decent foundation for keyboarding electives in middle school and high school.
  - robg 18y ago
    This is exacly my point. A 5th grade typing class that meets weekly and electives down the line? But daily handwriting classes in kindergarten and 1st grade and often probably later? That seems very backward to me.
    - Zev 18y ago
      To counter with my own anecdote, I went to school in NY and had a required typing class in 7th grade. Then more electives if I wanted to take them in HS. We had writing in Kindergarden/1st/2nd grade. Which doubled as English lessons (expanding vocabulary, etc). And learning how to read as well. Maybe I was just lucky enough to have good teachers, but I assume that it was done intentionally. Never writing "cat" over and over until the "c" was perfect, but finding different words that have a "c" and writing those instead.
      - robg 18y ago
        Again, I see exactly zero harm but plenty of benefits by swapping that ordering of typing and handwriting - typing in kindergarten and 1st grade and handwriting in 7th grade. And that wouldn't change the reading or English lessons. Indeed, it would enrich them. (Think of typing 's' and hearing the sound it makes. Then 'sh'. Then 'shi'. etc.)
axod 18y ago
I write something maybe once a year. Maybe once a week I have to sign something. Sure it's a useful thing to be able to do, like speaking a foreign language, but it's no longer a necessity in many working lives. Teaching typing to kids would be far more useful once they can write well enough to get by. Spending ages on getting lovely neat joined up writing seems a bit of a waste these days.
- vixen99 18y ago
  This is masterful! A recommendation for the education of kids in general based on your personal experience. I'm hereafter speechless and agree with others that the submission did not deserve exposure on HN.
  - axod 18y ago
    Please list a few professions which still require a high level of penmanship/calligraphy. Most professions have long since moved from filling out paperwork, to typing. It would make sense to reflect that when we educate our children. I have a few kids of my own, so this isn't just me imposing my own personal preference, this is me wanting the best for my own children. Having the best chance of getting a good job etc, and learning skills that will be the most use.
    - dasil003 18y ago
      Can you imagine the embarrassment of not being able to write a sentence on a piece of paper? The issue is not that everyone needs to have great penmanship, the issue is a basic fundamental skill that we all take for granted precisely because it was taught to us in school.
IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
A lot of the commenters here have brought up that you need handwriting in order to take notes, and that putting pen to paper has some meditative qualities that help flesh out ideas. I agree with both points, but neither one is a rational justification for requiring penmanship of students. I still take notes with pen and paper quite regularly. I can read my own chickenscratch just fine, even if no one else can. Who cares? In fact, while in college, I developed a sort of hyper-condensed personal shorthand, to the point that my notes are basically a code that only I'm fluent in. That was key, because it let me spend more time listening to the lecture and less time drawing fonts. To paraphrase pg, "terseness is what written language is FOR" ;) If anyone else has to read it, then you type it. Most of my teachers in high school and college required papers to be typed anyhow, and this is becoming much more common. It's only in elementary schools that we subject children to emotional abuse for their lack of calligraphy skills. As for the meditative qualities of putting pen to paper, that's still not an argument for requiring penmanship. Most of my "fleshing out ideas" writing looks more like a flowchart anyhow, usually with plenty of the aforementioned chickenscratch shorthand all over it. I don't wish I wrote less clearly. And I can write just fine if I do it slowly. It's just that my penmanship is almost entirely a purely personal activity, so as long as I can read it, there's no problem. We should teach kids to type fluently, think clearly, and draw script that they can read.
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  you need handwriting in order to take notes Nope. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295110 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295110 I was convinced to design a system so that I could actually pay attention in class and take good notes, as well as take notes during these important face-to-face conversations. So whenever somebody says something interesting, I can get it down unobtrusively, quickly, and actually then reuse those notes later on in further conversations. That's why I made a wearable computer. ... I went to a heads-up display. I could put the focus on the whiteboard, and suddenly I could keep up. And I found not only could I keep up and take good notes, especially with this one-handed Twiddler keyboard I have, but it actually focused my mental attention, so that during a lecture I got a whole lot more out of it than ever before. And that's why if you've ever seen me in a meeting or a lecture, you'll see me taking notes furiously on my wearable computer not just so I get it, but also because it keeps my attention focused. I can put in new ideas and new offshoots and things I want to ask later into the stream of data that I'm capturing. ... I also have a one-handed keyboard called a Twiddler. It has 12 keys on the front and six keys on the top. One of those keys is actually a joystick. It allows me to type up to 130 words per minute, though I maintain about 70 when I'm writing papers, that sort of thing. ... And this is the system I wear basically every day. Right now, if you looked at my screen, you would see that I have all the previous conversations I had with David here – one on 25 January 2006, one on 25 January 2007, and one 29 January 2008, today. So every time I've met with Gartner, I've kept notes on the conversation. This is the Twiddler: http://www.handykey.com http://www.handykey.com
axod 18y ago
I do wish my school had spent less time teaching me a skill I will never use. At my school I don't think there was even an option to learn to type. That seems a pretty large oversight given how often the average person in the workforce needs to type something out.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
froo 18y ago
I completely agree, I might be able to read a series of notes, but just because I'm no Yehudi Menuhin doesn't mean that we should stop appreciating music should we? It's a ludicrous argument, but given her next post it seems that this is her modus operandi.
netcan 18y ago
I wish I had better handwriting, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who wish they wrote less clearly. That is not a good enough reason. I don't know anyone who wishes they were was worse at the high jump. That's not a reason to devote more school resources to it. This is a question of priorities. There is not doubt that handwriting is now less important then it was 15 years ago. That should be reflected in the school curriculum. There's room for debate on the issue of how much.

