The disappearing art of handwriting

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WATCHING over a seven-year-old niece doing her writing homework, brought the Eye back to the days of yore when, in school, we were made to repeatedly write out unbroken cursive alphabets in straight lines on plain pages.

Failing to write the letters out in an unbroken and consistent manner, and failing to hold a pencil properly would have resulted in an unpleasant tap of the dreaded rotan on our palms.

Penmanship in the class back then was a big thing. Those artistically inclined would have received an A for their beautiful cursive writing, while those who, despite the hours spent perfecting their writing, could only manage what closely resembled cakar ayam would have been rewarded with a large F, in addition to the cane meeting the palm.

Flashback to the present time and looking at the kid’s writing exercise book, her teacher had used a pen to write out the letter ‘a’ in an almost perfect digital like font to follow.

“Do you learn to join the letters like this?” Eye asked the girl while demonstrating how we were taught in the old days to write a lower case ‘a’ in a cursive and joined fashion.

“No. Teacher says we must write neatly so each letter can be seen and as long as everybody can read it. And then, we must learn to write fast because takut we cannot finish test and exam next time,” she explained.

Makes sense, but while Eye understand the need for children to have legible handwriting and at the same time the ability to write quickly, it is a pity that the artistic aspect of penmanship is no longer emphasised in this day and age.

This isn’t just happening here in the Malaysian education system, but the world over.

In the United States, cursive writing and penmanship is still taught in certain schools – mostly private schools. Elsewhere, it is being eliminated from the ordinary classroom setting.

Children there are also taught to write in basic print writing, besides being taught keyboard skills essential for this digital era.

Researchers, have over the years found that those who grew up practising penmanship were more advanced in areas such as reading, writing, remembering things and critical thinking.

Cognitive neuroscientists at the Indiana University have also found that the act of writing by hand sparked important brain activity, as compared to typing or tapping on touch screens.

On a bet that most kids have not even heard of a fountain pen, the Eye showed a teenage nephew a collection of vintage fountain pens, which the Eye still uses. The boy could hardly comprehend the concept of a fountain pen.

“Why go through so much trouble to pump ink into the pen when you can always buy pens from the book store, use and throw?”

So much for sustainability. Our kids have grown up in a buy-use-throw-delete generation.

Everything comes easily in the most convenient manner. Yet, ironically, these very same children are trying to teach us how to recycle or reuse plastic bottles. In most cases, the Eye practises old school correspondence – handwritten letters (with a precious Sheaffer fountain pen), sent via the good old envelope or a beautiful postcard with a postage stamp on it.

Again, an incomprehensible concept to the young man. “Aiyo, send email lah! It gets to Uncle so-and-so almost instantly and can attach photos also without printing.”

Eye also believe (research has backed this up), that there is a correlation between handwriting, reading and comprehension.

Students who are confident in their penmanship are quicker to understand what they read and are able to better articulate their ideas on paper.

The research on penmanship and cognition, which was widely published in 2011 found that writing, being a more complicated process, integrates three brain processes, visual, motor and cognition, thus enabling a child to be better coordinated and critical in his or her thoughts and actions.

Let us hope that our already muddled education system will take handwriting and penmanship seriously and still incorporate it in the learning process before the generations to come turn into slaves of automated convenience.

Eye bet that many of us older ones have also become keyboard and touchscreen converts, what with wanting to also keep up with the young Joneses.

It’ll be good to pick up a pen, remember the feeling of a nice solid pen, plan out your thoughts before putting them down on paper.

The mere fact that we do not have spell check or the ability to hit the delete or backspace key when we use a pen only adds to our brain being on the alert.

And to produce a beautiful piece of writing in cursive is an added brain exercise.

Comments can reach the writer via [email protected].