I saw a tweet from an author the other day, begging teachers
not to make their students learn to write “snail mail” to him but instead teach
them to email him and he would respond. Now I don’t have a problem with
teaching kids to use email and encouraging them to correspond with their
favorite authors, but to throw out “snail mail” because it is old fashioned is
wrong in my opinion. Learning cursive is becoming “old fashioned,” yet at some
point we all have to learn to sign our name. Oh but some day it will all be
done with finger-print scans. Well, someday isn’t here yet, so in the mean
time, kids have to learn cursive so they can sign their name. If you really
want to phase out writing, how about phasing in keyboarding class so kids can
learn to type instead? But so far, I don’t see that happening, I just see and
hear people complaining about the old fashioned stuff we need to get rid of.
I know more and more companies are encouraging their
customers and clients to switch from paper statements to all online billing to
be “green.” But tell me what happens when the internet is down? Some of these
companies will simply charge fees for late payments, regardless of internet
issues, computer glitches, etc. A company called me recently regarding a bill,
and expected me to pay it over the phone because there was no invoice to send. Excuse
me? It’s one thing to encourage customers and clients to be more green, but to
assume someone pays bills over the phone all the time?
I have an idea, what if we teach our kids about how it WAS
done, even letting them experience writing with a feather and ink well and
other “old fashioned” ways then maybe we would be a bit more thankful for what
we DO have. Let’s take our kids to museums more often, otherwise, what’s the
point of even making movies about the olden days. Even watching Kitt
Kittredge with my daughters I realized they didn’t really understand the
storyline because they have no idea what a typewriter is or how a Model T was
started with a crank.
I wonder when someone will suggest we phase out history
class since it’s all old news anyway.
