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Handwriting is one of those things I seem to have an argument with my son (he’s 10). And it isn’t about him having that specific skill. But it’s about having a

by atonse 3y ago

Handwriting is one of those things I seem to have an argument with my son (he’s 10). And it isn’t about him having that specific skill. But it’s about having a sense of pride in your work and not half-assing things. But my wife and I struggle to get anyone to agree with us. The teachers don’t seem to care (which my son is happy to relay to me). Other parents say why bother, it’s an outdated skill (I actually disagree, even though my handwriting is often bad from lack of practice, when I do fill up forms by hand, I understand the importance of legibility). But again, to me it is symptomatic of a larger issue where I feel that more and more, kids are not taught to have a sense or standard in the quality of their work and improve upon it, regardless of the particular skill. I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. It was about having pride in your work. Am I alone in this? Looking for a good counterpoint.

toxik 3y ago
It is a well-established fact that the mechanical act of handwriting notes is good for memorization. Perhaps it is meditative, perhaps we're just physical beings -- whatever it is, typewriting on a computer is not as good. A famous man whose name I forget once said "Plans are useless, planning is indispensable," and I would like to paraphrase it as "notes are useless, note-taking is indispensable."
- brtkdotse 3y ago
  > "notes are useless, note-taking is indispensable." This is very, very true for me. I read, optimistically, 5% of my notes. As a corollary, I’m unable to take notes if the notepad is too fancy. I get analysis paralysis from something like a moleskine, like something this nice deserves nicely formatted notes. Only cheapo gas station notpads work for me.
  - throw1234651234 3y ago
    haha college-ruled exam workbooks for me. Basic as can be.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    Are you good at planning tho? Given we are at software engineering forum where most of us likely use ticket tracking system which are basically fancy notes... I feel your statement is disingenuous.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  This is not at all a well-established fact. There's one questionable study on this topic that used to go viral occassionally, and that's it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'd add that, as someone who does articles about events and the like, it's much more efficient for me to be able to cut/paste/edit from typed material than to transcribe from my abbreviated and hard to read scrawls.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  This is entirely false for me. Writing takes up all of my concentration, and I literally do not hear what the person is saying next while I'm writing down what they just said.
kranke155 3y ago
There’s plenty of scientific evidence that handwriting is good for you https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-memory https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-memory
brtkdotse 3y ago
> I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. I’d like to counter with “perfect is the enemy of good”. Knowing when to half-ass something can be a skill in of itself.
- jameshart 3y ago
  I think your second sentence needed a verb. This would be a case where half-assing it did not.
  - brtkdotse 3y ago
    Wrong tense. Chalking it up on English being my third language :)
  - harry8 3y ago
    I think I understand op, there was an 'and' missing that seems obvious? Was it edited? Yours I do not understand. > This would be a case where half-assing it did not. Did not what? Did that woosh over my head?
    - jameshart 3y ago
      Op edited. Originally read > Knowing when half-assing something can be a skill in of itself.
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  I don't read this as a counter as the skill you mention is in full alignment with the grandfathers advice.
Waterluvian 3y ago
I don’t think you’re alone. And I appreciate your arguments. They’re valid, even if I disagree. My perspective is that there is an ever growing wealth of knowledge and skills and only so much time in the day. We see this conflict in some hardcore parents who sign their kids up for an entire childhood of studies. I think it’s deeply important to have pride in your work and to do it carefully, patiently, methodically. I’m not sure this must be practiced with any specific skill. I think doctors are an example of how this can be at odds with reality. Do they not take pride in their work, or do they have just so much to study that they cannot afford the expense? I think it’s also important to identify that this discussion often conflates two things: cursive handwriting and legible printing. I believe schools still endeavour to teach kids to print legibly.
- atonse 3y ago
  Good point that there has to be some kind of decision about each skill. I should clarify I am not asking for us to be great at every single thing. But at least have that debate in your head. Is this a skill I want to put time into improving? And “nobody else cares” shouldn’t be a _major_ part of that argument. Our school doesn’t teach them to print legibly. That’s my point. I’ve seen his homework and sometimes it borders on illegible.
  - ck425 3y ago
    > And “nobody else cares” shouldn’t be a _major_ part of that argument. I disagree. Nobody else caring is a strong indication the skill isn't that valuable. If nobody else cares and he can't see a reason to care himself then why would he decide it's a skill he wants to put time into improving? Tbh it sounds like your son has considered the merits and decided it's not a skill worth working on. You just disagree.
    - david38 3y ago
      Agreed. I have limited time in my day. If I spent too much on things nobody else cared about, I would be wasting a lot of time. This would translate to other more important tasks not getting done.
WillAdams 3y ago
No, that seems to be the prevailing viewpoint, which I find sad. Powerful argument for Sloyd Woodworking instruction coming back to schools: https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techniques/sloyd/ https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techni... >Students may never pick up a tool again, but they will forever have the knowledge of how to make and evaluate things with your hand and your eye and appreciate the labor of others See my other post in this discussion for a link to Kate Gladstone's site and as well as SE Briem's list of calligraphy texts. A touchstone for me on this is John Quincy Adams' translation of Wieland's Oberon: https://www.jstor.org/stable/458794 https://www.jstor.org/stable/458794 which it is well worth finding a facsimile copy of. Or see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21860485@N06/albums/72157641139333033 https://www.flickr.com/photos/21860485@N06/albums/7215764113... One thing to try, would be to have the child write thank you notes.
- lukego 3y ago
  My third-grader here in digital Sweden started "Sloyd" woodworking class this month. Thanks for sharing these links. The kids all have their own iPads in the classroom but they seem to be used very sparingly, mostly for extra drills occupying kids who finish their handwriting-heavy schoolwork early.
astura 3y ago
>kids are not taught to have a sense or standard in the quality of their work and improve upon it, regardless of the particular skill. I'm over 40 and I was never taught that- not at school and certainly not at home.
- atonse 3y ago
  Maybe I’m mostly remembering my grandpa haha. We were penalized for untidy work in school though. That was my early years in India.
sebzim4500 3y ago
>I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. It was about having pride in your work. You aren't alone, but I think this is terrible advice. You should figure out what you want to do and find the best way to do it. The best way will probably involve half-assing a lot of stuff, since you only have a finite amount of time/energy. I had a teacher at school who used to say "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing properly", but he mainly said it about things that weren't worth doing.
- harry8 3y ago
  > "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing properly" Big life lesson for me was "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing poorly" Even if it's more worthwhile doing it a little better (and once done poorly you can work toward that if it makes sense).
  - owenmarshall 3y ago
    I always liked this quote on officers which has been attributed to dozens of different generals throughout history: > I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage. I try to be clever and lazy in all things :-)
    - theonething 3y ago
      This never made sense to me. Being intelligent and hard working is (to me) obviously better than being intelligent and lazy. The latter just thinks great thoughts, but does nothing about them.
