02-16-2024, 05:45 AM
Hey Max!
This is a topic that I've spent a reasonable amount of time researching and pondering. Started in the late 90's, I think, when the decision to remove cursive writing from curriculum first came out.
At the time my knee jerk reaction - and a knee that continued jerking for many years - was that this would only serve to produce a population of people who would have to take, upon faith, the contents and context of many historical documents - foundational documents included.
However my outrage finally subsided to a fair degree when I finally matured enough to take it up on myself to read these documents in their original form, quickly realizing that the writing and prose of even 200 to 300 years ago was very difficult to parse and understand.
Going back just a few hundred more years and it's nearly impossible.
Now here we are, faced with the very real possibility that within a generation. literacy will very well be at an all time high, globally, but also a world where a person with the dexterous skill of manual handwriting may well be an oddity and rarity.
My knee jerk reaction, this time around, is to wonder if this will be a case of losing something to gain something else? At least in terms of human creativity and mental acumen?
This curiosity comes from my subjective knowledge that while I was trained, specifically, via mechanical drafting classes, to perfect my manual block printing and, at one point, had admirable penmanship in cursive as well... Well I cannot tell you the last time I chose to use either of those skills. I do keep a notebook with computer passwords in it - for all the various websites and services - but that's basically all I ever write down anymore.
Yet in terms of how much I "write" - via keyboard? My output is exponentially higher than it was at any point prior to the digital world. Truth is I likely output more in typed words, on any given day, than I would have in months and months in the world before things went digital.
My point here... It's entirely probable that not using the part of brains required for handwriting can cause some mental atrophy - but is it not also possible that, in return, the part of the mind required for typing might make up for that difference? New neurons and pathways, just in a different spot?
If so - maybe it's not a bad thing.
This is a topic that I've spent a reasonable amount of time researching and pondering. Started in the late 90's, I think, when the decision to remove cursive writing from curriculum first came out.
At the time my knee jerk reaction - and a knee that continued jerking for many years - was that this would only serve to produce a population of people who would have to take, upon faith, the contents and context of many historical documents - foundational documents included.
However my outrage finally subsided to a fair degree when I finally matured enough to take it up on myself to read these documents in their original form, quickly realizing that the writing and prose of even 200 to 300 years ago was very difficult to parse and understand.
Going back just a few hundred more years and it's nearly impossible.
Now here we are, faced with the very real possibility that within a generation. literacy will very well be at an all time high, globally, but also a world where a person with the dexterous skill of manual handwriting may well be an oddity and rarity.
My knee jerk reaction, this time around, is to wonder if this will be a case of losing something to gain something else? At least in terms of human creativity and mental acumen?
This curiosity comes from my subjective knowledge that while I was trained, specifically, via mechanical drafting classes, to perfect my manual block printing and, at one point, had admirable penmanship in cursive as well... Well I cannot tell you the last time I chose to use either of those skills. I do keep a notebook with computer passwords in it - for all the various websites and services - but that's basically all I ever write down anymore.
Yet in terms of how much I "write" - via keyboard? My output is exponentially higher than it was at any point prior to the digital world. Truth is I likely output more in typed words, on any given day, than I would have in months and months in the world before things went digital.
My point here... It's entirely probable that not using the part of brains required for handwriting can cause some mental atrophy - but is it not also possible that, in return, the part of the mind required for typing might make up for that difference? New neurons and pathways, just in a different spot?
If so - maybe it's not a bad thing.
