The (Hand)writing on the wall
For all of the discussion of technology, there is room to find perspectives about the low tech and no tech tools for learning. Vanderbuilt University professor Steve Graham published a study which brings to mind something we’ve all seen, and maybe experienced ourselves. The importance of handwriting, even though our penmanship skills may be diminishing.
But what Graham’s study shows seems to be a relationship between the quality of penmanship and the quality of work provided by students. Coincidentally, and perhaps only vaguely related, is the rise of online discussions surrounding the use of paper journals and other low tech devices as a replacement for the personal digital assistant (pda). There are some things that can be done with paper and pen that are just not easily accomplished with a pda, laptop, or software.
So the Moleskines are flying off the shelf at Barnes and Nobel, Borders and Amazon, hipster pdas pop up on college campuses, and there is a slight renaissance in handwriting. (disclosure: after suffering from poor handwriting most of my adult life, and recently being embarrassed by a poorly handwritten noted given to a professional colleague, I’ve taken to practicing handwriting again in my own Moleskine.)
And practice is what Graham advocates. The penmanship curriculum of the turn of the 20th century was 45 or more minutes a day. That has been reduced by the beginning of the 21st century to less than 10 minutes. Graham related that speed and fluidity in handwriting are critical during our K - 4 years as young students have not separated the process of physical writing and thinking.
Which is why promoters of handwriting shared this in a recent Newsweek article:
Emily Knapton, director of program development at Handwriting Without Tears, believes that
“when kids struggle with handwriting, it filters into all their academics. Spelling becomes a problem; math becomes a problem because they reverse their numbers. All of these subjects would be much easier for these kids to learn if handwriting was an automatic process.”
The National Education Association quotes some grim statistics about the cost of poor handwriting:
- the health of at least 1 in 10 Americans is endangered by the poor handwriting of their physicians
- up to $95,000,000 in tax refunds are not delivered because of unreadable tax-forms
- $200,000,000 in time and money is lost because poor handwriting results in such problems as confused and inefficient employees, phone calls made to wrong or non-existent numbers, and letters and packages delivered to incorrect addresses — or not delivered at all
Finally, a study by Thompson Healthcare said, among other things, in a survey of 1,656 physicians
“more than 30 percent of respondents said illegible handwriting was the leading cause of miscommunication between medical personnel — a prime example of low-tech problems adversely affecting the high-tech world of medicine. “