kqr 3y ago
I have recently seen some children work out things (mechanics, strategies, communication) to perfection in video games. They are incredibly perceptive critics of their own and other's performance. They are probably much better than your grandfather at both game and meta-game, because they are standing on the shoulders of slightly larger people. They are familiar with the conventions and input methods and community and thus have a base understanding that few older people do.
- atonse 3y ago
  Funny I used to use this argument when people used to complain to me about video games. They can be incredibly complex and utilize your brain in amazing ways. And I actually have zero issues with him playing video games. The sports ones involve building your team, trading players, etc. That's all pretty complex stuff.
marcinzm 3y ago
>But again, to me it is symptomatic of a larger issue where I feel that more and more, kids are not taught to have a sense or standard in the quality of their work and improve upon it, regardless of the particular skill. You mean so they can work 60 hours for a mediocre salary with little upwards mobility that won't even let them buy a house anymore while sinking in student debt? Knowing when work for the sake of work is a waste of your life is a very important skill now that you can't walk into a random company Monday morning and come out with a job
anon____ 3y ago
Calligraphy is an art form. The good thing about art is that you can't argue with it. Practice for the beauty!
stanrivers 3y ago
I think there is something very different about handwriting than typing. Like, listen to a lecture and write notes on a pad, and then go to the lecture the next day and type them on a computer. Then, wait a week, and take a test without reviewing anything. My money, based on my experience, is on you better remembering the handwritten notes. I think this is because you cannot write as fast as you type, so you have to hear, think about what is important, and summarize when handwriting. When typing, you can get almost all the words someone says typed out. So you switch to "hear-to-type" mode without thinking. So, I think it is important for learning to have that skill. I think it is better in the real world too, for some use cases. If I am in a meeting with a counterparty, I take hand written notes. I rarely look at the notes after. Why? I remember what we talked about. I used to bring a computer and type out notes - and I still do if I need perfect information to reference later - but when I do that, my notes take the place of my memory. It seems more efficient to handwrite my notes and have my memory be my memory instead.
- whatisyour 3y ago
  Research has shown that writing notes by hand leads to better retention than typing even if the notes are never read in the future. However, given that writing is just 7000 years old, I'm not sure how long will it take before typing to become the more natural skill (if typing does last for 7000 years that is)
- vkou 3y ago
  Or, better yet, why not actually prepare for the test, by doing the reading, and the homework? Notes are an incredibly poor substitute for putting in the actual work of learning.
kenoh 3y ago
45 here. I certainly didn't and don't appreciate the fact that I spent hours on Saturdays improving my cursive during early education because my writing was horrible unless I took too long to do it. I envy the younger generations.
linuxftw 3y ago
I hated writing as a kid. I think part of the problem was that my thoughts were much faster than my pen, so I by default wrote as fast as I could. If I tried to write more legibly, my writing would still look poor compared to many others, and I'd have to slow to a fraction of the speed, so why bother? For instance, whenever I have to write my email address on a form (you know, it has to be perfectly legible or you won't receive your email), and half the letters still look like trash.
ck425 3y ago
> And it isn’t about him having that specific skill. But it’s about having a sense of pride in your work and not half-assing things. Maybe you'd have more luck teaching him the latter if you focused on skills/work that are clearly useful. Or useful to him atleast even if you disagree that handwriting is outdated. Take pride in your work and doing it well is a useful lesson (and unfortunately not something I'm great at personally) but if he doesn't see any value in that specific work he'll never even comprehend the difference between work done well and work half-assed, never mind strive for it. All he see's is you asking him to put more effort into a pointless activity. I reckon this is one of the reasons that sports and arts are relatively successful at teaching kids life skills like discipline. It's easier for kids to see the immediate value of being good at those than other skills, so their more motivated and lessons stick.
- atonse 3y ago
  Good points. I am getting a solid smacking and lectures from HackerNews (the kind I often dole out) but appreciate the input from all of you. I know my son especially will. Well, he IS obsessed with Soccer.
  - ck425 3y ago
    I always hated football myself but if he's into it look up the stories many coaches/managers tell of how they recognised future top players early on because of their discipline/work ethic. Those might inspire him more.
jbd0 3y ago
Your son could have dysgraphia. My son (14, homeschooled) struggles with writing, and it was hard to not think of his poor writing as a result of him being lazy or not caring. We purchased some material from Dianne Craft to help with his dysgraphia: https://diannecraft.org/dysgraphia-what-is-dysgraphia/ https://diannecraft.org/dysgraphia-what-is-dysgraphia/ The exercises definitely helped.
DharmaPolice 3y ago
This is my own personal bias talking here but I think handwriting might be a poor subject to teach the wider lesson of taking pride in your work. My hand writing has always been terrible. It was a big deal 30 years ago (when I was at school) - it's not really been an issue since. But it's not whether it's outdated or not, it's just not something which easily improves with practice (at least, in my experience). Even when I spent a lot of time and energy trying to slowly draw individual letters the end result was still messy. My problem was exacerbated because I sat next to a kid who was a great artist. He used to draw comic strips (at age 9-10) and the lettering looked professional (at least to my eyes). Yes if I had spent an enormous amount of time and effort I could have improved my handwriting but I don't think I'd ever be able to produce 1/5th the quality of what he did. My hand just wasn't (and isn't) that steady. With other subjects you can spend a lot less time and improve quality a lot easier and faster. With something like code layout it's much easier to brute force tidiness in a way that just isn't possible with handwriting (or drawing).
tootie 3y ago
I don't think it's a generational thing. I think it varies by family. Neither my parents nor grandparents really pushed that kind of message even though they were very focused on education. My family is Jewish-American and still have strong cultural memory of being deliberately excluded from opportunities despite effort. I absorbed it as a dual mandate to learn as much as possible and to play whatever game the schools needed you to play to get recognition. I also had terrible handwriting despite tons of experience. Meanwhile I knew kids who wrote like typewriters from the 4th grade just due to natural talent.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
>I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. It was about having pride in your work. This seems fairly contradictory to me. He's not choosing to do it, he's forced to learn some outdated skill. Let him excel in some useful skill, like mathematics.
sparrowInHand 3y ago
I think your focus on kaligraphy is damaging to the lesson. You should pick something your son values, and teach him to drive it to perfection. Then watch him getting annoyed when you half-ass it in front of him. All education is a crude attempt at telepathy and while repeated confrontation can transport the value you place upon a thing, it does not make it intrinsic. Also skills are filtered for right to exist every generation. Skills become value less is a normal and even healthy thing.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  it's a child. By definition it doesn't know what it values. This has seemingly been forgotten but parents have a mentorship and guiding role. Their job is to cultivate in their children interest in activities in the first place. When I was young I hated that my parents made me learn an instrument, because I wanted to play video games and eat ice cream all day. As an adult (who became a part time musician) I understand the value of it. "do what your son wants' gets you children raised on an ipad with no education in the arts.
  - gizmondo 3y ago
