Great piece. I do believe our society has become so smart we truly are stupid. I don’t know of any world leader or society that has made their nation better because of technology. All I have seen is a more fractious society, with everyone screaming that they are right, and nobody knows how to engage in civil discourse, yet none are truly intelligent in any subject matter anymore because they truly do not have a firm foundation in any meaningful subject matter.
There is no golden age to reflect on, however part of being "civilized", is to adapt specific traits in order to progress forward in a meaningful manner. Those mores are now frowned upon as being old fashioned and no longer relevant, but this isn’t true. Young people have not benefited from not learning grace, poise, or the art of conversation and are wracked with anxiety because they don’t know basic maths to count back change when the power goes out. Who knew that basic skills such as baking and changing a tire would become obsolete in our highly structured world, yet these are the very skills we are now paying "experts" to teach our children. We do not have to live in a bygone era, but we shouldn’t forget all the wisdom that came before us.
As for your query about if younger people are still interested in reading and writing, as my youngest is finishing up on her Masters in Comparative Literature, I can assure you it is still very much needed for the younger generation. Interestingly it was technology which allowed her to watch the 1970s movie on "Wuthering Heights", but it was the 200 year old book which she fell in love with. And her friends who study Anthropology and Ancient Classics at university are equally enthralled. Technology is a blessing and a curse. Humans should use it as a tool to aid in our lives, but the encouragement of our leaders to allow Silicon Valley to continue to grow unchecked and allow the populace to become addicted to social media is just plain wrong. I just hope society wakes up and realizes that before it’s too late.
Fascinating, and depressing overview of cognitive trends. Popular culture and ordinary social interactions still place a high value on verbal fluency and wit, maybe that will place some sort of floor under the evolution of stupidity.
“That’s why I’ve written before that if your goal is to get a task done quickly, you should definitely use technology. If your goal is to develop your skills, you shouldn’t. If you want to travel 26 miles as quickly as possible, drive or get a taxi – just don’t pretend that you’ve run a marathon.”
I grew up in the 70s, when the controversy was introducing pocket calculators in math class. There, and later in college, I saw plenty of my classmates struggles with basic functions. Not that they couldn't add five plus seven, it was more that there was a delay in response. They couldn't complete simple equations at speed.
I suspect we'll see something similar with writing. People will have a harder time collecting their thoughts and articulating their case without relying upon their AI buddy.
Use it or lose it. And whatever skill you're trying to master, you have to engage with it on a daily basis -- you start to lose it almost immediately without regular practice. There's an old saying among musicians: "If I don't practice for one day, I notice it. If I don't practice for two days, the critics notice it. If I don't practice for three days, the audience notices it."
Totally agree. For years this has been my pitch to kids choosing subjects - rather than think about where the subject will get you, think about what the study of it will do to you. I even have a picture of a gym I show them - and make the point that you don’t go to the gym and go on a rowing machine because you need to row fast - you go to develop specific muscles.
I've taught one of Nicholas Carr's articles about the cognitive offloading problem in my college classes ("Minds Like Sieves", 2011, https://www.roughtype.com/?p=1503) for a long time. It's definitely worth reading, and this was 14 yrs ago--obviously much worse now.
When we know material will always be accessible somewhere else, we quite literally don't pay attention enough to want to store it because we think we don't need to, and we will always just "look it up." But I tell my students this reminds me of when cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham has said that assuming you can just “look up” whatever you need rather than remembering it is like someone handing you a thick Russian novel that is written in the original Russian. You might say, “But I don’t know Russian,” and the person could respond, “Here’s a Russian-English dictionary. Just look up the words.” This is not a very efficient way of reading. Life is much easier if you have a decent amount of background knowledge already stored in your brain.
So, what happens to us when EVERYTHING--all knowledge--is offloaded to a storage device/platform outside of our own brains? That's what we're facing now, and it's why students continue to get less intelligent.
