Touch typing a dying skill?

[altivo]

I guess I haven't been paying close enough attention.

They aren't teaching typing in most schools any more?

Good grief. Back in the 1970s, we used to say that typing was a modern skill, like driving a vehicle, and that everyone who is a part of a technological society needs to have at least a basic knowledge of it. It seems only logical to me that this would be even more obvious today. Yet they aren't teaching it? What is wrong with us?

I used to laugh at execs and officers who refused to touch a keyboard. As the PC became ubiquitous, everyone had to have one on their desk as a status symbol, but many could not use them because they could not type. Now with the educational emphasis on "computer literacy", how can typing be left out? Gah. It's as basic as reading or arithmetic.

I was last tested at 91 words per minute. That was a long time ago. It's true that most people don't need that kind of secretarial skill, and I actually was a secretary at one time and generated thousands of pages of typewritten manuscript. But everyone today needs to be able to cruise along at 35 or 40 words and do so without watching the keyboard or their fingers. Hunt and peck or four finger techniques just aren't adequate.

I had noticed that kids are being told they must turn in school work in printed form, out of a word processor. They come to the library to use our machines a lot. And I did have the impression that they weren't getting any basic instruction in how to actually use that facility. I've seen the written results, which are generally very, very poor quality and tend to be extremely short. Single paragraph reports and papers never would have passed muster when I was in fifth or sixth grade. It hadn't occurred to me until now that the inability to type efficiently is part of what keeps kids today from being able to get things down on paper.

Yet another failure in our understanding of the building blocks needed. Sigh.

Comments

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed typing class, way back in my sophomore year of high school. That's probably because it was a lot easier than the other classes I was taking. I still remember how, during the first week or so, I thought I'd never be able to type without looking at the keyboard and such.

At one point, I could type over 100wpm. The last time I was actually tested was back in the early 90's and I was rated at 96wpm. I also taught myself 10-key and tested at 16000. My typing has really degraded in the past few years. I know I type at a speed nowhere near what I used to. Still, I can maintain a decent speed.

I can't imagine trying to get by nowadays without being able to type. A number of the people I work with never learned to type, but they're old enough that they wouldn't likely have even considered needing to learn to back when they were in school. Most of 'em just hunt and peck incredibly fast.

I kind of miss the 'old days' using a Selectric and even having to use the eraser/brush thingy to correct typos. I remember asking and being asked by friends for some carbon paper when we'd run out.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had typing in I think 9th grade. It was an optional, one semester class called "Personal Typing" that was geared to general use, and not to business or secretarial skills. That was all the formal training I had on the keyboard, but it was adequate. It was possible at that time (1960s) to take two or more full years of typing in high school. Those classes were directed to the minutia of secretarial and legal practices, and aimed at students who were not planning to continue their education beyond high school (and mostly at girls, since boys "didn't type for a living.")

The article referenced above is, of course, UK originated. But after reading it I realized that I am seeing symptoms of the same deficiency here in the US. See tosdragon's reply below for a little background on what seems to be happening.

[brunbera.livejournal.com]

obDvorak: How about teaching a keyboard layout that makes sense? *chuckles*

(For the record: I use a dvorak keyboard layout on any device that allows it. The more I use it, the more QWERTY bugs me. Hell, dvorak keyboards even have funnier typos!)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I have no objection to dvorak if it works. I'm not really convinced that it does, but there may be a placebo effect. If an easy way is provided to switch devices between dvorak and qwerty, I'm happy to install or activate it for people. Given the pervasiveness of the qwerty standard, though, I do think qwerty needs to remain available for a long time. The qwerty layout works perfectly fine for me, and I have no need to retrain myself.

I think it was chipuni or maybe kaysho who conducted a scientific experiment with dvorak. The last report on it that I read was inconclusive, though. Switching over seemed to be a wash, just trading one set of obstacles for a different set.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I have thought for a long time that schools do no tteach any skills worth learning. British schools are the worst. I learned a lot of rubbish about Algebra, but I did not have any life skills explained to me. I just had to muddle on and find out on my own.

[hrrunka]

I did not have any life skills explained

I think they expected you to learn that by being beaten up in the playground and the streets outside of lesson time. (Cynical? Me?)

