| This is difficult to approach. It's not so much that I don't like handwriting so much that it's something I have a great difficulty performing. My background in handwriting starts in kindergarten when my teacher had me pick my right hand after I couldn't decide which hand I preferred to grip with (they had these little triangular rubber grip guides for the hands). A year or two later I would switch to my left when my right would cramp, as this hand learned whatever the right did just as easily. There are many submissions on HN about neurodiversity, the way people think differently. I suspect that for the majority of the population, once they learn to write it's similar to walking: A largely automatic activity that doesn't require a huge amount of concentration to do. That's not been the case for me, maybe it's less brain lateralization, I don't know. I've begun to think more about it in recent years after a friend was diagnosed with ADHD a few years back. He is also someone with mixed-handedness and poor legibility. For him, being put on stimulant medication caused a dramatic improvement in his writing legibility. More recently, After I was no longer able to retain a secretary for note-taking in meetings I inquired about and received the same diagnosis. Stimulant medication has the same effect on me, for the first time in my life I can write legibly (if still slowly). I have no idea if this sort of medical approach would have helped my writing speeds if received while younger. What I'm trying to convey is that I don't dislike writing, I just wasn't gifted with the physical ability to do it effectively. In the same sense, I might have also liked art courses if I could actually draw basic shapes without a ruler and compass. In a discussion of pens, I feel that fountain pens can greatly help a person that might otherwise have difficulty penning in steady lines. It did for me at least. Keyboards have been even better. I can type so far above what I can write that writing is only left for my private notes, letters, and necessary legal documents like checks and tax stuff. I feel technology intervention in school would have been more helpful than providing better/alternative writing utensils and/or medicine but I was going through school before the schools were ready to provide it. |