The first exercise in the journalistic writing class was always the most difficult because it requires detecting the 5ws, prioritizing the data and composing bi-membered sentences without gaps.
In recent years, the first exercise added a new
difficulty
: most of the students
lost the ability to write by hand
with a certain speed.
"Can we do it at home, Profe?"
"If I write it on my cell phone and send it to print, will you wait for me?"
Image from September 6, 2021 of a student attending a class.
(Xinhua/Martín Zabala)
"In the Spanish university it is rare to see a student
taking notes on paper
and this is noticeable, say the teachers: handwriting worsens, more
spelling
and
grammar
mistakes are made , and students have
problems writing
and organizing ideas" , the newspaper
La Voz de Galicia
reported days ago .
Argentine classrooms, "advantages" of poverty, are still
more populated by notebooks
than keyboards, although devices are gaining ground: some notebooks, tablets and even cell phones with which
the audio
of the explanation is recorded and
the presentations are photographed
( There are almost no classes left without "filminas", there is no one who can follow them).
In primary school, cursive is not a topic either.
A good student can complete his entire course
of it without being able to link one letter to the next
.
Some write only in capital letters and others alternate with some lower case letters, always in print.
They choose
the one they like.
More than a vintage whim
Knowing how to write by hand is not a whim or a
vintage
requirement .
The same article in the Galician press recalled that in 2014, a text published by the journal
Psychological Science
demonstrated that taking notes with a computer did not generate
deep learning
but rather more
mechanical and repetitive ones
.
Artists intervene with wallpapers and drawings in a classroom of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UBA during a seminar by Prof. Lucas Rubinich. Photo: Andres D'Elia.
"Writing by hand involves a complex
cognitive process
that facilitates concentration, improves attention and favors the retention of information. It is a brain activity that simultaneously activates
millions of neurons
, some very distant from each other, activating various brain areas related
to memories
," indicates psychologist Amparo Botella.
In California, USA, this year
it was again required
that primary school children learn to write in cursive, content that had been eliminated in 2010. The same thing happened in more than twenty states in that country.
The first exercise in journalistic writing class was always the most
difficult
.
The good news is that after a few weeks,
handwriting becomes less of a problem
.
We are on time.