Yes to the gymnasia and yes, too, to the High-level Thinking Lab! As you point out, the second demands the first. The challenge for teachers right now is how to keep students away from AI enough that the gymnasia is possible.
I'm going to add a few thoughts to this hugely interesting and engaging thread. In my town, which is a small market town with three state funded schools; two primary and one secondary each rated as good by Ofsted, there's a growing buzz on local social media about opting out of the state system. Judging from the emails this isn't solely coming from middle class professional parents but from a cross section. The repeated mantra is that the current school system isn't catering for their kids. The comments aren't directed at behavioural issues or bullying but squarely on a narrow curriculum which seems to cut no slack for those kids who aren't thriving academically. I'm aware that my observation is anecdotal but it's cropped up time and again on my town's local social media with parents asking for advice on home schooling. And then today's national news media is full of The Secretary of State for Education offering doom and gloom predictions that kids who miss the start of term are more likely to develop chronic absenteeism which sounds like data straight from the institute for the blindingly obvious. Unless the missing students are on holiday or ill it's a pretty reasonable assumption to conclude that either they,or their parents, are voting with their feet. I'd be interested to know if the trend for home education is on the rise. Certainly with a higher percentage of parents working from home it's more of a practical possibility.
It strikes me that developing the foundations of cognitive architecture to enable one to build on is the most important aspect for schools to focus on.
I read an article which I found intriguing about IQ tests and creativity suggesting that standard IQ tests can’t measure creativity. Rather that what is needed is ‘cognitive flexibility’ which is the key to learning and creativity | Cambridge Language Sciences https://share.google/MBj0QrqIXvCMIJo0b
There's no doubt for me that if you want anyone to learn anything you have to engage their interest first. When I was studying for O level English language clause analysis was included. Our teacher used jokes to make this more interesting. It worked for me so just give me a joke and I can analysis the clause content! The opposite would be true of most of the maths teaching I endured as a pupil. And any subjects that linked. In geography we had to create contour graphs using ordnance survey maps. Aged 13 I'd never used such a map and had no idea that the lines indicated increasing or decreasing height. Why would I? I'd grown up in south London where there weren't too many hills or mountains. I remember really struggled to get my contour graph looking like everyone else's. Whether everyone else understood the concept I've no idea. The aim was to get it right not understand it. When I started teaching I wondered why on earth the teacher hadn't just taken us outside with a map of the area and explained how the symbols related to where we were. My own education certainly provided plenty of examples of how not to help someone learn something. I'm still wary of IQ tests. I have tried a few online versions and after ten minutes of ' and what shape comes next in this sequence ' I've really lost the will to live. Quite probably the reason why I did so badly in maths tests. They were so boring. I was recently asked to read through a GCSE maths paper for a family member. It was being submitted for remarking and they wanted to check nothing had been missed. It was like going back in time. The same dull questions I'd ploughed my way through as a 16 year old all those years ago and about as irrelevant now as it was then. I should add that now I love maths. I grew to love it through teaching it to primary children and through reading books by Marcus du Sautoy and Hannah Fry.
I always find your posts insightful thought provoking. Thank you for writing it.
I agree that schools should not deprioritise teaching cognitive skills as a result of an increasing number of cognitive tasks being outsourced to AI, and that schools should aim to be a gymnasium for the mind. The metaphor is a good one because it raises the question of what students are training for?
How do we motivate students to spend effort on learning core skills, when the high status jobs and positions in society that demand them are obsolete? This I see as the main problem we’re facing.
Back in 2018 there were concerns that trainee medical surgeons seemed to be struggling with physical dexterity. In simple terms they couldn't thread a needle or manipulate as needed to close a wound. Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients' - BBC News https://share.google/tDTuOur7smFel8hu7
Or do we think these skills are still important when they're really not? Not too long ago, people still thought handwriting was important. Are we just better tool users?
I probably tend to agree that they _are_ important, and if we lose the ability to do arithmetic or understand probability, it makes us all worse for it -- it makes our judgment worse.
