This is not my area of expertise. I think I read some research somewhere that you think differently when you use a pen. I have a few beloved fountain pens. When I write reflectively and for my own benefit, I use a fountain pen. This is for diary purposes and personal writing. It is disconnected from technology and so not vulnerable to interruption by tweets or email signals of new distracting messages that have been received. It is cognitively satisfying in a different way than the buzzing and booming of everything around us most of the time. It seems to me that not to provide the next generation with this skill is to rob them of something that, for want of a better word, I would call reflective spirituality, although I am not a religious person. I also write my most personal communication using a pen as I recently did to the widow of a dear friend and colleague who had recently died. I wanted to let her know that I was thinking about her and caring for her. That seemed the most appropriate manner to share compassion.

Paul: I'm not an expert in Childhood education but if we don't teach handwriting in schools, then I can imagine a day when the technology will not work. Then what?

If the electricity is out or the computer breaks, a worker may have to actually hand write a paper or hand write their work.

Paul Stock I am passionate about handwriting. I prefer a fountain pen or an ordinary wood cased graphite pencil. Any excuse I get, I will put away my laptop and take out my good paper and a good handwriting tool. At the same time I often face resistance when I defend the need for handwriting skills. School children, youth and even parents find it irritating and not very useful. I have even read an article in the newspaper were a 15 year old student (I think it was) says that doing an exam with a ballpoint pen or a pencil was unfair since very few people use these types of tools anymore.

I get worried when young hands that are not used to doing practical things. I have colleagues who tell me about 16 year old students that have never used a screwdriver, a hammer, a knife or a needle and thread.

I am afraid that I am just being old fashioned. I accept that writing with a feather or carving letters in stone in not practical for everyday use. I have hard to accept that writing tools in general, like the ballpoint pen, the felt pen or the pencil, is outdated as a everyday communication tool. Therefor I am in the need for systematic and critical reflection around this question. I am thinking about writing an article about the topic.

Handwriting also teaches discipline which is most for future carrier

This is not my area of expertise. I think I read some research somewhere that you think differently when you use a pen. I have a few beloved fountain pens. When I write reflectively and for my own benefit, I use a fountain pen. This is for diary purposes and personal writing. It is disconnected from technology and so not vulnerable to interruption by tweets or email signals of new distracting messages that have been received. It is cognitively satisfying in a different way than the buzzing and booming of everything around us most of the time. It seems to me that not to provide the next generation with this skill is to rob them of something that, for want of a better word, I would call reflective spirituality, although I am not a religious person. I also write my most personal communication using a pen as I recently did to the widow of a dear friend and colleague who had recently died. I wanted to let her know that I was thinking about her and caring for her. That seemed the most appropriate manner to share compassion.

You have certainly posed a very interesting issue which has been disfavored by experts in education in recent years. Many of such opponents argue that the ubiquity of digital communications technology has made the need for handwriting obsolete.They also contend that today’s already overcrowded elementary school curriculum and the importance signaled by reading and math instruction need to reconsider priorities by substituting handwriting with keyboarding. However, I would like to take side with those who use common sense evidential basis and support handwriting instruction at schools because there are and will likely always be times when handwriting notes or lists will be necessary or more convenient. They argue that handwritten correspondence to individuals has a greater impact on the addressee than emails or digitally printed communications; students, especially in elementary school, still turn assignments in handwritten formats. Alternatively, handwriting is the primary source of crucial documents describing the past legacies of every nation whereby it serves as a powerful cultural and historical link to human development simply because the ability to draw symbols with our hands is still one of the

defining characteristics of our species.

Anjay kumar Mishra Deborah Poff Reza Biria Thank you for your valuable and personal input. I also think better with my pen (I think), and believe and experience that a handwritten text touches in a different way than a digital text.

I don’t know if the study has been replicated or how solid the research is but I remember reading that university students who write their notes remember more than those who type their notes in class on an electronic notebook even though they don’t record as much of what is being said.

Dear Kjartan,

As I psychologist, I think that there good reasons to keep on learning handwriting in school.

First, handwriting is a way for psychologists to learn a bit about people's personality. It seems that the more one's handwriting is easly read, the more the people are realiable and had nothing to hige. Confuse handwriting is dgenerally a signal of, say, a complicated and introvert personality.

Second, as Paul notes, technology such as computers cannot be available on several occasions,

Third, when we take notes, for exampe, on a sheet of paper, we remember more easily the poins we handwrite than when write those points, for instance, on a computer,

Fourth, what we write through handwriting is, is general, more protected than what we write, for example, on a computer or other techological device. Sometimes our computers go wrong and can even be stolen.

I still rememeber that when a was a university student, I took notes of what my professors spoke about through handwriting and shared these notes with my colleagues. Like Kjartan, a handwritten text touches in a different way than a digital text. I very much enjoy to browse the pages of a book and underline via a felt pen, a simple pen or even a pencil.

All in all, there are good reasons to manintain handwriting in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools. This can be seen as a polititically incorred idea. Even so, I espouse it.

Best regards,

Orlando

Orlando M Lourenço Thank you for your long and interesting perpective. I am getting a lot of good input from these answers.

I believe it strenghthens brain connections through kinesthetic learning

I am really interested in this question. Learning is continuous and I strongly believe that everyone wants to improve in personality and knowledge. Interestingly, handwriting is the beauty of handwork. Although, it doesn't show how intelligent one could be but to some extent defines a person's comportment with alphabets and words.