I was done with full-time education before the age of micro-computers, and typing wasn't a skill anyone figured I should learn. I've never had any luck teaching myself touch-typing either.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Right. They didn't figure boys needed to know how to type in those days. I learned it because I personally chose to do so, and in the face of some resistance (not from my family, but from the school, where they thought my class time should be put to better use...though had I chosen to use it for playing basketball they never would have objected.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, in my opinion, "life skills" (like how to negotiate and compromise, or how to manage one's diet or wardrobe) are not easy to teach in a classroom. Algebra or geometry teaches rational thought, logic and reasoning. Those are important thought processes, or "paths" in your brain if you will. Even if you never use algebra in daily living, studying it is a valuable brain exercise. :)

Life Skills

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more tangible skills. Such as :

How to manage a household budget.
Banking and personal finance.
Britain's constitution (what little we have of one), and how the you as a subject (I REFUSE to use the term "Citizen", as in Britain's case, it makes a mockery of the word) fit into it.
Politics and the workings of government.

I suppose these are all "Civic Skills". I acquired these on my own, but not everyone has such an enquiring mind as me. Ignorance of the above can lead to bankruptcy and bad decision making.

Re: Life Skills

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Household budgeting was taught here when I was in school (50s-60s) but I don't know if it is any more. Of course there was a tendency to push it into the "home economics" subjects that were taught only to girls, so if the UK behaves similarly, that might be where you missed it.

Civics, however, was a required subject when I was in school, usually at the 9th or 10th grade level, and you had to pass it or you could not graduate. That included a lot of detail on the federal constitution and the workings of the federal government, as well as practical matters of voting and primary elections and so forth. I can't imagine that has been dropped here. One of the main arguments for free public education in the US has always been that it is needed in order to have an adequately informed electorate. One can argue that it hasn't helped in that respect, but the argument is still very much in use.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Don't belittle algebra. It is a valuable exercise in logic and reasoning, AND it has very useful applications in ordinary daily life. Understanding how to change the size of a frame without altering the proportions? How to project compound interest? How to divide up a restaurant bill? Adjusting a recipe for six portions so that it makes only two? Those are all algebra. It sounds like you were so busy hating the subject that you never caught on to the practical applications.

Although I do think schools need to teach and then exercise basic skills like reading, writing, typing, and so forth, I also strongly support teaching abstraction, logic, and theory. That's what a properly rounded education is about.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*laughter*

I see LJ has once again been suddenly releasing notifications for very old comments. I wondered why you were now replying to something from weeks ago. I guess you weren't. I only just received the notification of your old reply. ;p

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

With over 10m users, methinks LJ has trouble coping with the pressure.

[fandt4.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether it is still part of the curriculum or not, but when I was in high school (which was not a long time ago at all), typing classes were mandatory. The credit was needed to graduate, and a lot of people at my school struggled due to the general absence of computers in all places that this area is famous for (either that, or reasons unbeknownst to me).

I find it odd, that a semi-private school in the middle of the woods would still (as far as I know) follow this practice while other more modernised areas did not. In fact, until I read your post here, I had no idea that is was becoming a dying practice. Seems like a daft idea, considering computers are now the worlds life blood. *shrugs*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mandatory? That I haven't heard of, unless it was part of some misguided approach to "computer literacy", something parents have been screaming for schools to teach since they lack it themselves. But no one seems to have a very good handle on what computer literacy really is. I would content it is NOT keyboarding skill.

[shadowtxhorse.livejournal.com]

Heh .. and I'm sorry, whoever invented ergonomic keyboards never designed them for horse hooves like mine. Give me a nice older style traditional Selectric type keyboard.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ergonomic? Are you referring to physical alterations in the style of the Microsoft "Natural" keyboard? Or to key layout alterations, like Dvorak?

I agree that the Microsoft so-called Natural keyboard only confounds things. My boss had one for a while and I hated any time I had to even just give a few commands through it. But that's all a matter of what you're used to, I think. Same for Dvorak. I prefer qwerty, but I am very insistent on having the keyboard at a proper ergonometric height. I get serious cramps and difficulties from typing on a keyboard that is sitting on a desktop.