I, for one, have a terrible memory, so I absolutely rely on Google (and LLMs become very convenient to tell me some commands to configure my wifi card ... or fix my git repository). If you put me in front of a blackboard, my mathematics is poor. I can usually follow along, but if you ask me to prove something simple or integrate a simple equation, it will take me forever. However, give me SymPy in Python, and I'll manage and give the impression to others that I'm competent in this area. Maybe more recently, I'd ask an LLM - they're quite good at deriving equations even if they somehow can't figure out if 5.9 > 5.11?!
I don't think these two things are positive. Now, I'm stuck relying on technology to do many things - but it's hard to know if the technology wasn't there, would I be any better?
Very interesting points! Do we just become zombies unable to do anything ourselves and believing everything we read on the screen...?!
I think some skills do become obsolete, or if not totally obsolete then much less necessary. We had a little journey on a fun tourist steam train on Bank Holiday Monday yesterday - most jobs associated with steam railways aren't much in demand compared to 150 years ago.
But I think reading, writing & arithmetic are so fundamental to everything else that they will never become completely obsolete. There's an element of path dependency - all the later technology is built on top of them.
But you might take the view that skills associated with outmoded activies , for example, steam trains, are now specialist skills. Certainly TV programmes such as The Repair Shop have made such skills into a very desirable asset. I recently read that there's a national shortage of stone masons. The few that remain command high salaries.
Typing as someone that works in the rail industry, there is a good parallel with your story.
Sure, 150 years ago steam traction was in abundance. But that was the only form of traction power widely available back then. Then came along diesel, electric (AC and DC) and this had widened further to battery, hydrogen, including bi and tri modes of some of the above and a few more. Steamy skills are still required (many preserved railways and main line steam specials are still about), but many more and wider skills are required in the modern rail industry. The mental gymnasium has expanded; many different skills now required. Humans and their ability has evolved; just see the Channel Tunnel, High Speed rail, modern trams etc.
Communication has also changed over time. 150 years ago we only had paper letters and books for reading and writing (having evolved from hieroglyphics). Along came the telegraph, morse code, telephone then fax machine. But the arrival of computers, the internet and smart phones has seen a rapid expansion of ways to communicate. This has led to many benefits (such as being able to read your enjoyable and interesting article and even reply to it here). However there are plenty of side effects (eg sensory/information overload, leading to anxiety and worse). Unfortunately the rail industry sees the consequences of modern life with a suicide every other day. I feel the education system is struggling to keep up with this rapid evolution of communication. Hence many are leaving school with decent English grades, but lousy communication skills!
One change I would make to the education system is to ditch ‘English’ and replace with ‘Communiction’. Open up that mental gymnasium for kids. Really understand their skills and interests. Sure, work on those basics (receiving info, reading, understanding, thinking, writing, typing etc), but use a wider variety of medium that exists in the modern world. Yes, even include emojis! Modern life has so many ways to communicate. Many are new and I suspect the skills un-measured (eg the quality of YouTube videos is varied!)
A bit like steam loco’s, a percentage will still want to take the same path of 150 years ago, using pen and ink and paper. Embrace and improve those skills. But also embrace those that wish to use modern ways of communication, and improve and measure those skills and embrace them.
"Not too long ago, people still thought handwriting was important." Would it surprise you to know that handwriting is alive and thriving? Not too long ago the media was full of predictions that published texts were finished. We'd all be reading on screen. That prediction proved false as publishing has never been stronger and independent book shops are bucking the retail trend by thriving.
Presumably you don't send any greetings cards then! There are still plenty of students who are doing exams that involve writing by hand. Plus writing by hand is in a way part of a new counter culture. Fine writing instruments as well as kooky stationery is a growing industry so someone is writing somewhere even if it's not you.
I have no problem with other people's handwriting; I just don't know where it sits on the essential skill set anymore. You're not wrong; I am about as creative as a lump of coal in that respect.
I do sometimes write on the whiteboard to demonstrate various ideas, that is something.