    When I was young I hated that my parents made me learn an instrument. As an adult I still hate that they did that, there is no value in it for me. There are parents that pursue their own interests through their kids (who often can't resist), I find that objectionable.
    - sparrowInHand 3y ago
      It also destroys the ability to be intrinsic passionate and feel like you have control over your own life and actions. Its a horrible way to create people that are ideal sustinance for the societal apparatus, but bad when it comes to act in there own self-interest. Which is why you want to work with whatever fascinates the little person. The world is filled with no backbone- will broken, sub-servient peasants already.
tomjen3 3y ago
Counterpoint: Pareto principle. For 20% of effort you get 80% of results, so you are better of 1/5ing-assing 2 things for a total of less than half the effort and more than 50% more gains. Your grandfathers advice might have been sane back in the day when you could only do one or two things and so quickly hit diminishing returns, but today it does not matter greatly. More emotional argument. What do you call the person who does more than they get rewarded for (over a long time?): a sucker. And who wants to be a sucker?
- mongol 3y ago
  I once saw a documentary about Nelson Mandela. When he read a newspaper he was very careful to line up the pages and to crease the paper so it was straight and had even corners between the different pages. He did not half-ass the act of turning pages in a newspaper. It seemed like such a waste of time. How much less must he have had time to read, wasting time to turn pages like that? On the other hand he had an incredible reputation and was admired as a leader across the world. Perhaps his attention to detail mattered even when it seemed like a waste.
  - tomjen3 3y ago
    He spent twenty years in a prison. I imagine it was a habit left over from then. A slightly detrimental one, but obviously not one that set him back too much.
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    Sounds like just typical OCD. Some people have to line up their notepaper and pen perfectly parallel on the desk before they're mentally able to continue past that point.
Zelphyr 3y ago
My kids have gone to a Montessori school since pre-K and those schools teach handwriting. It's not done because of how much or little the student will use that handwriting later in life but more because, early on, it helps develop fine motor skills. Now that they're in high school, my daughter has excellent penmanship. My son... not so much. :) But! He can do it.
- gizmondo 3y ago
  An alternative hypothesis is that it's done because it has always been done, and the fine motor skills thing is merely an attempt to rationalize this practice.
sneak 3y ago
By this logic, should not schools teach calligraphy?
- floren 3y ago
  Sure, why not?
  - sneak 3y ago
    Because it's a waste of time in an age where we have machines that can do a much better job? The same reason we don't wash clothes on a washboard in a river anymore? Teaching how to make pretty smudges on dead trees to store and communicate information is in the exact same bucket, to me. It's a an utterly useless and wasteful anachronism, like mechanical watchmaking or praying. Given that we have limited time, energy, and budget to educate children, it is actively harmful to their future.
    - floren 3y ago
      Why teach them to write at all? Why teach arithmetic, just hand them a calculator. Why teach poetry? Why teach history -- if they need to know it, they can look on Wikipedia. Why offer band class, will it help you write tighter Javascript?
    - morpheuskafka 3y ago
      It's often faster to write down notes while listening than type them out, and you can make quick graphs/tables/etc without formatting hassles. Especially if you would be using a phone and not a real keyboard. That's why police always carry those little notebooks in their pocket. Additionally, there are many cases where it's possible to type and print something, but faster to just write it. Ex. writing the address on an envelope rather than making one in Word and trying to remember which way the envelopes go into the printer (which inexplicably is the opposite of the picture on the tray).
      - sneak 3y ago
iepathos 3y ago
Depends what profession you end up pursuing. If your son pursues computer science then likely never need to use handwriting ever again. As a 10+ year software engineer I've never needed to handwrite anything professionally, not once. Personally, still like to do the occasional handwritten card or letter for friends and family.
- natoliniak 3y ago
  > not once not even on a white board?
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Mostly don't even use those these days--basically never in an office. Collaborative docs are more common. I mean you need basic at least somewhat legible printing but that's probably fine for a lot of things these days. Handwriting was always my worst grade in elementary school and don't really know Palmer script any longer.
  - eichin 3y ago
    Also turns out to be a different skill. (My old school printing is fine, my old school cursive was pretty much gone by day one of college, chalkboards are almost always slow block-printing - so when I started using whiteboards, it was all cursive patterns that were unreadable and mostly served as a vague reminder to the audience of what I said when I was scribbling over there.) About 5 years ago I was inspired by a friend casually doing some amazing whiteboard art at work, and ended up trying a more calligraphic approach (not fancy gothic patterns, just that kind of intent/attention.) A lot slower, but a bunch of coworkers privately requested that I keep up the new approach...
gumby 3y ago
My son was in a school that taught English via immersion (they hired English teachers who couldn't even speak any German). Starting with grade 1 the kids wrote exclusively with fountain pens, and were marked early on on penmanship. Except in English, where they were allowed to write with pencils or biros so of course they did because it was a change, and the teachers didn't seem to care about penmanship at all. Two decades later his writing with a fountain pen in any language is as clear as a bell, while anything else results in a scrawl. I don't believe it's because the tool is superior in some way, I think it's simply the attention to detail got wired in. == An amusing nerd side point: In grade 1 they learnt a letter a week, and from that were reading by xmas. To avoid confusing the kids, English was supposed to use "German letterforms" but really they are pretty much the same! Anyway the funny thing is that in English they start the first week with "A" (Apple, Ant), then "B" (Banana, Buffalo) and so on. German was taught in the alphabetic frequency order: "E" (Elefant), then "N" (Nase), "I" (Igel) and so on. Disappointingly, Christmas came before they got to ß as I was curious what they would do (no word starts with it).
rgblambda 3y ago
Everything I do in my work (Software Engineering) is about just getting it done/ getting v1.0 over the line. Not my choice, but leadership don't seem to care about things being done well so long as they're done.
hangonhn 3y ago
Rather than argue about this, perhaps it may be better to see if you can get your son to be interested in practicing calligraphy, where the whole point of the exercise is to write in beautiful way. Otherwise, you're trying to win an argument about something that is often tangential to another goal. You and I both have terrible handwriting. In my life, it hasn't been a hindrance to my work as a software engineer so maybe your son has a point. However, I do agree that doing things well has merit but maybe reframing it will get you farther along this goal. And lastly, maybe you can achieve the same goal through other means? Perhaps in playing an instrument or practicing some other skill. I think the value you want to teach your son is practicing something and doing it well. It doesn't need to be handwriting.
balfirevic 3y ago
You one-sidedly pick a skill for someone else, that they don't enjoy and don't find useful and that you can't reasonably justify as being useful. Then you insist that they do it well. But that's not enough - you also insist that they have to want to do it well. Which you also can't justify, other than very abstractly, by insisting that everything they do - including things they didn't choose themselves, don't care about, don't find useful and won't actually find useful - they should want to do well. I'd be more worried for someone who didn't find that preposterous.
- bazooka 3y ago
  Being able to hold a pen in your hand and write a note that looks legible is a fundamental skill. One should be able to write a message on a card that does not make the recipient want to puke or at least wonder if whether the author survived what looks like an obvious stroke. It’s a matter of self respect.
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    A self respecting person would type anything meant to be read. You sign your name and that’s it.