And the keyboards on notebook or laptop computers? Totally unusable. Utter crap.

Now for hooves, we have a workable implementation in calydor's patented TreadMare<(tm) keyboard, which is essentially just a large touchpad that translates morse code into ASCII. ;P

[tosdragon.livejournal.com]

Actually we do teach it in school still. Touch typing is indeed difficult to deal with though. What we are finding is that the skill needs to be taught starting in first and second grades. As computers have become more and more commonplace in every area, hunt-and-peck becomes entrenched very early on in the student's mind if proper techniques are not learned at an early date. Basic example, before we started making the typing software available at the Elementary, we had students coming up to the high school who were unable to type properly in any regard, and we have had to try every device from covers to black skins over the keyboards to get their fingers moving properly on the keyboards. I would venture that we, at least in the district I work for, do appreciate the building blocks needed, however, frequently we are backed in to a wall by the basic issues of WHEN and HOW becoming outdated. Keeping it all relevant is really a matter of sitting down with everyone and shaking everything out to see what you have. Just a bit of food for thought.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the professional input on this issue. Thanks. :)

I can see the elements of when and how, as you say, being a difficulty now. And I'd be inclined to agree that keyboard usage should be taught almost at the same time as basic writing skills are in today's environment. That's a radical change from the way things were when I was in school, but the world has changed too.

I remember having instruction in about third grade on how to use the telephone, which covered rotary dialing, obtaining help from an operator, and even the dialless phones where you picked up the receiver and that distant voice asked you "Number please?" (Something that I just barely remember, though the town I live in now didn't get dial phones until 1954.) Party lines were covered too.

We also learned how to tell time on a round, analog clock face. (Which ties into various math topics, like fractions.) Today, I am well aware that the typical ten or twelve year old doesn't know how to operate a rotary dial phone, and can't tell time on an analog clock (especially not the kind that has no numbers on the face, but the basic "big hand is on..." stuff seems to have gone out the window.)

[hrrunka]

Even as late as '75 my grandparents were on a party line, and had a phone with a handle on it. You picked up the phone and wound the handle like crazy. If you were lucky the person in the exchange woke up, and connected you to the number you asked for. If you were even luckier, nobody listened in to your conversation. (Mind, this was in Kenya...)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm glad you added the bit about it being Kenya. That makes more sense.

My grandparents had a multiparty line in the 50s, the kind where when the phone rang you listened for "your" ring, say two shorts and a long, before picking it up. Yes, people could listen in. But it also had the advantage that you could answer your own calls when you were visiting the neighbor, or answer hers for her when she went to town shopping. We both loved and hated it at once.

I had a two party line for a while in the city of Lansing, Michigan, after I first graduated from college and got my first job. It was wonderfully cheap, like $4 a month, and I have never been a big telephone user so it was perfect. I might still have that today but, alas, the option is long gone. By then, the phones were smart enough not to ring unless it was your call. So the only way you knew it was a party line was if you picked up the phone to dial out and someone else was talking. Happened to me once or twice, and once the other party asked me to clear the line for an emergency call, which I was quite willing to do.

[hrrunka]

listened for "your" ring

Yeah. Long, short, long. Except thta, if the exchange folk were feeling lazy they'd not send more than a few tings, and you had to guess... :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It was done mechanically for ours, so it was always precise. I have no idea what the mechanism looked like, but these were dial phones, at a time when the dialing pulses were processed by electromechanical switches or relays.

A housing unit I lived in while in college though had a manual system. There were 18 rooms, I think, and a single phone line. Whoever answered would signal the wanted party by sounding a buzzer, and each room had a different "buzz". The system had been set up 15 or 20 years earlier, so no one by my time recognized the fact that the different buzzes were morse code letters that corresponded to the letter on the door of each room. ;P

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

I took typing as a mandatory class in school. I nearly failed it because I couldn't adapt myself to the finger positioning required. Nowadays, I type faster than many people I know, despite the fact that I use nonstandard methods. I didn't think the typing class was really worth all that much except for enforcing conformity.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It sounds to me as if you may have been introduced to formal typing too late. Had you already been using a keyboard for some time? See tosdragon's comment above for more on this. It really isn't a matter of conformity, or shouldn't be, but rather a proven and efficient approach.