This was, without a doubt, one of the dumbest articles I've read on HN in a long time. I wish I had better handwriting, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who wish they wrote less clearly.

whacked_new 18y ago

Agreed! A third grade kid who confuses the direction of the hook of a 'G' when writing it himself does not indicate that writing is obsolete. It indicates a failure of parenting. Now I wonder if this sort of article should be tolerated simply because it generates discussion...

queensnake 18y ago
He might be dyslexic or something. She's got a point.
- michael_dorfman 18y ago
  He's dyslexic, therefore schools shouldn't teach handwriting? Care to fill out the missing steps in the syllogism, to make the "point" you think she's got?
- whacked_new 18y ago
  I did consider the case of being dyslexic, in which case he wouldn't just have a problem with handwriting, but also with reading and writing in general, regardless of medium. At the age of 8 or 9, you'd expect the kid to already have it diagnosed and actions taken. But you made me re-read the article (actually the middle three paragraphs, which I skipped because the intro and final paragraphs weren't interesting). Fair enough -- she has a point. It could be about cursive, stupid teachers, bad curricula, schooling, or just handwriting in general. Not sure which, and that the title is incendiary and that she stated her profession in the intro just doesn't do it for me. I admit my comment was untamed though.
  - timcederman 18y ago
    The arguing from authority really bugged me too, and as such I also skipped the same stuff...

robg 18y ago

And yet, this is an "intelligent" reply? If handwriting is still being taught in schools, it's being extremely overvalued. When's the last time a kindergartner, or any elementary student for that matter, was required to take a typing class? And yet, those students learn to type at a passable level. Teach touch typing instead. The children will learn the same fine motor skills but with something that will be much more important throughout the rest of their lives. They'll pick up handwriting as necessary, but public education shouldn't hand out grades and devote significant resources to its teaching.

anoved 18y ago
I went to a public school in NY. We had a weekly touch typing class in 5th grade (during the mid nineties). It wasn't rigorous enough to make great typists out of us, but it provided a decent foundation for keyboarding electives in middle school and high school.
- robg 18y ago
  This is exacly my point. A 5th grade typing class that meets weekly and electives down the line? But daily handwriting classes in kindergarten and 1st grade and often probably later? That seems very backward to me.
  - Zev 18y ago
    To counter with my own anecdote, I went to school in NY and had a required typing class in 7th grade. Then more electives if I wanted to take them in HS. We had writing in Kindergarden/1st/2nd grade. Which doubled as English lessons (expanding vocabulary, etc). And learning how to read as well. Maybe I was just lucky enough to have good teachers, but I assume that it was done intentionally. Never writing "cat" over and over until the "c" was perfect, but finding different words that have a "c" and writing those instead.
    - robg 18y ago
      Again, I see exactly zero harm but plenty of benefits by swapping that ordering of typing and handwriting - typing in kindergarten and 1st grade and handwriting in 7th grade. And that wouldn't change the reading or English lessons. Indeed, it would enrich them. (Think of typing 's' and hearing the sound it makes. Then 'sh'. Then 'shi'. etc.)

