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Techdirt: School Teaching Kids How To Use Fountain Pens; Do They Teach Math With An Abacus Too?

Techdirt: School Teaching Kids How To Use Fountain Pens; Do They Teach Math With An Abacus Too?

School Teaching Kids How To Use Fountain Pens; Do They Teach Math With An Abacus Too?
from the stick-with-the-times dept

Now I'm as big a fan of the fountain pen as the next guy, but I'm not exactly convinced that it's vital to teach our school kids how to use one. However, it appears not everyone agrees. Following just a few months after the hand-wringing from some adults that the kids of today are doomed for being better at using computers than being able to write cursive, comes the news of a private school in Scotland that has decided that teaching kids how to write with fountain pens is of utmost importance. Apparently, fountain pens (not other types of pens) boost the kids' self-esteem and improve their academic performance. It's not at all clear how they go about proving this, other than a couple of random anecdotes, but the school is absolutely positive that fountain pens are the key to a child's success. Not to knock the importance of decent handwriting, but if the purpose of school is to prepare kids for the world they're going to enter as adults, I would think that how to use a fountain pen would be pretty far down the list of marketable skills. Then again, this other article points out how business schools feel they need to teach students to be better writers, as they tend to send stuff out without proofreading (or thinking) when they type it up on a computer.

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