True, how you type is not societally important, unlike whether you drive on the right or left, or knowing how to make change (another dying skill, alas) where we really all need to be on the same track. However, the issue described in the article I referenced, and the one I have become aware of here, is that elementary school kids are having to develop their own typing abilities, based on hunt and peck and two or three fingers, at a great cost in their time that might better be saved by giving them formal training much earlier. It may be that such training should use dvorak keyboard layouts or other deviations from traditional typing, but it is certainly true that touch typing (the ability to type without looking at the hands) is a very valuable and useful skill in the computer era.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I took typing in Jr. High, so that was, oh, 1983. We had manual typewriters. All except 2 of them had the keys blanked out. I already had a computer as well, a TI99/4a, bought because it was an "Educational" computer. (I believe Bill Cosby was helping advertise it that way).

Anyway, the 2 with the non-blanked out keys were given only to the best students, and I'm proud I got one of those by the end of the typing class. Yes, I felt it helped me develop good and proper habits that help prevent things like Carpal tunnel. I didn't feel the class was unusually weighted toward boys or girls. In fact girls had a tendency to not want to take touch typing, because handwriting was seen as a more personal expression of style and handier for passing notes in class.

Touch typing is important and has a place, even for those executives that think they can't touch a computer. Email is ubiquitous and even things like blackberry keyboards are in QWERTY style. However, it shouldn't be required as some professions don't have need for speed typing.

On the larger subject of education, there is a constant push and pull between "practical" and "Theoretical" learning. There are a lot of 'theoretical' things that I loved in school - history for instance. They did teach Civics when I went to school. The classes I got annoyed with were English (because I hated being forced to read "their" literature and not the literature I liked, and hated the subjective analysis) and any thing mathematical with proofs (Higher Algebra with little use, advanced Geometry (where you prove why a circle is a circle), Calculus, Chemistry).

Computers are another class in school that is taught incorrectly, with an emphasis on programming. I appreciate the logical structures involved but most people using computers will not be programmers.

What I think is sorely lacking in schools is philosophy and logic. Both of those classes single handedly had a more important impact in my life outlook than most of my other classes.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, in my era and socioeconomic background, only girls learned to type. It wasn't a matter of what was elegant, it was a matter of getting a job. Girls became secretaries and receptionists. Where we lived, they didn't have the expectation of becoming housewives or socialites. :)

Those who were going on to college often didn't take typing or business courses, though. I made some money in college by typing other people's papers for them (mostly male students who sneered at me for having the ability but were still nonetheless desperate to have it done for them.)

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I can certainly see that in the pre-computing era. Typing was "woman's work" since it was secretarial - and sometimes the epiotme of drudgery. Banks of women would sit around in the typing pool typing out letters and similar. The Men had better jobs - like telling the women what to type.

Computers changed this world view. Computers were a man's field - a highly technical, scientific field dominated by men. Suddenly men had a manly reason to type - and type they did. By my Jr. High days, the field had shifted male.

I made a small amount of money printing out people's work or translating handwriting to typing as well, but once printers became commonplace that went away.

[willyumtx.livejournal.com]

http://www.daskeyboard.com/

You could get one and confuse people.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

When I was in school, typing was a Required Class. I was fortunate, the very year I took the class was the year they'd retired the old manual typewriters and replaced them with brand new electric models.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We used manuals, with blank key caps. Frankly, I think using a manual helps to develop consistent keystroke movements that are highly desirable even on an electric keyboard. The school had electrics, but they were used in the more advanced business typing classes.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

The old electrics were too prone to mistakes - a slightly sloppy key movement and you'll end up with two letters. I hated that and prefered manuals for quite a while, but the consistent strength necessary to type on a manual was exhausting for long jobs.

The holy grail - the buffered electric typewriter - came too late, computers were already overtaking typewriters.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I agree, the upright manuals weren't ideal for long, continuous typing. But the proper habits formed from using them for shorter periods transferred well to the electric. I've used a Selectric II for periods so long that I nearly got CTS from it.