    - one_level_deep2 3y ago
      [dead]
    - _glass 3y ago
      But how is it working for exams, they are not digital here in Germany. And I had the most problems in my life at university because of my bad handwriting. Especially when nervous I had to do so many exams involving a lot of writing, which was horrendous. But I am also left-handed, forced to write right-handed in elementary school. After my Bachelor's I started to write left-handed. What a relief. But really, exams are the only reason I think it is still important to have a good handwriting. Nowadays at work I need it for white-boarding. Where even a good skill in sketching is useful.
  - 3y ago
vkou 3y ago
> Looking for a good counterpoint. You only have a limited number of hours in life to devote to acquiring mastery, and there's a nearly unlimited number of subjects that are worth mastering. Instead of trying to be good at everything you're doing, decide what you're going to be good at, what you're going to outsource and half-ass, and work towards being good at the former, while getting by/paying other people to do with the latter. You need to take pride in something, but you're fooling yourself if you think you can do everything well - or that its a good investment of your time. Maybe instead of forcing him to become an expert at a skill with incredibly poor return on investment, you should drive him towards becoming an expert at... Writing.
YeBanKo 3y ago
Handwriting is like drawing or music. Do you absolutely need it? No. But it is another mode of operation, that develops brain. Arguably, reading and writing/typing may become obsolete with next decade or two, thanks to voice interface enhanced by NN models.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I doubt that reading/writing/typing will be replaced by speech. You simply can't speak or listen anywhere near as fast as you can do any of those things.
orochimaaru 3y ago
I have a good hand and enjoy writing with the gel 0.5. Cursive was drilled into me as a child. I will still take notes and write my thoughts out on paper. It somehow manages to provide me focus and shut out distractions. It’s also a space I can do a lot of free form thinking and tie things together. Assists shouldn’t be given at an early age. I believe they are counter productive. Another example. We never used calculators till 11th grade. All calculations had to be done by hand. I can still quickly approximate to know if numbers are in the ballpark.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Teachers don't care about handwriting anymore because handwriting is not part of standardized testing, and that is how schools and teachers are evaluated now.
biggoodwolf 3y ago
I went to the top private school in my country Cursive handwriting was not optional, same for spelling. Teachers would flunk people and no, there are no repeats at that school. From 200 in kinder, only 70 finished HS You are on the right side, find people who give a damn about education.
ToDougie 3y ago
Handwriting is one of the easiest methods by which you can practice fine motor skills and manual dexterity. Also, I really enjoy watching a thought literally flow out of my body onto a page. There is something very disconnected about pressing keys on a keyboard to see the words appear on a screen -- sometimes I find myself in a state of flow on a computer where it all seems to 'click', but contrast that with handwriting and I can get right into flow the instant graphite or ink meets paper.
deleted 3y ago
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fnordpiglet 3y ago
In my opinion handwriting is as useless a skill as is possible. I never use my handwriting - ever. I likewise don’t churn butter, do arithmetic beyond what I can do in my head, or card yarn for my clothes. There is nothing redeeming about artisanal hand scripting other than writing annotations on objects to label them, and even then a label maker does a better job in every dimension. Typing is a fundamental skill in the modern world, and type written text is not just considerably more legible, it’s also indexable for search etc. Having a sense of pride is often coupled with a sense of utility and purpose. Few people feel pride in useless exercises done for rote purposes and celebration of the way it was done in the past. Some certainly do, and god bless them. But I feel more pride in my code than artisanal scribbles, in my handiwork, in my learning, etc. Kids are no different. Maybe they feel pride in their Minecraft creations. Is a complex red stone build with intricate visual designs and creative use in game not more compelling and interesting than manipulating a wood stick to make glyphs? A lot of people think the things a kid takes pride in aren’t worth taking pride in, and instead try to make them take pride in something from their own childhood. They are misidentifying a lack of interest in your interests with a lack of pride in their work.
- deleted 3y ago
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- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I grew up entirely pre-smartphone, so my education was mostly handwriting except a couple typed papers a year (and then even more handwriting in college—oh, the hand cramps on tests). A couple months ago I had to write about five sentences by hand, and it dawned on me that that single act was probably twice as much handwriting as I’d done the entire prior two years, not counting signatures and such. It was a really weird thing to realize.
- TheGigaChad 3y ago
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jmilloy 3y ago
There are other features about a piece of homework than how the handwriting appears. Is the content high quality? Did he learn? Did he do it efficiently? Did he enjoy doing it? Is it well-designed or beautiful in other ways? Etc. Your kid can feel pride about these other features of his work, some of which may be mutually exclusive with high quality handwriting! Selecting the handwriting as high priority is somewhat arbitrary on your part. I'd be concerned that you're overlooking other arguably more important signals of pride and joy in your kid's work by focusing on this one. If you want your kid to practice high quality craftsmanship, to feel pride in a job well-done, let him choose another craft where the quality is inherently relevant, like woodworking or sewing (or calligraphy)! . A second angle. Imagine you are trying to learn to write code and someone insisted you use a difficult keyboard: each key is a different size, they're spaced out across the desk facing different directions. (Or, say, insisted you use punch cards). You'll surely have a harder time learning to code!
hooverd 3y ago
Pick something more impactful. It's hard to have a sense of pride for something that will be read once and promptly shredded. Maybe share examples of how having good penmanship has helped you?
barrysteve 3y ago
I haven't seen the phrase 'critical thinking' in a long time. The concept of a standard has dropped, though kids are exposed to much more generalized criticism online than we were in school. You can post anything online and get global feedback (at least in theory, people are silo-ing more everyday). You can see others get harsh feedback. There's youtube channels dedicated to tearing apart X Y and Z products for their flaws. Unfortunately the internet returns most people to the mean or average, within a bell curve. There's some incredible knowledge online, but it's not enough to replace a critical university teacher leaning over your shoulder, or working under a master craftsman and enduring his continual destruction of your failed attempts. Standards are hard won. Holding an internal standard and conscience has been subverted upvotes/downvotes and by the internet in general, in my view. Hypotheticaly subtract internet points and approval seeking from the online world, and you'll see the idea of a individual standard re-emerge, I bet. Edit: Handwriting is super important. Typing on keyboards has an arbitrary mapping between action and outcome. Handwriting directly connects your muscles and mind together and gives permenancy to your handiwork that forces consideration. I keep a diary, by hand. I cross out mistakes and initial them. Best habit in my life, would not trade it for the world. Any serious thoughts I need to 'get out' or improve, go there.
thom 3y ago
I totally agree that children should be encouraged to write legibly, which means banning cursive.
Symbiote 3y ago
Can you provide him with an example, such as a work notebook with notes taken during a meeting, or while thinking through a problem? Or a handwritten letter/card received from a close friend/partner.
flarion 3y ago
learn him to draw? equal in some ways of creating w pen/paper. draw letters/fonts etc. lmk if u need help.
yencabulator 3y ago
By handwriting, do you mean cursive? Or just writing words on paper by hand? Cursive truly is an outdated skill. When the forms really matter, they say please print -- and they do that for legibility.