PS: I think one of the most important set of life skills for each of us, being able to cook and understand basic nutrition, is absent in most schools, certainly in most state funded secondary schools. It was ironic I think that when D & T arrived in the curriculum and cookery was included, the design elements were given far higher status. So designing the packaging for some biscuits was viewed as more important than actually making the biscuits. The irony being that over packaging is now acknowledged as 'a bad thing'. I certainly wouldn't favour yet more exam subjects but I'd definitely include cooking and nutrition right through the secondary curriculum. Currently it's only up to KS3 and the amount of cookery and nutrition is variable from school to school. With the NHS currently overwhelmed by the disease occurring in overweight and obese patients (60% of the UK population) it seems absurd not to make this a statutory study area in schools. Although I can guess why it wouldn't happen as there would be few teachers qualified to teach these life skills now unless it's part of D + T.
It's an interesting thought as to what constitutes an essential skill in the 21st century. I would think a significant percentage of most schools' curriculum wouldn't pass the test. I'm an English graduate but I'm well aware that a deep knowledge of the minutiae of English grammar won't solve the world's problems however much I get irritated by misspellings and the incorrect use of the apostrophe. Is there a real need for youngsters to learn team sports? P.E.skills yes but team sports? Do we need to know how to read a map now there are apps to do it for us? What's the point of learning art skills? Also do we need to learn factual knowledge about anything because we can just ask Professor Google. Conversely I'd say all knowledge is power and all skills are useful, including handwriting. Here's a funny story for you. More than a decade ago Ofsted designated some schools as examples of good practice with funding for other schools' heads to visit. I visited one such school. It was interesting and certainly had some things that you might want to try out in your own school. However the teaching style was very prescribed as in all teachers were expected to follow a set patterns. One factor that would perhaps raise a smile from you was that all the kids were taught a prescribed style of handwriting. This was a primary school. The style was a version of italic and the teachers had to learn how to do it. If they were offered a job they had a short course on how to do it. All posts were on a temporary contract until the teacher could show they were capable of writing in this particular style. Definitely a bit over the top. I use a screen a huge amount, like now, but I've always got a notepad and pencil with me. I guess musicians and writers could give it all up because I'm sure AI will be able to create music, art, books etc but it's missing the point of why people do these things. I should add that my handwriting isn't a shining example of script but I do enjoy the act of putting pen/ pencil to paper. And, judging from the number of shops already displaying Christmas cards, there must be some folks who'll be sending them.
PS: My board skills were definitely not one of my strengths!
Not sure it is a devil's advocate question. Writers have been using technology to write their manuscripts for over a century. The typewriter was becoming the go-to technology by 1900. By the mid 20th century it was common for ordinary folk to have their own typewriter at home. So of course most manuscripts from the 20th century onwards would have started off as typed. Not only was it quicker if you were a proficient typist, but you could use carbons and get extra copies as, in the early days of typewriters, photocopying wasn't an option.
There's a huge amount of research available that shows the links between hand, eye and brain and I hope all teachers are aware of this.
I certainly wouldn't expect the majority of writers to use longhand as at some point someone will have to transfer it to a form of type script and many people's handwriting can be legible only to them. But there is a joy in writing by hand as there is a joy in receiving a handwritten letter, greetings card or postcard. I've included a few links to offer some objective evidence beyond my own preferences including an article that references current contemporary writers who still write their manuscripts by hand.
Great piece. I do believe our society has become so smart we truly are stupid. I don’t know of any world leader or society that has made their nation better because of technology. All I have seen is a more fractious society, with everyone screaming that they are right, and nobody knows how to engage in civil discourse, yet none are truly intelligent in any subject matter anymore because they truly do not have a firm foundation in any meaningful subject matter.
