From cursive to clumsy

This summer I once again found myself locked away for two weeks marking GCSE science papers. Reading 450 scripts of the same question is exhausting, but there is a small glimmer of light in the process – the word-processed answers. Suddenly I don’t have to worry about decoding spidery scribble to see if I can award a mark, the answer is there for me to see in clear Helvetica 12 point.

Why we’re losing it

When I started teaching 20 years ago, it was rare for me to come across student work that I couldn’t read. Now it is commonplace, and it’s not just me who can’t decipher the scripts; students themselves will admit they cannot read their own writing in their exercise books. In a digital age where most students communicate via their phone and where predictive text is inescapable, there is little need for them to practise their writing outside of the classroom. Teachers are stuck in a catch-22 situation – we know students need to practise to improve their writing, but if their work is illegible then any notes they make are of little use to them or us. With the increased use of booklets in classrooms and digital platforms for homework, students are getting fewer opportunities to write and I think we should be worried about it.

How we’re using it

Despite several exam boards heralding the arrival of digital exams, the fact remains that at current funding levels few schools are equipped to give all students access to digital devices in all classrooms. And until laptops and tablets are ubiquitous in schools, all students have to write with pen on paper at some point.

Handwritten notes made in class give contexts not found in revision guides, they allow students to show the working out of equations and, even in preprinted booklets, they are necessary to clarify key points. Plus, let’s not forget that trying to teach students how to write chemical equations in a word-processing program using subscripts and inputting arrows is worse than pulling teeth. It’s not just classroom notes where writing is important. Labelling test tubes during an experiment, writing axes on graphs and even drawing and labelling diagrams all require clear writing.

There’s a nagging feeling that poor handwriting is a symptom of a bigger problem – a lack of fine motor skills. These are crucial in practical science when using pipettes and burettes or assembling clamp stands, and yet students seem to be losing these skills.

And so, in my classroom at least, you will still find students making notes in their books, drawing graphs by hand and completing their homework on paper. I might be fighting a losing battle, but I’m not ready to give up on it just yet.