The Handwriting on the wall

By Dorothy Nixon

I had great plans for my son Mark, the grade four graduate last June: I was going to give him a major head start on his future academic career over the summer. I was going to teach him how to touch type. But in September, with the new school year about to start, that Typing Tutor CD ROM l lay dusty and unopened on the computer console.

Blame it on Miss Ludington, my son's teacher last year. She jotted down a little note in his final report card.

"Have Mark practice his cursive writing five minutes a day over the holidays, " she instructed. "It is practically illegible."

I was taken aback. Handwriting? Who cares? Regardless, I had Mark show me his "write stuff" and I instantly understood Miss L's point. My son's handwriting resembled more a string of shribbled spiders than a line of text. So I did what I had to do: the very next day I hustled Mark off to the stationer's and bought him a splendid new notebook and a pricey new fountain pen.

"That's how we learned to write in my day," I gently lectured Mark - probably sounding like a tiresome old-timer, "How can anyone learn to write well with a cheap ball-point or stubby pencil like you use at school? And did you know that ONLY you can use that fountain pen or it is no good any more?"

I was trying to make Mark feel special, and less like a loser doomed to waste his summer on school work, and my strategy panned out, for he couldn't wait to get down to business right away.

I suggested he copy sentences from the Tintin Dictionary, 10 a day. At first he found the exercise in fine motor coordination frustrating.( And he's a video game wiz. How odd!) "Don't worry, " I cheered him on. "For each letter, you have to blaze a new pathway in your brain, and that takes time. And there are a million variations involved. Writing in cursive letters is a complex process!" I told him, realizing this fact for the first time myself.

Within days my son's writing had improved. Within two weeks, it was up to par. That's five minutes a day for two weeks. If I had only known, I would have helped him out long before. But as a future-gazing cybermom, I had thought cursive writing was no longer important in the educational scheme of things. I had thought hi-tech was the only way to go.

Indeed, I am still skeptical about how useful Mark's newly honed ability will be in the future. By high school, Mark, like his older brother Andrew, will hardly be using his handwriting at all. Alas, some schools in Quebec are already experimenting with laptops in the elementary classroom.

Still, it seems sad that for every new skill we're forced to learn because of a new technology, an old skill is lost. (Just think of how helpless most of felt during last winter's ice storm: Start a fire? Moi? Have to look that one up on the Internet first..He He...)

Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of the handwriting art. I was one of the few girls in my elementary school to NEVER get her smudged scrawl posted on the wall. I somehow felt quite unladylike because of it.

Still, my handwriting became an expression of my personality: very creative,very sloppy. My h's are shaped like the Russian "N", a testimony to the two years I endeavored to conquer that language back in university. My backwards lower case f's reflect my admiration for a certain very cool high school teacher who wrote them that way.

Years ago, back in university, I couldn't focus my thoughts without a pen in my hand. Today, I need to have the computer keyboard in front of me for the creative juices to flow. I hardly write longhand any more, except to sign documents or indulge on occasion in New Age speedwriting exercises. Truth be told, my handwriting resembles a conga line of spastic spiders most of the time.

I am hardly alone. This summer I attended the Centre for Literacy's Summer Institute, where educators from all over North America discussed the impact of technology on education. Many of the participants remarked on how their handwriting had deteriorated with the introduction of wordprocessing and email. A small price to pay all the benefits of techonology, they thought.

Yes, there was time when stylish handwriting was a major mission of education. Today, teachers don't have time to dwell on such superficialities. A good thing, part of me says: a triumph of substance over style. But, another part of me askes, What if mastering the art of cursive is not purely about aesthetics?. What about those pathways blazed in the brain by the old- fashioned practice?

I've been reading a lot, lately, about how computers are "increasing" young people's IQ's. and promoting problem- solving skills. Terrific! But is there a downside to this? (the pessimist in me asks). What will be lost when kids - and adults- no longer write in longhand. Perhaps individuality? Perhaps patience? Perhaps privacy? I compose dozens of e-mails every day to "wired" friends and business associates, and I love it, but these missives are either practical and to the point, or friendly, frivolous and glib. They are often sent in mass mailings, too. Good grammar is always an option.

And it's been months, and I have yet to get around to writing my dear Aunt Kit in Calfornia, who doesn't have a computer. She deserves a letter in long hand from me. She deserves my thoughtful consideration. One day soon, I promise myself, when I find the time, I am going to write a special letter to her in the finest script I can muster. One day soon, when I find the time.

Maybe that's why I have been gazing rather enviously lately upon my son's (duly retired) fountain pen. Imagine me, once so proud of being a handwriting incompetent, waxing romantic over such old fashioned things.

Mark, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be overly impressed with his strides he has made on the handwriting front this summer. He is a techno-age child, and like all children in all times, he has an intuitive sense of what is "in" and what is"out" in his culture. Computers are "in": handwriting is "out". Soon, with or without my help, he will learn to type.

So, was this last summer's exercise a total waste of time? Hardly. Mark's teacher cared enough to write a note at the end of the year, giving me "the authority' to have my son spend five minutes a day practicing handwriting, or sentence structure or whatever, over the holidays. Mark is doing very well this year: he got that headstart on his education after all!

1998© Dorothy Nixon, all rights reserved