There is no golden age to reflect on, however part of being "civilized", is to adapt specific traits in order to progress forward in a meaningful manner. Those mores are now frowned upon as being old fashioned and no longer relevant, but this isn’t true. Young people have not benefited from not learning grace, poise, or the art of conversation and are wracked with anxiety because they don’t know basic maths to count back change when the power goes out. Who knew that basic skills such as baking and changing a tire would become obsolete in our highly structured world, yet these are the very skills we are now paying "experts" to teach our children. We do not have to live in a bygone era, but we shouldn’t forget all the wisdom that came before us.
As for your query about if younger people are still interested in reading and writing, as my youngest is finishing up on her Masters in Comparative Literature, I can assure you it is still very much needed for the younger generation. Interestingly it was technology which allowed her to watch the 1970s movie on "Wuthering Heights", but it was the 200 year old book which she fell in love with. And her friends who study Anthropology and Ancient Classics at university are equally enthralled. Technology is a blessing and a curse. Humans should use it as a tool to aid in our lives, but the encouragement of our leaders to allow Silicon Valley to continue to grow unchecked and allow the populace to become addicted to social media is just plain wrong. I just hope society wakes up and realizes that before it’s too late.
Fascinating, and depressing overview of cognitive trends. Popular culture and ordinary social interactions still place a high value on verbal fluency and wit, maybe that will place some sort of floor under the evolution of stupidity.
I love this:
“That’s why I’ve written before that if your goal is to get a task done quickly, you should definitely use technology. If your goal is to develop your skills, you shouldn’t. If you want to travel 26 miles as quickly as possible, drive or get a taxi – just don’t pretend that you’ve run a marathon.”
I grew up in the 70s, when the controversy was introducing pocket calculators in math class. There, and later in college, I saw plenty of my classmates struggles with basic functions. Not that they couldn't add five plus seven, it was more that there was a delay in response. They couldn't complete simple equations at speed.
I suspect we'll see something similar with writing. People will have a harder time collecting their thoughts and articulating their case without relying upon their AI buddy.
Preach, Daisy!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Use it or lose it. And whatever skill you're trying to master, you have to engage with it on a daily basis -- you start to lose it almost immediately without regular practice. There's an old saying among musicians: "If I don't practice for one day, I notice it. If I don't practice for two days, the critics notice it. If I don't practice for three days, the audience notices it."
Totally agree. For years this has been my pitch to kids choosing subjects - rather than think about where the subject will get you, think about what the study of it will do to you. I even have a picture of a gym I show them - and make the point that you don’t go to the gym and go on a rowing machine because you need to row fast - you go to develop specific muscles.
I've taught one of Nicholas Carr's articles about the cognitive offloading problem in my college classes ("Minds Like Sieves", 2011, https://www.roughtype.com/?p=1503) for a long time. It's definitely worth reading, and this was 14 yrs ago--obviously much worse now.
When we know material will always be accessible somewhere else, we quite literally don't pay attention enough to want to store it because we think we don't need to, and we will always just "look it up." But I tell my students this reminds me of when cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham has said that assuming you can just “look up” whatever you need rather than remembering it is like someone handing you a thick Russian novel that is written in the original Russian. You might say, “But I don’t know Russian,” and the person could respond, “Here’s a Russian-English dictionary. Just look up the words.” This is not a very efficient way of reading. Life is much easier if you have a decent amount of background knowledge already stored in your brain.
So, what happens to us when EVERYTHING--all knowledge--is offloaded to a storage device/platform outside of our own brains? That's what we're facing now, and it's why students continue to get less intelligent.
Nice article.
Yes to the gymnasia and yes, too, to the High-level Thinking Lab! As you point out, the second demands the first. The challenge for teachers right now is how to keep students away from AI enough that the gymnasia is possible.
