Published Scotland on Sunday, 17th October, 2010
When I was wee, and at the local primary school, handwriting was not taught. In fact, it wasn’t even discussed. This was in the early days of ‘open plan’ comprehensives, where we all wore white polyester polo necks and fetching purple jumpers and where the teachers were either hippies or dyed-in-the-wool dinosaurs. It was a strange mix of people, of methods and of general educational philosophy.
So did the lack of being taught a formal handwriting style damage me in any way? I don’t think so, although my wife may disagree. I can’t help feeling that the importance of perfect handwriting is somewhat overplayed. That is not to say that it does not matter at all. What I do want to see from pupils is legible and easily read pieces of work but I am really much more interested in what a child writes about than the quality of their handwriting.
So much time can be spent in primary schools on the correct formation of letters that it impacts on the learning of other, perhaps more important, literacy skills. And, if I’m being really honest, there is a high proportion of children who just don’t have that innate requirement to do everything ‘neatly’; so much so that the ‘handwriting’ lesson becomes a tedious, disengaging activity that bears no relation to the writing that the same child will produce one hour later during a history lesson.
There is, of course, the notion that in this digital age the requirement to handwrite at all may soon disappear but I personally don’t buy into that argument. For me, it is simply that the quality of handwriting comes pretty far down on my priority list. I want to see pupils think, design, debate, analyse, engage, have fun, explore – the list goes on. The ability to write quality and stylised handwriting is neither here nor there.