by atonse 3y ago

toxik 3y ago

It is a well-established fact that the mechanical act of handwriting notes is good for memorization. Perhaps it is meditative, perhaps we're just physical beings -- whatever it is, typewriting on a computer is not as good. A famous man whose name I forget once said "Plans are useless, planning is indispensable," and I would like to paraphrase it as "notes are useless, note-taking is indispensable."

brtkdotse 3y ago
> "notes are useless, note-taking is indispensable." This is very, very true for me. I read, optimistically, 5% of my notes. As a corollary, I’m unable to take notes if the notepad is too fancy. I get analysis paralysis from something like a moleskine, like something this nice deserves nicely formatted notes. Only cheapo gas station notpads work for me.
- throw1234651234 3y ago
  haha college-ruled exam workbooks for me. Basic as can be.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Are you good at planning tho? Given we are at software engineering forum where most of us likely use ticket tracking system which are basically fancy notes... I feel your statement is disingenuous.
amadeuspagel 3y ago
This is not at all a well-established fact. There's one questionable study on this topic that used to go viral occassionally, and that's it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'd add that, as someone who does articles about events and the like, it's much more efficient for me to be able to cut/paste/edit from typed material than to transcribe from my abbreviated and hard to read scrawls.
deleted 3y ago
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AndrewDucker 3y ago
This is entirely false for me. Writing takes up all of my concentration, and I literally do not hear what the person is saying next while I'm writing down what they just said.

kranke155 3y ago

There’s plenty of scientific evidence that handwriting is good for you https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-memory https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-memory

brtkdotse 3y ago

> I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. I’d like to counter with “perfect is the enemy of good”. Knowing when to half-ass something can be a skill in of itself.

jameshart 3y ago
I think your second sentence needed a verb. This would be a case where half-assing it did not.
- brtkdotse 3y ago
  Wrong tense. Chalking it up on English being my third language :)
- harry8 3y ago
  I think I understand op, there was an 'and' missing that seems obvious? Was it edited? Yours I do not understand. > This would be a case where half-assing it did not. Did not what? Did that woosh over my head?
  - jameshart 3y ago
    Op edited. Originally read > Knowing when half-assing something can be a skill in of itself.
waynesonfire 3y ago
I don't read this as a counter as the skill you mention is in full alignment with the grandfathers advice.

Waterluvian 3y ago

I don’t think you’re alone. And I appreciate your arguments. They’re valid, even if I disagree. My perspective is that there is an ever growing wealth of knowledge and skills and only so much time in the day. We see this conflict in some hardcore parents who sign their kids up for an entire childhood of studies. I think it’s deeply important to have pride in your work and to do it carefully, patiently, methodically. I’m not sure this must be practiced with any specific skill. I think doctors are an example of how this can be at odds with reality. Do they not take pride in their work, or do they have just so much to study that they cannot afford the expense? I think it’s also important to identify that this discussion often conflates two things: cursive handwriting and legible printing. I believe schools still endeavour to teach kids to print legibly.

atonse 3y ago
Good point that there has to be some kind of decision about each skill. I should clarify I am not asking for us to be great at every single thing. But at least have that debate in your head. Is this a skill I want to put time into improving? And “nobody else cares” shouldn’t be a _major_ part of that argument. Our school doesn’t teach them to print legibly. That’s my point. I’ve seen his homework and sometimes it borders on illegible.
- ck425 3y ago
  > And “nobody else cares” shouldn’t be a _major_ part of that argument. I disagree. Nobody else caring is a strong indication the skill isn't that valuable. If nobody else cares and he can't see a reason to care himself then why would he decide it's a skill he wants to put time into improving? Tbh it sounds like your son has considered the merits and decided it's not a skill worth working on. You just disagree.
  - david38 3y ago
    Agreed. I have limited time in my day. If I spent too much on things nobody else cared about, I would be wasting a lot of time. This would translate to other more important tasks not getting done.

WillAdams 3y ago

No, that seems to be the prevailing viewpoint, which I find sad. Powerful argument for Sloyd Woodworking instruction coming back to schools: https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techniques/sloyd/ https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techni... >Students may never pick up a tool again, but they will forever have the knowledge of how to make and evaluate things with your hand and your eye and appreciate the labor of others See my other post in this discussion for a link to Kate Gladstone's site and as well as SE Briem's list of calligraphy texts. A touchstone for me on this is John Quincy Adams' translation of Wieland's Oberon: https://www.jstor.org/stable/458794 https://www.jstor.org/stable/458794 which it is well worth finding a facsimile copy of. Or see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21860485@N06/albums/72157641139333033 https://www.flickr.com/photos/21860485@N06/albums/7215764113... One thing to try, would be to have the child write thank you notes.

lukego 3y ago
My third-grader here in digital Sweden started "Sloyd" woodworking class this month. Thanks for sharing these links. The kids all have their own iPads in the classroom but they seem to be used very sparingly, mostly for extra drills occupying kids who finish their handwriting-heavy schoolwork early.

astura 3y ago

>kids are not taught to have a sense or standard in the quality of their work and improve upon it, regardless of the particular skill. I'm over 40 and I was never taught that- not at school and certainly not at home.

atonse 3y ago
Maybe I’m mostly remembering my grandpa haha. We were penalized for untidy work in school though. That was my early years in India.

sebzim4500 3y ago

>I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. It was about having pride in your work. You aren't alone, but I think this is terrible advice. You should figure out what you want to do and find the best way to do it. The best way will probably involve half-assing a lot of stuff, since you only have a finite amount of time/energy. I had a teacher at school who used to say "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing properly", but he mainly said it about things that weren't worth doing.

harry8 3y ago
> "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing properly" Big life lesson for me was "if it's worth doing then it's worth doing poorly" Even if it's more worthwhile doing it a little better (and once done poorly you can work toward that if it makes sense).
- owenmarshall 3y ago
  I always liked this quote on officers which has been attributed to dozens of different generals throughout history: > I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage. I try to be clever and lazy in all things :-)
  - theonething 3y ago
    This never made sense to me. Being intelligent and hard working is (to me) obviously better than being intelligent and lazy. The latter just thinks great thoughts, but does nothing about them.

kqr 3y ago

I have recently seen some children work out things (mechanics, strategies, communication) to perfection in video games. They are incredibly perceptive critics of their own and other's performance. They are probably much better than your grandfather at both game and meta-game, because they are standing on the shoulders of slightly larger people. They are familiar with the conventions and input methods and community and thus have a base understanding that few older people do.

