IN AN INCREASINGLY high-tech world, a Scottish school has decided that the pen is mightier than the microchip.
Make no mistake. There are computers at The Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville Junior School in Edinburgh. Technology is taught. But in most subjects, the students there forsake the keyboard for a near-forgotten ancestor: the fountain pen.
That’s right: handwriting lessons and ink bottles have returned to the classroom. To some, it may seem a strange addition to the curriculum. After all, in an era of text messages and e-mail, what good is a graceful cursive script anymore?
But hold the phone. There may be some real advantages to learning to think with ink.
The school maintains that its students have learned to take care with their work and concentrate on what they’re doing. Good writing with a fountain pen takes time — at least, if you want more than illegible smears. It teaches a certain patience.
That’s not a bad thing to have in any subject. And it seems to have paid off for the Scots at Melville. Not only has handwriting improved, so has academic performance.
So while fountain pens may not be a magic bullet, they may teach some genuinely useful habits. It bears some thought. It might be worth it just to see a doctor’s handwriting that is actually legible, or a signature on a check that’s more than an easily-duplicated scrawl.
But for the sake of the girls at Melville, we hope the boys there haven’t also rediscovered the joys of inkpots and pigtails.