Is handwriting a dying art? It’s a question that concerned parents are asking increasingly as they see their children spending more time with keyboard and touch screen and less time with pencil and paper.
Some educational experts argue that handwriting is an outmoded form of communication that should go the way of the goose quill pen. Others staunchly advocate for it, arguing that more classroom time be spent teaching this very valuable learning tool in our nation’s schools. Are the latter antediluvian Luddites holding fast to a bygone technology?
Not so, says Princeton-based historian of technology and culture Edward Tenner, who has researched the evolution of handwriting from the Middle Ages. Tenner is an independent writer, speaker, and blogger on the unintended consequences of innovation.
Tenner claims that preserving cursive handwriting is far from a sentimental activity. He argues that handwriting exercises profound and significant connections between the hand and the brain and is skill too important to abandon: “States and school districts thinking of eliminating handwriting teaching — cursive or italic — should at least make it possible for a minority of motivated teachers and students to learn the skill, and track the results. I’ll bet that [handwriting] can be a key to a healthier approach to education and life,” says Tenner, who recently spoke on the subject of “Handwriting after Gutenberg” at the Plainsboro Public Library, where he found the majority in support of keeping handwriting in the school curriculum. To his surprise, “the children and teenagers seemed to be as overwhelmingly pro-handwriting as their elders.”
Tenner speaks on the importance of learning handwriting and why children should not be overexposed to technology at an early age at a panel on “Perspectives on Education,” on Tuesday, January 24, at 6:30 p.m. in the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street.
Joining Tenner will be media and technology enthusiast Suzanne Carbonaro of Rider University, and Caroline Phinney, founder of the Princeton Waldorf School. To participate, contact Janie Hermann — jhermann@princetonlibrary.org or call 609-924-9529, ext. 228. The fee is $25, with a reduced rate of $7 for students and seniors .
In the West Windsor-Plainsboro District, handwriting is still being taught at the elementary level and some new wrinkles are even being introduced. Janet Bowes, assistant principal at Town Center Elementary School in Plainsboro, says that “there is a very interesting approach” at her school. “In kindergarten children start by learning large-form, proper letters through the D’Nealian handwriting program, which is for both print and cursive,” Bowes said.
But in some other schools a hot debate on the import of technology into the nation’s schools is evolving. Recently the state of Indiana decided to abolish mandatory cursive instruction. The decision sparked articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Writing in the New York Times last October 22, Matt Richtel reported on the apparent irony of Silicon Valley high-tech types such as the chief technology officer of eBay and employees at Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Hewlett-Packard, sending their children to a decidedly low-tech Waldorf School that eschews computers in the classroom, at least as far as the elementary grades go.
In the Wall Street Journal, Gwendolyn Bounds cataloged the benefits of teaching handwriting and described researchers who have used magnetic resonance imaging to show that it helps children learn letters and shapes and can even improve idea composition and expression.
Learning handwriting, it appears, is good exercise for the developing brain, benefiting children’s motor skills and their ability to compose ideas and achieve goals throughout life.
That’s no surprise to Tenner, who cites a growing body of scientific support including the work of neurologist Frank Wilson, author of “The Hand: How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language and Human Culture.” Writes Wilson: “Although the repetitive drills that accompany handwriting lessons seem outdated, these activities stimulate brain activity, lead to increased language fluency, and aid in the development of important knowledge.”
Wilson describes in detail the pivotal role of hand movements, in the development of thinking and language capacities and in “developing deep feelings of confidence and interest in the world-all-together, the essential prerequisites for the emergence of the capable and caring individual.”
Recent research suggests that writing by hand helps one retain information, something to do with the fact that a letter drawn by hand requires several sequential finger movements (involving multiple regions of the brain) as opposed to a single keyboard tap. How often have you heard someone say (or said yourself): “If I’m going to remember that I’ll have to write it down.”
As far as Rider’s Suzanne Carbonaro is concerned, successful teaching depends on matching techniques with students and the culture of the school. “I love to infuse tools that make my life more efficient and help me stay organized,” says Carbonaro. “As an educator, I support teachers when they implement technology into their lessons.”
While technology often gets blamed for the demise of handwriting, recent developments may stem that tide. New software for touch-screen devices, such as the iPad, allow for handwriting. Smartphone apps such as “abc PocketPhonics” encourage children to draw letters with finger or stylus. For those who have not adapted well to the keypads on hand-held devices, applications such as “WritePad” allow handwriting with finger or stylus, which is then converted to text for E-mail, documents, or Twitter updates.
The Waldorf School’s Caroline Phinney says children should be introduced to technology “when they can understand it.” Phinney points out that any technology available today will have changed exponentially by the time today’s youngsters have grown to adulthood .The important thing is that they acquire their own resources of creativity and imagination through hands-on experiences and play.
“Punching buttons robs them of the opportunity of developing their own resources,” she says.
Now retired from teaching, Phinney will speak of a planned trip to China next month where she will work with the growing Waldorf movement in that country.
If you think it’s hard to learn cursive in English, consider those learning Chinese. In a recent blog, Tenner writes about the challenges faced by educated Chinese who “struggle when asked to draw traditional characters by hand.”
In China, where good calligraphy was once an essential goal of a good education, there is a dramatic decline in the ability to hand write Chinese characters. Tenner cites the findings of University of Pennsylvania Sinologist Victor Mair, who describes the trend toward “dysgraphia,” or the inability to write traditional characters with a pen as opposed to using keystrokes to generate them electronically. Mair concludes that dysgraphia is an impairment “brought about by frequent cell-phone checking.”
Prompted to conduct his own survey, Tenner (a 1965 Princeton University alumnus) contacted nearly 200 individuals who are literate in Chinese to ask about their preferred Input Method Editor (IME). About half of Tenner’s survey group were professional teachers of Chinese. Around 98 percent told him that they were using Pinyin (Romanization) to input Chinese characters rather than creating them by hand .
In today’s China, very few of the younger generations opt to study calligraphy, a move that some say is eroding the country’s culture. As in the U.S., the concern is that something very valuable is on the brink of being lost.
