Typing is not Writing (2019)

This is not a protest against typing, nor is it a statement saying that handwriting is fundamentally better. This piece looks at how education is changing with the digital age and questions what may come from a new generation of students. In a conversation with my aunt, I learned that my cousin’s second grade homework consists of only online multiple-choice questions. Cursive handwriting was once taught universally in Western public schools, but in recent years it has been removed from many curriculums. Will standard printing be the next to go? By some dictionary definitions, typing is writing; but according to the primary definition typing is not writing. Handwriting works different parts of the brain than typing does. In a developing brain where, typing is taught over or before handwriting, how will that change a future generations brain structure? What impact will that have? Instead of students learning their ABC’s, perhaps the alphabet will be organized in QWERTY.