atonse 3y ago
Funny I used to use this argument when people used to complain to me about video games. They can be incredibly complex and utilize your brain in amazing ways. And I actually have zero issues with him playing video games. The sports ones involve building your team, trading players, etc. That's all pretty complex stuff.

marcinzm 3y ago

>But again, to me it is symptomatic of a larger issue where I feel that more and more, kids are not taught to have a sense or standard in the quality of their work and improve upon it, regardless of the particular skill. You mean so they can work 60 hours for a mediocre salary with little upwards mobility that won't even let them buy a house anymore while sinking in student debt? Knowing when work for the sake of work is a waste of your life is a very important skill now that you can't walk into a random company Monday morning and come out with a job

anon____ 3y ago

Calligraphy is an art form. The good thing about art is that you can't argue with it. Practice for the beauty!

stanrivers 3y ago

I think there is something very different about handwriting than typing. Like, listen to a lecture and write notes on a pad, and then go to the lecture the next day and type them on a computer. Then, wait a week, and take a test without reviewing anything. My money, based on my experience, is on you better remembering the handwritten notes. I think this is because you cannot write as fast as you type, so you have to hear, think about what is important, and summarize when handwriting. When typing, you can get almost all the words someone says typed out. So you switch to "hear-to-type" mode without thinking. So, I think it is important for learning to have that skill. I think it is better in the real world too, for some use cases. If I am in a meeting with a counterparty, I take hand written notes. I rarely look at the notes after. Why? I remember what we talked about. I used to bring a computer and type out notes - and I still do if I need perfect information to reference later - but when I do that, my notes take the place of my memory. It seems more efficient to handwrite my notes and have my memory be my memory instead.

whatisyour 3y ago
Research has shown that writing notes by hand leads to better retention than typing even if the notes are never read in the future. However, given that writing is just 7000 years old, I'm not sure how long will it take before typing to become the more natural skill (if typing does last for 7000 years that is)
vkou 3y ago
Or, better yet, why not actually prepare for the test, by doing the reading, and the homework? Notes are an incredibly poor substitute for putting in the actual work of learning.

kenoh 3y ago

45 here. I certainly didn't and don't appreciate the fact that I spent hours on Saturdays improving my cursive during early education because my writing was horrible unless I took too long to do it. I envy the younger generations.

linuxftw 3y ago

I hated writing as a kid. I think part of the problem was that my thoughts were much faster than my pen, so I by default wrote as fast as I could. If I tried to write more legibly, my writing would still look poor compared to many others, and I'd have to slow to a fraction of the speed, so why bother? For instance, whenever I have to write my email address on a form (you know, it has to be perfectly legible or you won't receive your email), and half the letters still look like trash.

ck425 3y ago

> And it isn’t about him having that specific skill. But it’s about having a sense of pride in your work and not half-assing things. Maybe you'd have more luck teaching him the latter if you focused on skills/work that are clearly useful. Or useful to him atleast even if you disagree that handwriting is outdated. Take pride in your work and doing it well is a useful lesson (and unfortunately not something I'm great at personally) but if he doesn't see any value in that specific work he'll never even comprehend the difference between work done well and work half-assed, never mind strive for it. All he see's is you asking him to put more effort into a pointless activity. I reckon this is one of the reasons that sports and arts are relatively successful at teaching kids life skills like discipline. It's easier for kids to see the immediate value of being good at those than other skills, so their more motivated and lessons stick.

atonse 3y ago
Good points. I am getting a solid smacking and lectures from HackerNews (the kind I often dole out) but appreciate the input from all of you. I know my son especially will. Well, he IS obsessed with Soccer.
- ck425 3y ago
  I always hated football myself but if he's into it look up the stories many coaches/managers tell of how they recognised future top players early on because of their discipline/work ethic. Those might inspire him more.

jbd0 3y ago

Your son could have dysgraphia. My son (14, homeschooled) struggles with writing, and it was hard to not think of his poor writing as a result of him being lazy or not caring. We purchased some material from Dianne Craft to help with his dysgraphia: https://diannecraft.org/dysgraphia-what-is-dysgraphia/ https://diannecraft.org/dysgraphia-what-is-dysgraphia/ The exercises definitely helped.

DharmaPolice 3y ago

This is my own personal bias talking here but I think handwriting might be a poor subject to teach the wider lesson of taking pride in your work. My hand writing has always been terrible. It was a big deal 30 years ago (when I was at school) - it's not really been an issue since. But it's not whether it's outdated or not, it's just not something which easily improves with practice (at least, in my experience). Even when I spent a lot of time and energy trying to slowly draw individual letters the end result was still messy. My problem was exacerbated because I sat next to a kid who was a great artist. He used to draw comic strips (at age 9-10) and the lettering looked professional (at least to my eyes). Yes if I had spent an enormous amount of time and effort I could have improved my handwriting but I don't think I'd ever be able to produce 1/5th the quality of what he did. My hand just wasn't (and isn't) that steady. With other subjects you can spend a lot less time and improve quality a lot easier and faster. With something like code layout it's much easier to brute force tidiness in a way that just isn't possible with handwriting (or drawing).

tootie 3y ago

I don't think it's a generational thing. I think it varies by family. Neither my parents nor grandparents really pushed that kind of message even though they were very focused on education. My family is Jewish-American and still have strong cultural memory of being deliberately excluded from opportunities despite effort. I absorbed it as a dual mandate to learn as much as possible and to play whatever game the schools needed you to play to get recognition. I also had terrible handwriting despite tons of experience. Meanwhile I knew kids who wrote like typewriters from the 4th grade just due to natural talent.

KptMarchewa 3y ago

>I still remember my grandfather telling us, everything you do, you must strive to do it well. It was about having pride in your work. This seems fairly contradictory to me. He's not choosing to do it, he's forced to learn some outdated skill. Let him excel in some useful skill, like mathematics.

sparrowInHand 3y ago

I think your focus on kaligraphy is damaging to the lesson. You should pick something your son values, and teach him to drive it to perfection. Then watch him getting annoyed when you half-ass it in front of him. All education is a crude attempt at telepathy and while repeated confrontation can transport the value you place upon a thing, it does not make it intrinsic. Also skills are filtered for right to exist every generation. Skills become value less is a normal and even healthy thing.