axod 18y ago

I write something maybe once a year. Maybe once a week I have to sign something. Sure it's a useful thing to be able to do, like speaking a foreign language, but it's no longer a necessity in many working lives. Teaching typing to kids would be far more useful once they can write well enough to get by. Spending ages on getting lovely neat joined up writing seems a bit of a waste these days.

vixen99 18y ago
This is masterful! A recommendation for the education of kids in general based on your personal experience. I'm hereafter speechless and agree with others that the submission did not deserve exposure on HN.
- axod 18y ago
  Please list a few professions which still require a high level of penmanship/calligraphy. Most professions have long since moved from filling out paperwork, to typing. It would make sense to reflect that when we educate our children. I have a few kids of my own, so this isn't just me imposing my own personal preference, this is me wanting the best for my own children. Having the best chance of getting a good job etc, and learning skills that will be the most use.
  - dasil003 18y ago
    Can you imagine the embarrassment of not being able to write a sentence on a piece of paper? The issue is not that everyone needs to have great penmanship, the issue is a basic fundamental skill that we all take for granted precisely because it was taught to us in school.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago

A lot of the commenters here have brought up that you need handwriting in order to take notes, and that putting pen to paper has some meditative qualities that help flesh out ideas. I agree with both points, but neither one is a rational justification for requiring penmanship of students. I still take notes with pen and paper quite regularly. I can read my own chickenscratch just fine, even if no one else can. Who cares? In fact, while in college, I developed a sort of hyper-condensed personal shorthand, to the point that my notes are basically a code that only I'm fluent in. That was key, because it let me spend more time listening to the lecture and less time drawing fonts. To paraphrase pg, "terseness is what written language is FOR" ;) If anyone else has to read it, then you type it. Most of my teachers in high school and college required papers to be typed anyhow, and this is becoming much more common. It's only in elementary schools that we subject children to emotional abuse for their lack of calligraphy skills. As for the meditative qualities of putting pen to paper, that's still not an argument for requiring penmanship. Most of my "fleshing out ideas" writing looks more like a flowchart anyhow, usually with plenty of the aforementioned chickenscratch shorthand all over it. I don't wish I wrote less clearly. And I can write just fine if I do it slowly. It's just that my penmanship is almost entirely a purely personal activity, so as long as I can read it, there's no problem. We should teach kids to type fluently, think clearly, and draw script that they can read.

DabAsteroid 18y ago
you need handwriting in order to take notes Nope. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295110 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=295110 I was convinced to design a system so that I could actually pay attention in class and take good notes, as well as take notes during these important face-to-face conversations. So whenever somebody says something interesting, I can get it down unobtrusively, quickly, and actually then reuse those notes later on in further conversations. That's why I made a wearable computer. ... I went to a heads-up display. I could put the focus on the whiteboard, and suddenly I could keep up. And I found not only could I keep up and take good notes, especially with this one-handed Twiddler keyboard I have, but it actually focused my mental attention, so that during a lecture I got a whole lot more out of it than ever before. And that's why if you've ever seen me in a meeting or a lecture, you'll see me taking notes furiously on my wearable computer not just so I get it, but also because it keeps my attention focused. I can put in new ideas and new offshoots and things I want to ask later into the stream of data that I'm capturing. ... I also have a one-handed keyboard called a Twiddler. It has 12 keys on the front and six keys on the top. One of those keys is actually a joystick. It allows me to type up to 130 words per minute, though I maintain about 70 when I'm writing papers, that sort of thing. ... And this is the system I wear basically every day. Right now, if you looked at my screen, you would see that I have all the previous conversations I had with David here – one on 25 January 2006, one on 25 January 2007, and one 29 January 2008, today. So every time I've met with Gartner, I've kept notes on the conversation. This is the Twiddler: http://www.handykey.com http://www.handykey.com

axod 18y ago

I do wish my school had spent less time teaching me a skill I will never use. At my school I don't think there was even an option to learn to type. That seems a pretty large oversight given how often the average person in the workforce needs to type something out.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

froo 18y ago

I completely agree, I might be able to read a series of notes, but just because I'm no Yehudi Menuhin doesn't mean that we should stop appreciating music should we? It's a ludicrous argument, but given her next post it seems that this is her modus operandi.

netcan 18y ago

I wish I had better handwriting, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who wish they wrote less clearly. That is not a good enough reason. I don't know anyone who wishes they were was worse at the high jump. That's not a reason to devote more school resources to it. This is a question of priorities. There is not doubt that handwriting is now less important then it was 15 years ago. That should be reflected in the school curriculum. There's room for debate on the issue of how much.