The IBM mag card typewriter too, which was incredibly clunky but did do things that would later be taken over by the word processor. That would have been about 1979, just before microcomputers really started to boom.

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I remember my first experience with a buffered typewriter. The thing had automatic carriage return. When it reached the end of a line and the carriage travelled back, I instinctively paused, since I was used to not being able to do anything while that was happening. Of course, since it still had stuff in the buffer, it'd start clacking away as soon as the carriage got to the start of the next line.

[brokkentwolf.livejournal.com]

Hm. I would have thought that they weren't teaching that skill anymore because it was a given that most people now learned out of sheer necessity. I didn't stop to think that most people were simply getting highly proficient at hunt-and-pecking.
Yeah, I'm old enough to have received typing classes on electric typewriters. I remember turning in pages of typing excercises.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's the problem. People are being forced to learn out of sheer necessity, and they develop their own idiosyncratic styles. I've seen any number of four finger typists in recent years (index and middle finger of both hands) wandering all over the keyboard, huge amounts of wasted motion and they have to watch their hands all the time or else watch the screen to monitor errors. People are amazingly adaptable, but learning a more efficient technique early on would have benefited most. Once set in their ways, changing their habits is apparently quite difficult.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

You have to *think* to get your words into good text. The speed at which you type has nothing to do with that. In fact, high typing speed can be a handicap, since you spend less time thinking for each word you get typed in, and are more apt to take the long way around in getting your point across. So if these kids grammar or the logical flow of their paragraphs is lcacking, I don't think it is the way they type that is the real problem.

I don't use proper touch typing either. :-)
I could probably benefit in some small way if I forced myself to learn it, but why bother now...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes of course, you have to think and create logical, structured sentences and paragraphs. But even if you do, and even if you can write those out longhand, you then find you are required to type them before you can hand them in.

The kids I am watching have to come to use the library's equipment for typing and printing, so most are probably not from homes affluent enough to have their own computers and printers. Chances are that many are not in the upper quarter of their class. But even so, having no practical training in using the keyboard means that they have to "type" their paper by hunt and peck, one finger method. This is incredibly slow if you are a fourth grader who isn't even familiar with the keyboard layout. So in their 30 minutes of allotted computer time, they are lucky to produce a four sentence paragraph and get it printed out.

[willyumtx.livejournal.com]

You make some interesting points.

I wonder if there are students who are able to think quickly and find themselves stymied by their lack of typing skills. That would be very frustrating.

I'm amazed that there are people who use computers all the time for work and still hunt and peck.

I used to type quickly. Not blazingly fast, but better than average. That was when I worked for Texas Relay and we had to try to keep up with typing what we heard the person say over the phone in real time.

Do you notice yourself letting typos pass when using a computer/word processing program? I learned on a manual typewriter and you had to be careful not to make mistakes. Then I moved up to a IBM Selectrix. Gosh, the old days.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Do you notice yourself letting typos pass when using a computer/word processing program?

No. I usually feel them in my fingers as soon as I make them. And I correct immediately, because it's so much easier to correct on a computer. I don't ever use the "spelling checkers" though. They are more bother than they are worth, and their vocabulary is far too small.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

Yes, we do seem to be kind of in an "awkward middle" right now where children aren't really taught handwriting, because it's starting to become obsolete; but they aren't really taught typing, either, because it's still seen by too many people as a "secretary skill" rather than as a general one.

You CAN teach yourself to use a computer keyboard fairly easily (I did, just by using it), but that requires using it a LOT ... probably not realistic for a fifth-grader.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, especially not realistic for fourth or fifth graders who do not have computers at home to play with and are lucky if they get to use one at school or in the library for 30 minutes. This is a much larger segment of the population than most of us realize (especially most of us who happen to be Republicans, I guess) and various trends of this sort are widening the gulf between haves and have-nots.

A similar one is a trend for government programs, including some that cater almost exclusively to the poor or the elderly, trying to do away with paper application forms and such. Telling an 80 year old woman that she is eligible for some benefit from the state government, but she must apply for it online over the web is just plain absurd. The State of Illinois has been doing this lately.