I'm going to add a few thoughts to this hugely interesting and engaging thread. In my town, which is a small market town with three state funded schools; two primary and one secondary each rated as good by Ofsted, there's a growing buzz on local social media about opting out of the state system. Judging from the emails this isn't solely coming from middle class professional parents but from a cross section. The repeated mantra is that the current school system isn't catering for their kids. The comments aren't directed at behavioural issues or bullying but squarely on a narrow curriculum which seems to cut no slack for those kids who aren't thriving academically. I'm aware that my observation is anecdotal but it's cropped up time and again on my town's local social media with parents asking for advice on home schooling. And then today's national news media is full of The Secretary of State for Education offering doom and gloom predictions that kids who miss the start of term are more likely to develop chronic absenteeism which sounds like data straight from the institute for the blindingly obvious. Unless the missing students are on holiday or ill it's a pretty reasonable assumption to conclude that either they,or their parents, are voting with their feet. I'd be interested to know if the trend for home education is on the rise. Certainly with a higher percentage of parents working from home it's more of a practical possibility.
It strikes me that developing the foundations of cognitive architecture to enable one to build on is the most important aspect for schools to focus on.
I love the metaphor of schools as gymnasia for the mind. Nice one Daisy 👍👏
I read an article which I found intriguing about IQ tests and creativity suggesting that standard IQ tests can’t measure creativity. Rather that what is needed is ‘cognitive flexibility’ which is the key to learning and creativity | Cambridge Language Sciences https://share.google/MBj0QrqIXvCMIJo0b
There's no doubt for me that if you want anyone to learn anything you have to engage their interest first. When I was studying for O level English language clause analysis was included. Our teacher used jokes to make this more interesting. It worked for me so just give me a joke and I can analysis the clause content! The opposite would be true of most of the maths teaching I endured as a pupil. And any subjects that linked. In geography we had to create contour graphs using ordnance survey maps. Aged 13 I'd never used such a map and had no idea that the lines indicated increasing or decreasing height. Why would I? I'd grown up in south London where there weren't too many hills or mountains. I remember really struggled to get my contour graph looking like everyone else's. Whether everyone else understood the concept I've no idea. The aim was to get it right not understand it. When I started teaching I wondered why on earth the teacher hadn't just taken us outside with a map of the area and explained how the symbols related to where we were. My own education certainly provided plenty of examples of how not to help someone learn something. I'm still wary of IQ tests. I have tried a few online versions and after ten minutes of ' and what shape comes next in this sequence ' I've really lost the will to live. Quite probably the reason why I did so badly in maths tests. They were so boring. I was recently asked to read through a GCSE maths paper for a family member. It was being submitted for remarking and they wanted to check nothing had been missed. It was like going back in time. The same dull questions I'd ploughed my way through as a 16 year old all those years ago and about as irrelevant now as it was then. I should add that now I love maths. I grew to love it through teaching it to primary children and through reading books by Marcus du Sautoy and Hannah Fry.
I always find your posts insightful thought provoking. Thank you for writing it.
I agree that schools should not deprioritise teaching cognitive skills as a result of an increasing number of cognitive tasks being outsourced to AI, and that schools should aim to be a gymnasium for the mind. The metaphor is a good one because it raises the question of what students are training for?
How do we motivate students to spend effort on learning core skills, when the high status jobs and positions in society that demand them are obsolete? This I see as the main problem we’re facing.
I think we have to explain that the core skills are the foundation for the high status ones. But it's a hard sell, I agree.
Back in 2018 there were concerns that trainee medical surgeons seemed to be struggling with physical dexterity. In simple terms they couldn't thread a needle or manipulate as needed to close a wound. Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients' - BBC News https://share.google/tDTuOur7smFel8hu7
Or do we think these skills are still important when they're really not? Not too long ago, people still thought handwriting was important. Are we just better tool users?
I probably tend to agree that they _are_ important, and if we lose the ability to do arithmetic or understand probability, it makes us all worse for it -- it makes our judgment worse.
I, for one, have a terrible memory, so I absolutely rely on Google (and LLMs become very convenient to tell me some commands to configure my wifi card ... or fix my git repository). If you put me in front of a blackboard, my mathematics is poor. I can usually follow along, but if you ask me to prove something simple or integrate a simple equation, it will take me forever. However, give me SymPy in Python, and I'll manage and give the impression to others that I'm competent in this area. Maybe more recently, I'd ask an LLM - they're quite good at deriving equations even if they somehow can't figure out if 5.9 > 5.11?!