Barrin92 3y ago
it's a child. By definition it doesn't know what it values. This has seemingly been forgotten but parents have a mentorship and guiding role. Their job is to cultivate in their children interest in activities in the first place. When I was young I hated that my parents made me learn an instrument, because I wanted to play video games and eat ice cream all day. As an adult (who became a part time musician) I understand the value of it. "do what your son wants' gets you children raised on an ipad with no education in the arts.
- gizmondo 3y ago
  When I was young I hated that my parents made me learn an instrument. As an adult I still hate that they did that, there is no value in it for me. There are parents that pursue their own interests through their kids (who often can't resist), I find that objectionable.
  - sparrowInHand 3y ago
    It also destroys the ability to be intrinsic passionate and feel like you have control over your own life and actions. Its a horrible way to create people that are ideal sustinance for the societal apparatus, but bad when it comes to act in there own self-interest. Which is why you want to work with whatever fascinates the little person. The world is filled with no backbone- will broken, sub-servient peasants already.

tomjen3 3y ago

Counterpoint: Pareto principle. For 20% of effort you get 80% of results, so you are better of 1/5ing-assing 2 things for a total of less than half the effort and more than 50% more gains. Your grandfathers advice might have been sane back in the day when you could only do one or two things and so quickly hit diminishing returns, but today it does not matter greatly. More emotional argument. What do you call the person who does more than they get rewarded for (over a long time?): a sucker. And who wants to be a sucker?

mongol 3y ago
I once saw a documentary about Nelson Mandela. When he read a newspaper he was very careful to line up the pages and to crease the paper so it was straight and had even corners between the different pages. He did not half-ass the act of turning pages in a newspaper. It seemed like such a waste of time. How much less must he have had time to read, wasting time to turn pages like that? On the other hand he had an incredible reputation and was admired as a leader across the world. Perhaps his attention to detail mattered even when it seemed like a waste.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  He spent twenty years in a prison. I imagine it was a habit left over from then. A slightly detrimental one, but obviously not one that set him back too much.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Sounds like just typical OCD. Some people have to line up their notepaper and pen perfectly parallel on the desk before they're mentally able to continue past that point.

Zelphyr 3y ago

My kids have gone to a Montessori school since pre-K and those schools teach handwriting. It's not done because of how much or little the student will use that handwriting later in life but more because, early on, it helps develop fine motor skills. Now that they're in high school, my daughter has excellent penmanship. My son... not so much. :) But! He can do it.

gizmondo 3y ago
An alternative hypothesis is that it's done because it has always been done, and the fine motor skills thing is merely an attempt to rationalize this practice.

sneak 3y ago

By this logic, should not schools teach calligraphy?

floren 3y ago
Sure, why not?
- sneak 3y ago
  Because it's a waste of time in an age where we have machines that can do a much better job? The same reason we don't wash clothes on a washboard in a river anymore? Teaching how to make pretty smudges on dead trees to store and communicate information is in the exact same bucket, to me. It's a an utterly useless and wasteful anachronism, like mechanical watchmaking or praying. Given that we have limited time, energy, and budget to educate children, it is actively harmful to their future.
  - floren 3y ago
    Why teach them to write at all? Why teach arithmetic, just hand them a calculator. Why teach poetry? Why teach history -- if they need to know it, they can look on Wikipedia. Why offer band class, will it help you write tighter Javascript?
  - morpheuskafka 3y ago
    It's often faster to write down notes while listening than type them out, and you can make quick graphs/tables/etc without formatting hassles. Especially if you would be using a phone and not a real keyboard. That's why police always carry those little notebooks in their pocket. Additionally, there are many cases where it's possible to type and print something, but faster to just write it. Ex. writing the address on an envelope rather than making one in Word and trying to remember which way the envelopes go into the printer (which inexplicably is the opposite of the picture on the tray).
    - sneak 3y ago

iepathos 3y ago

Depends what profession you end up pursuing. If your son pursues computer science then likely never need to use handwriting ever again. As a 10+ year software engineer I've never needed to handwrite anything professionally, not once. Personally, still like to do the occasional handwritten card or letter for friends and family.

natoliniak 3y ago
> not once not even on a white board?
- ghaff 3y ago
  Mostly don't even use those these days--basically never in an office. Collaborative docs are more common. I mean you need basic at least somewhat legible printing but that's probably fine for a lot of things these days. Handwriting was always my worst grade in elementary school and don't really know Palmer script any longer.
- eichin 3y ago
  Also turns out to be a different skill. (My old school printing is fine, my old school cursive was pretty much gone by day one of college, chalkboards are almost always slow block-printing - so when I started using whiteboards, it was all cursive patterns that were unreadable and mostly served as a vague reminder to the audience of what I said when I was scribbling over there.) About 5 years ago I was inspired by a friend casually doing some amazing whiteboard art at work, and ended up trying a more calligraphic approach (not fancy gothic patterns, just that kind of intent/attention.) A lot slower, but a bunch of coworkers privately requested that I keep up the new approach...

gumby 3y ago

My son was in a school that taught English via immersion (they hired English teachers who couldn't even speak any German). Starting with grade 1 the kids wrote exclusively with fountain pens, and were marked early on on penmanship. Except in English, where they were allowed to write with pencils or biros so of course they did because it was a change, and the teachers didn't seem to care about penmanship at all. Two decades later his writing with a fountain pen in any language is as clear as a bell, while anything else results in a scrawl. I don't believe it's because the tool is superior in some way, I think it's simply the attention to detail got wired in. == An amusing nerd side point: In grade 1 they learnt a letter a week, and from that were reading by xmas. To avoid confusing the kids, English was supposed to use "German letterforms" but really they are pretty much the same! Anyway the funny thing is that in English they start the first week with "A" (Apple, Ant), then "B" (Banana, Buffalo) and so on. German was taught in the alphabetic frequency order: "E" (Elefant), then "N" (Nase), "I" (Igel) and so on. Disappointingly, Christmas came before they got to ß as I was curious what they would do (no word starts with it).

rgblambda 3y ago

Everything I do in my work (Software Engineering) is about just getting it done/ getting v1.0 over the line. Not my choice, but leadership don't seem to care about things being done well so long as they're done.

hangonhn 3y ago

Rather than argue about this, perhaps it may be better to see if you can get your son to be interested in practicing calligraphy, where the whole point of the exercise is to write in beautiful way. Otherwise, you're trying to win an argument about something that is often tangential to another goal. You and I both have terrible handwriting. In my life, it hasn't been a hindrance to my work as a software engineer so maybe your son has a point. However, I do agree that doing things well has merit but maybe reframing it will get you farther along this goal. And lastly, maybe you can achieve the same goal through other means? Perhaps in playing an instrument or practicing some other skill. I think the value you want to teach your son is practicing something and doing it well. It doesn't need to be handwriting.

balfirevic 3y ago

You one-sidedly pick a skill for someone else, that they don't enjoy and don't find useful and that you can't reasonably justify as being useful. Then you insist that they do it well. But that's not enough - you also insist that they have to want to do it well. Which you also can't justify, other than very abstractly, by insisting that everything they do - including things they didn't choose themselves, don't care about, don't find useful and won't actually find useful - they should want to do well. I'd be more worried for someone who didn't find that preposterous.

bazooka 3y ago
Being able to hold a pen in your hand and write a note that looks legible is a fundamental skill. One should be able to write a message on a card that does not make the recipient want to puke or at least wonder if whether the author survived what looks like an obvious stroke. It’s a matter of self respect.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  A self respecting person would type anything meant to be read. You sign your name and that’s it.
  - one_level_deep2 3y ago
    [dead]
  - _glass 3y ago
    But how is it working for exams, they are not digital here in Germany. And I had the most problems in my life at university because of my bad handwriting. Especially when nervous I had to do so many exams involving a lot of writing, which was horrendous. But I am also left-handed, forced to write right-handed in elementary school. After my Bachelor's I started to write left-handed. What a relief. But really, exams are the only reason I think it is still important to have a good handwriting. Nowadays at work I need it for white-boarding. Where even a good skill in sketching is useful.
- 3y ago

vkou 3y ago

> Looking for a good counterpoint. You only have a limited number of hours in life to devote to acquiring mastery, and there's a nearly unlimited number of subjects that are worth mastering. Instead of trying to be good at everything you're doing, decide what you're going to be good at, what you're going to outsource and half-ass, and work towards being good at the former, while getting by/paying other people to do with the latter. You need to take pride in something, but you're fooling yourself if you think you can do everything well - or that its a good investment of your time. Maybe instead of forcing him to become an expert at a skill with incredibly poor return on investment, you should drive him towards becoming an expert at... Writing.

