Training young humans in basic manual dexterity seems pretty reasonable to me. It would be good to require more manual training than just minimal and mediocre handwriting practice, and get young people folding origami, sewing, drawing, sculpting clay, cutting food with a knife, using chopsticks, playing musical instruments, tying knots, ...
Paper furthermore remains a much more flexible and fluent tool than computer interfaces for a wide variety of tasks.
We do far more than train them with "mediocre handwriting". We introduce letters by showing script (which is a confusing style almost never used anywhere in the real world) and insist for years on the correct shape to use on this totally obsolete style.
Any of the activity you mention would be a better way to train manual dexterity.
This varies a lot from place to place. My school mostly focused on print letters, and didn’t provide much useful guidance to students. I agree the typical American “cursive” letters are quite terrible, and that in many places pedagogy is not very effective.
Personally I think students should learn some type of simplified italic-type script, using a pen with ink that flows well enough that they don’t need to use much pressure.
This goes against what neuroscience is telling us is good for cognitive development.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-han...
Re:Abacus tournaments in Japan
by SamReidHughes on Thursday September 26, 2019 @02:02AM
(#21078635)
It's kind of like rationalizing the denominator. Useful for testing.
But also, learning to type is a huge barrier to entry. For kids, writing is faster.
I wont deny that handwriting is useful, but having it taught as the primary writing skill, the first and main one, while the keyboard, the device that will probably be used 95% of the time people have to write something in their lives, is still seen as a niche skill is shocking to me.