LOL... OUTSTANDING!!!My first school was a one-room, eight-grade, single teacher country school. One of our subjects was “Penmanship” wherein we spent page after page making loops, circles and other carefully placed lines. Even now, seventy-five years later, I have better than average handwriting.
My aunt was a few years ahead of me in the same school and the teacher plainly did not like her. On one of her report cards my aunt was given a poor grade for penmanship. My grandfather took issue with it and “spoke” with the teacher.
I had gotten in trouble that day and was being kept after school so I got to witness the festivities. Grandpa was well over six feet tall and had a loud voice. When asked about the reason for the low grade, the teacher said something about ‘holding her pen wrong.’ Grandpa exploded: “I don’t care if she holds her pen with her toes, her writing is more legible than yours!’ Since that was true and the teacher knew it, the offending grade was changed.
We had penmanship. Mine was always terrible. My mom said I would be a great doctor someday. Somehow I survived. Now they don’t even teach it. Swell. Actually, when I DO write, it’s usually an ungodly combination of printing and cursive that somehow turns out to be readable, at least by me.
LOL... OUTSTANDING!!!At infant school I was taught cursive, with every letter precisely drafted between lines on the page; when I progressed to college we had to set down so much, so fast, that my handwriting morphed into a wizened short-hand that only I could read - and I’ve never been able to shake that off, to my life-long shame.
It is evident that holding the pencil or pen is no longer taught. The result will be that many adults will suffer carpal tunnel problems as they enter their thirties, forties, and fifties.
There are still **many** jobs that require filling out forms or using a pen or pencil throughout the work day. It is painful for me to watch young adults use a pencil or pen with their fingers and thumbs in such a cramped and unnatural manner. The strain on their tendons will eventually catch up with them.
Even if penmanship is no longer taught, the proper holding of a writing instrument should be taught so that the tendons of the wrist and thumb can be held in a physiologic normal position.