Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

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> - spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it for you?

Why is this a problem? Augmented spelling isn't bad, and you still have to know the differences between similar correctly spelt words. Learning Chinese, I de-empahsized writing them by hand and being able to write them on computer instead, you still need to know about them, what they look like and how they sound, but the muscle memory isn't necessary.

> - The de-emphasis on handwriting is mentioned in the article. In-class assignments are still handwritten, but take-home projects can be typed.

As a lefty I would have loved this. Our handwriting is already worse because our hand is occluding what we are writing. I got plenty of flack for it in elementary school (to the point that some teachers thought I should I should use my "right" hand instead). The computer was a great equalizer to me, which is one of the reasons I got into them in the first place.

As for the screen time issue, I'm more worried about their eye health, but ya, it is an issue all of us parents are facing these days.

> The computer was a great equalizer to me

It was an even greater equalizer to me, as a legally blind person. I can see enough to handwrite, but it's laborious. When I was in the third grade, my mother convinced my teachers to let me do as much of my homework as possible on my family's home computer. And sometimes I could do in-class assignments on a computer as well, either in the regular classroom or in the special room for the blind students. I wish we had had ubiquitous laptops back then (late 80s and into the 90s).

As another lefty, I don't see the issue, unless you write with a "hook hand." I hold the pen (pencil, etc.) as a right-handed person would, just mirrored. I've even done both European and Chinese calligraphy left handed (much to the amusement of the Chinese calligraphy teacher, but for European calligraphy, I have to turn the paper 90° to the right).

I don't see how your hand occludes what you're writing. It occludes what you've already written. But you've already written that bit, and you can move your hand if you really need to see it.

Maybe we should go back to what the Ancient Egyptians did and allow people to write in whatever direction they like!

It includes what you have written and much of what you are writing, you are basically writing your character blind. Writing in straight lines is especially problematic on whiteboards (which these days is an interviewing handicap).

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