Handwriting's on the wall

[Byrd]

Many thanks for applying your knowledge to the topic.  I hadn't considered the application of a historical perspective on this.  I imagine that people in the past had lots of trepidation when it came to actually writing things.  It was not only a matter of training and skill, but some degree of pressure to step into a 'status' world where writing was constrained for a specific and 'official' purpose (religious storytelling, governance, for example) and not so much for formal learning, or creative impulse. I wonder if across the spectrum of 'writing' in the ancient past there was much "writing" by the general population, or was it all business and official record-keeping?  Feel free to ignore the curiosity... I think I'm drifting off topic.

Writing was very rare until the past 400 years or so (public schools... no matter what you think of them, they're responsible for literate populations.)  In ancient Egypt, only the scribes and nobles were literate... and some of them weren't very literate at all -- that's less than 10% of the public.  The average business person could write a few things (names, perhaps, and items and amounts) but wouldn't be able to compose a personal history or write a love poem.

The Celts were illiterate.  Most of the people throughout history were illiterate, which is why we don't have a lot of information on anyone but (literate) rulers until the Enlightenment.

Moreso, women were deliberately kept illiterate... my daughter-in-law's stepmother only completed 8th grade, and my husband's great aunt only completed third grade.  Not sure about my own family but I am reasonably certain that I'm the best educated in my direct lineage (I do have a physician who's a great-great-great uncle)

History is recorded by the literate, who were usually the wealthy (or their servants) - so we see history through the lens of their eyes.

[PhyloCFly]

I type. I have since sophomore year in high school over fifty years ago.
See, I was left handed and in grade school we were given pens and pencils to write with and we were put in little desks that were made for right handed people. There was an arm rest to the right of the seat and students would slide in between the seat and the desk from the left.
 
This left no arm rest for left handed writers, only those who wrote with the right hands had that arm rest to steady their arms for writing. Got me so far? I'll go on.

Here in the west, we write on a piece of paper from the left to the right, right? Well this is fine for right handed people because they can write with a pen or pencil without their hands rubbing across the freshly written words. With pens, the ink smudged and with pencils the graphite smudged from hands rubbing across the text, making messy papers.

I was also tall which meant that I had to bend over or rather  hunch over the desk which would make me run my hand higher on the desk assuring that it would rub through the written text. On top of that, the teachers of the time did not understand any of this and insisted that the only way to turn the paper on the desk to be written on was for a right handed person.

Hence, not only were my school papers always messy from the smudging, but the general legibility was way below par as well. Script writing was next to impossible so I tried printing which was better but took much longer causing much more time to finish papers and tests.

So, my first year in high school I took typing and have typed all the way though college and on into the present day. My retention is fine and I say screw hand writing.

[Maxmars]

I type. I have since sophomore year in high school over fifty years ago.
See, I was left handed and in grade school ...

... So, my first year in high school I took typing and have typed all the way though college and on into the present day. My retention is fine and I say screw hand writing.

... Which serves a proof that humans adapt, and research often discounts or ignores anything that rings as an exception to their hypothesis.

I have left-handed family that never fails to remind of the disconnected brutality of the schools' treatment to 'correct' the so-called "sinister deficiency."

I would hope those days are over.

Anyway, the data behind this idea shows that linking motor-skill activity to learning exercises leads to better retention.  Which is not to say that without writing, people don't learn at all.