YeBanKo 3y ago

Handwriting is like drawing or music. Do you absolutely need it? No. But it is another mode of operation, that develops brain. Arguably, reading and writing/typing may become obsolete with next decade or two, thanks to voice interface enhanced by NN models.

dotnet00 3y ago
I doubt that reading/writing/typing will be replaced by speech. You simply can't speak or listen anywhere near as fast as you can do any of those things.

orochimaaru 3y ago

I have a good hand and enjoy writing with the gel 0.5. Cursive was drilled into me as a child. I will still take notes and write my thoughts out on paper. It somehow manages to provide me focus and shut out distractions. It’s also a space I can do a lot of free form thinking and tie things together. Assists shouldn’t be given at an early age. I believe they are counter productive. Another example. We never used calculators till 11th grade. All calculations had to be done by hand. I can still quickly approximate to know if numbers are in the ballpark.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Teachers don't care about handwriting anymore because handwriting is not part of standardized testing, and that is how schools and teachers are evaluated now.

biggoodwolf 3y ago

I went to the top private school in my country Cursive handwriting was not optional, same for spelling. Teachers would flunk people and no, there are no repeats at that school. From 200 in kinder, only 70 finished HS You are on the right side, find people who give a damn about education.

ToDougie 3y ago

Handwriting is one of the easiest methods by which you can practice fine motor skills and manual dexterity. Also, I really enjoy watching a thought literally flow out of my body onto a page. There is something very disconnected about pressing keys on a keyboard to see the words appear on a screen -- sometimes I find myself in a state of flow on a computer where it all seems to 'click', but contrast that with handwriting and I can get right into flow the instant graphite or ink meets paper.

deleted 3y ago

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fnordpiglet 3y ago

In my opinion handwriting is as useless a skill as is possible. I never use my handwriting - ever. I likewise don’t churn butter, do arithmetic beyond what I can do in my head, or card yarn for my clothes. There is nothing redeeming about artisanal hand scripting other than writing annotations on objects to label them, and even then a label maker does a better job in every dimension. Typing is a fundamental skill in the modern world, and type written text is not just considerably more legible, it’s also indexable for search etc. Having a sense of pride is often coupled with a sense of utility and purpose. Few people feel pride in useless exercises done for rote purposes and celebration of the way it was done in the past. Some certainly do, and god bless them. But I feel more pride in my code than artisanal scribbles, in my handiwork, in my learning, etc. Kids are no different. Maybe they feel pride in their Minecraft creations. Is a complex red stone build with intricate visual designs and creative use in game not more compelling and interesting than manipulating a wood stick to make glyphs? A lot of people think the things a kid takes pride in aren’t worth taking pride in, and instead try to make them take pride in something from their own childhood. They are misidentifying a lack of interest in your interests with a lack of pride in their work.

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hotnfresh 3y ago
I grew up entirely pre-smartphone, so my education was mostly handwriting except a couple typed papers a year (and then even more handwriting in college—oh, the hand cramps on tests). A couple months ago I had to write about five sentences by hand, and it dawned on me that that single act was probably twice as much handwriting as I’d done the entire prior two years, not counting signatures and such. It was a really weird thing to realize.
TheGigaChad 3y ago
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jmilloy 3y ago

There are other features about a piece of homework than how the handwriting appears. Is the content high quality? Did he learn? Did he do it efficiently? Did he enjoy doing it? Is it well-designed or beautiful in other ways? Etc. Your kid can feel pride about these other features of his work, some of which may be mutually exclusive with high quality handwriting! Selecting the handwriting as high priority is somewhat arbitrary on your part. I'd be concerned that you're overlooking other arguably more important signals of pride and joy in your kid's work by focusing on this one. If you want your kid to practice high quality craftsmanship, to feel pride in a job well-done, let him choose another craft where the quality is inherently relevant, like woodworking or sewing (or calligraphy)! . A second angle. Imagine you are trying to learn to write code and someone insisted you use a difficult keyboard: each key is a different size, they're spaced out across the desk facing different directions. (Or, say, insisted you use punch cards). You'll surely have a harder time learning to code!

hooverd 3y ago

Pick something more impactful. It's hard to have a sense of pride for something that will be read once and promptly shredded. Maybe share examples of how having good penmanship has helped you?

barrysteve 3y ago

I haven't seen the phrase 'critical thinking' in a long time. The concept of a standard has dropped, though kids are exposed to much more generalized criticism online than we were in school. You can post anything online and get global feedback (at least in theory, people are silo-ing more everyday). You can see others get harsh feedback. There's youtube channels dedicated to tearing apart X Y and Z products for their flaws. Unfortunately the internet returns most people to the mean or average, within a bell curve. There's some incredible knowledge online, but it's not enough to replace a critical university teacher leaning over your shoulder, or working under a master craftsman and enduring his continual destruction of your failed attempts. Standards are hard won. Holding an internal standard and conscience has been subverted upvotes/downvotes and by the internet in general, in my view. Hypotheticaly subtract internet points and approval seeking from the online world, and you'll see the idea of a individual standard re-emerge, I bet. Edit: Handwriting is super important. Typing on keyboards has an arbitrary mapping between action and outcome. Handwriting directly connects your muscles and mind together and gives permenancy to your handiwork that forces consideration. I keep a diary, by hand. I cross out mistakes and initial them. Best habit in my life, would not trade it for the world. Any serious thoughts I need to 'get out' or improve, go there.

thom 3y ago

I totally agree that children should be encouraged to write legibly, which means banning cursive.

Symbiote 3y ago

Can you provide him with an example, such as a work notebook with notes taken during a meeting, or while thinking through a problem? Or a handwritten letter/card received from a close friend/partner.

flarion 3y ago

learn him to draw? equal in some ways of creating w pen/paper. draw letters/fonts etc. lmk if u need help.

yencabulator 3y ago

By handwriting, do you mean cursive? Or just writing words on paper by hand? Cursive truly is an outdated skill. When the forms really matter, they say please print -- and they do that for legibility.