What a Mess!

Handwriting is dead! Studies comparing people who are used to handwriting with those more accustomed to typing have shown a relative deficiency of fine motor skills in the latter. The younger generation are no longer equipped with the skills to write neatly by hand, and teachers are complaining. How many of us teachers have stared in astonishment at illegible student handwriting over and over again? Experts are recommending replacing hand-written in-class tests with typed ones. The University of Cambridge, for example, is considering allowing laptops and tablets in examination rooms. It has launched consultations around the problem of students’ fading ability to write by hand.

Eight hundred years of tradition may soon end at Cambridge when typed exams replace handwritten ones. Academics there have complained about illegible handwriting influenced by reliance on computers in lectures and outside, and some departments have piloted computer-typed tests. Similarly, Harvard academic Eric Mazur encourages his students to use computers and smartphones in exams. Speaking at the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit, the physics professor admitted that he allows pupils to look up information during tests in order to promote creative, analytical thinking rather than content recall. There is no need to memorize, he believes, with all this technology at our fingertips.

On another note, poor handwriting can affect grades. A study commissioned by stationery firm BIC concluded back in 2014 that the majority of teachers had marked down A-level and GCSE papers with illegible handwriting; it also revealed that more than a third of teachers had seen emoticons in exam answers or coursework.

Should we all downgrade papers with illegible wriing? Or should we follow the new fashion? Let me know what you think.