I don't think these two things are positive. Now, I'm stuck relying on technology to do many things - but it's hard to know if the technology wasn't there, would I be any better?
Very interesting points! Do we just become zombies unable to do anything ourselves and believing everything we read on the screen...?!
I think some skills do become obsolete, or if not totally obsolete then much less necessary. We had a little journey on a fun tourist steam train on Bank Holiday Monday yesterday - most jobs associated with steam railways aren't much in demand compared to 150 years ago.
But I think reading, writing & arithmetic are so fundamental to everything else that they will never become completely obsolete. There's an element of path dependency - all the later technology is built on top of them.
But you might take the view that skills associated with outmoded activies , for example, steam trains, are now specialist skills. Certainly TV programmes such as The Repair Shop have made such skills into a very desirable asset. I recently read that there's a national shortage of stone masons. The few that remain command high salaries.
Typing as someone that works in the rail industry, there is a good parallel with your story.
Sure, 150 years ago steam traction was in abundance. But that was the only form of traction power widely available back then. Then came along diesel, electric (AC and DC) and this had widened further to battery, hydrogen, including bi and tri modes of some of the above and a few more. Steamy skills are still required (many preserved railways and main line steam specials are still about), but many more and wider skills are required in the modern rail industry. The mental gymnasium has expanded; many different skills now required. Humans and their ability has evolved; just see the Channel Tunnel, High Speed rail, modern trams etc.
Communication has also changed over time. 150 years ago we only had paper letters and books for reading and writing (having evolved from hieroglyphics). Along came the telegraph, morse code, telephone then fax machine. But the arrival of computers, the internet and smart phones has seen a rapid expansion of ways to communicate. This has led to many benefits (such as being able to read your enjoyable and interesting article and even reply to it here). However there are plenty of side effects (eg sensory/information overload, leading to anxiety and worse). Unfortunately the rail industry sees the consequences of modern life with a suicide every other day. I feel the education system is struggling to keep up with this rapid evolution of communication. Hence many are leaving school with decent English grades, but lousy communication skills!
One change I would make to the education system is to ditch ‘English’ and replace with ‘Communiction’. Open up that mental gymnasium for kids. Really understand their skills and interests. Sure, work on those basics (receiving info, reading, understanding, thinking, writing, typing etc), but use a wider variety of medium that exists in the modern world. Yes, even include emojis! Modern life has so many ways to communicate. Many are new and I suspect the skills un-measured (eg the quality of YouTube videos is varied!)
A bit like steam loco’s, a percentage will still want to take the same path of 150 years ago, using pen and ink and paper. Embrace and improve those skills. But also embrace those that wish to use modern ways of communication, and improve and measure those skills and embrace them.
"Not too long ago, people still thought handwriting was important." Would it surprise you to know that handwriting is alive and thriving? Not too long ago the media was full of predictions that published texts were finished. We'd all be reading on screen. That prediction proved false as publishing has never been stronger and independent book shops are bucking the retail trend by thriving.
To a few people, I can see it's important, though I don't think many people are handwriting anywhere near as much as they used to. Is that unfair?
Aside from filling in forms at the bank or on my departure card for immigration, I don't think I've handwritten anything for years.
Good job David Bowie hadn't given up writing by hand. Think what we'd have missed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3dpdpvj083o
Presumably you don't send any greetings cards then! There are still plenty of students who are doing exams that involve writing by hand. Plus writing by hand is in a way part of a new counter culture. Fine writing instruments as well as kooky stationery is a growing industry so someone is writing somewhere even if it's not you.
I have no problem with other people's handwriting; I just don't know where it sits on the essential skill set anymore. You're not wrong; I am about as creative as a lump of coal in that respect.
I do sometimes write on the whiteboard to demonstrate various ideas, that is something.
