An Excerpt from "A Celebration of Neurons"

By Robert Sylwester, ⁱ

Recent technological developments that materially increase the range and speed of human movement and communication pose analogous educational issues about the conscious and automatic movements of students.

Our brain's motor system drives the communication skills that dominate the curriculum.  Relatively complex brain mechanisms and muscle groups control the mouth and hand movements that we use in interpersonal communication.  Our voices are directed to hearing, and hand and finger movements primarily to vision (generally via paper).  Both muscle groups are most efficient when they function automatically--when our conscious brain can focus on the content of the message rather than of the vehicle of expression.

Thus, we have long taught cursive writing because its automatic, flowing nature permits writing speeds between 15 and 30 words a minute.  But with much less instruction time, elementary students can learn to touch-type well beyond that speed, and the superb editing and spell-checking capabilities of word processors will be readily available for any extended writing students will do throughout their lives.  These developments suggest that we should phase out cursive writing as our principal technique for extended automatic writing.  Rather, we should teach elementary students to compose stories and reports directly on word processors, and to use manuscript or cursive writing primarily for short notes and forms.  Composing on a keyboard, like writing with a pencil, is an acquired skill.  Its speed and rhythm are often more attuned to the speed of though processes than is cursive writing.  Indeed, writing composed directly on a word processor tends to become more flowing and conversational in style.

Developments in oral communication technologies further complicate this issue.  In our increasingly oral society, one could ask whether it's important to be able to quickly type a document that will be sent fax or e-mail when communication via the telephone and its answering machine are even faster.  Voice input and output capability in computers is developing rapidly, and while its advent will be a boon for handicapped students, it will also create curricular adjustments for those with normal language proficiency.  For example, clear diction and correct syntax will likely be more important when we speak to computers than when we speak to people, whose brains can more easily adapt to errors in speech and syntax.

These developments are still in the future.  What's really terrible right now is that more than 25 years after the appearance of the word processor, schools are still mostly dependent on pencils--on pen pencils without spell-checkers that rapidly report errors and so actually improve the writer's spelling, on pencils (with their little pink rubber delete buttons) that punish writers for writing tentative thoughts by forcing them to rewrite and entire page rather than simply replace a word or a section.  We continue to teach elementary students manuscript and cursive writing, but not touch-typing--at an age when they can easily master it.  We may complain that our communities won't fund the hardware, but practically all businesses are now computer-driven.  Only our schools are still pencil-driven.

                                                      
ⁱABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Sylwester, Professor of Education at the University of Oregon, focuses on the educational applications of new developments in brain/stress theory and research.  He has written dozens of journal articles and made hundreds of conference and inservice presentations.
You can reach him at the College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1215. 
Phone:  (503) 345-1452.  FAX:  (503) 346-5174.