Quill pens were replaced in the early to mid 19th century by dip pens with a manufactured metal nib. The much reduced cost compared to quills gave a huge boost to literacy.
Fountain pens were an older invention, but poor reliability and cost kept them out of common use before the early 20th century.
I doubt either progression was controversial. Basic penmanship is similar with all of these.
Ballpoint pens gained popularity around the 1960s. That was (and is) controversial -- ballpoint pens require much more pressure, so they are less comfortable for lengthy writing, and it's more difficult to write neatly.
Children in some countries are therefore still required to use fountain pens at school.
In a professional environment, the last time I wrote on paper is when my computer was in for maintenance. That's like having students use hand-slates in the era of paper.
There are different reason to favour handwriting:
1. Development coordiantion eye-hand;
2. Computers can go to maintenance as you said;
3. Creativity, how many times did you doodle on a white word file?
4. They'll have plenty of times in uni/job to stare blankly at a LCD screen
5. Paper is less tiresome on eyes.
What an exaggeration. I use a pen and paper to take notes all the time at work as a dev. Let's face it most kids are just distracting themselves with a chromebook if they're using it in class.
Writing notes by hand has been proven to increase understanding and retention. Unless we’re giving kids OCR tablets, they’re learning less taking notes on a keyboard.
I believe this train of thought jumped to a conclusion not supported by the evidence: does taking notes on computer not increase understanding and retention?
Because anecdotally: I retain more when I take notes on laptop than if I took no notes. I also retain more when I take notes on laptop than if I took notes on paper because my typing speed can keep up with the topic and my writing speed cannot.
To support your claim see Mueller & Oppenheimer's research from 2014. The big issue is that while the laptop lets people capture MORE of the words said, the process of filtering is how the mind consolidates information. Taking notes require you to decide what to leave out and that is what helps you remember.
Reeking purple worksheets fresh off the mimeograph machine, just like God intended. And make the little brats write in cursive.
We also have a golden opportunity to teach them where "cut" and "paste" on their parents' computers come from, using real scissors and actual nasty, lumpy paste.
(Thankfully it was just a short lived fad and they all gathered dust in storage fairly quickly.)