PS: I think one of the most important set of life skills for each of us, being able to cook and understand basic nutrition, is absent in most schools, certainly in most state funded secondary schools. It was ironic I think that when D & T arrived in the curriculum and cookery was included, the design elements were given far higher status. So designing the packaging for some biscuits was viewed as more important than actually making the biscuits. The irony being that over packaging is now acknowledged as 'a bad thing'. I certainly wouldn't favour yet more exam subjects but I'd definitely include cooking and nutrition right through the secondary curriculum. Currently it's only up to KS3 and the amount of cookery and nutrition is variable from school to school. With the NHS currently overwhelmed by the disease occurring in overweight and obese patients (60% of the UK population) it seems absurd not to make this a statutory study area in schools. Although I can guess why it wouldn't happen as there would be few teachers qualified to teach these life skills now unless it's part of D + T.
It's an interesting thought as to what constitutes an essential skill in the 21st century. I would think a significant percentage of most schools' curriculum wouldn't pass the test. I'm an English graduate but I'm well aware that a deep knowledge of the minutiae of English grammar won't solve the world's problems however much I get irritated by misspellings and the incorrect use of the apostrophe. Is there a real need for youngsters to learn team sports? P.E.skills yes but team sports? Do we need to know how to read a map now there are apps to do it for us? What's the point of learning art skills? Also do we need to learn factual knowledge about anything because we can just ask Professor Google. Conversely I'd say all knowledge is power and all skills are useful, including handwriting. Here's a funny story for you. More than a decade ago Ofsted designated some schools as examples of good practice with funding for other schools' heads to visit. I visited one such school. It was interesting and certainly had some things that you might want to try out in your own school. However the teaching style was very prescribed as in all teachers were expected to follow a set patterns. One factor that would perhaps raise a smile from you was that all the kids were taught a prescribed style of handwriting. This was a primary school. The style was a version of italic and the teachers had to learn how to do it. If they were offered a job they had a short course on how to do it. All posts were on a temporary contract until the teacher could show they were capable of writing in this particular style. Definitely a bit over the top. I use a screen a huge amount, like now, but I've always got a notepad and pencil with me. I guess musicians and writers could give it all up because I'm sure AI will be able to create music, art, books etc but it's missing the point of why people do these things. I should add that my handwriting isn't a shining example of script but I do enjoy the act of putting pen/ pencil to paper. And, judging from the number of shops already displaying Christmas cards, there must be some folks who'll be sending them.
PS: My board skills were definitely not one of my strengths!
Devil’s advocate: What percentage of those books are handwritten v typed on a PC then printed? 😉
Not sure it is a devil's advocate question. Writers have been using technology to write their manuscripts for over a century. The typewriter was becoming the go-to technology by 1900. By the mid 20th century it was common for ordinary folk to have their own typewriter at home. So of course most manuscripts from the 20th century onwards would have started off as typed. Not only was it quicker if you were a proficient typist, but you could use carbons and get extra copies as, in the early days of typewriters, photocopying wasn't an option.
There's a huge amount of research available that shows the links between hand, eye and brain and I hope all teachers are aware of this.
I certainly wouldn't expect the majority of writers to use longhand as at some point someone will have to transfer it to a form of type script and many people's handwriting can be legible only to them. But there is a joy in writing by hand as there is a joy in receiving a handwritten letter, greetings card or postcard. I've included a few links to offer some objective evidence beyond my own preferences including an article that references current contemporary writers who still write their manuscripts by hand.
Pen Or Keyboard — Which Is Mightier? - Royal Literary Fund https://share.google/2dUwXTcVsbYxyvuZV
8 Authors Who Wrote Their Books Longhand | Features - Times
Now https://share.google/ID0tS1e3YiHJWtKRN
Why I’m Writing My Books By Hand in Fountain Pen – Debbie Young's Writing Life https://share.google/KgpBrE9JNnBtgnJok
Dan Ashcroft wrote about something similar in his Rise Of The Idiots polemic.
As a teacher, I absolutely see this. Almost on the daily. It really frightens me.