Re: [NTLK] Newton's HWR [WAS: "Re: Newton reclassification"]

I have had similar experiences to both of you. I am 54 years old and grew up
in the era of repetitive penmanship. Of having to trace letters on the three
line paper they used to teach the Palmer system. But all of that went by the
wayside as I also grew up in the era where left handed people were not
acknowledged beyond a vague attempt to get them to switch to right
handedness. Thus I had trouble all of my life writing in notebooks or on
some of those mini school desks that only have a small place on the right to
hold a pad. I learned to print very well in the ton of drafting classes I
took and the after school job I had as a detailer. We still did drafting
with pencil's and paper in those days. So when I go into college I decided
it was time to get over this cramped left hand paper turned the wrong way
stuff I had learned from 1st grade on. That mean retraining myself in
printing. I now print well left handed with the paper (or Newton) at the
proper angle for a left hander but I never relearned cursive. I still have
to turn the paper the way a right hander would and cramp my wrist around. So
now days the only cursive I write is my signature. The Newton recognizes my
printing well enough especially when I slow down. But when I'm at home, I
plug in my trusty Newton keyboard because even on that keyboard, I can still
type faster than I can write/print.

Matt "Ducky" Howe
matthowe@comcast.net
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mhowe41/

Steven Scotten wrote
<snip>
On Apr 27, 2007, at 5:09 PM, Lord Groundhog wrote:

> 1. I suspect my generation is nearly the last to have been drilled
> rigorously in "penmanship"

I think you're right. I'm 37 and was theoretically taught penmanship,
but I don't recall any real attention to it after about third grade.
I also remember my grandmother (herself a schoolteacher) being
somewhat shocked that I was taught to write letters the wrong way,
for example starting with an upstroke (not an issue growing up with
pencils and ballpoints, but that would have been a no-no in the days
when boys would dip girls' pigtails in the inkpots. I'm old enough to
remember school desks with places for inkpots, but no inkpots (until
I got older, of course.)

> 2. I also suspect my generation is nearly the last to have been
> required not
> only to learn said alphabet and practise it in twice weekly
> "penmanship
> lessons" from 2nd grade onwards, but to use it in all our other
> lessons.
> For example, I recall that teachers used to take marks off for poor
> penmanship in all my other lessons.

<snip>

Sometime after I turned thirty I made it a point to start relearning
lowercase letters. I have a ways to go:

<snip>

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