I’ve had a number of conversations (on the computer, haha!) about whether it’s still relevant to teach children handwriting. I have to strongly push for a “YES!” to that, and if you watch this video, you’ll see how I came to that conclusion.
I’ve learned three languages in addition to English. I started out in school learning both French and English, because that’s how it’s done in Canada. You grow up bilingual. All our assignments were handwritten. There were no computers for assignments in those days. The computers were relegated to the science labs for making things like databases and spreadsheets. You did have a calculator, but you learned maths the long way, by writing it out – even algebra was written out. We drew on paper for trigonometry. We were not allowed to use graphing calculators. Calculators make things faster, but you have to know how the process works in order to catch a mistake: a mis-typed number will result in an incorrect answer. Same when I studied statistics in university: software will crunch the numbers, but they won’t tell you when you’ve made a mistake about where it is.
In university, I learned Russian and Yiddish. Both courses/degrees required handwritten assignments, except for the upper-level Russian courses, which allowed typed-up assignments only for the longer essays.
Russian does not have a printed written language in the way that English does. Kids start Russian by learning cursive. I had to do the same.
Learning handwriting teaches precision of motor skills, attention to detail, and to care about what you’re writing.
I suppose you could say I learned yet another form of handwritten language. I took a course in drafting in high school, and that always requires clearly printed capital letters when writing on a drawing. So, when I have to handwrite something out and be 100% sure it will be legible, I use drafting writing.
