by vector_spaces 4 hours ago
I appreciate the sentiment, as someone who vastly prefers handwriting, but the downfall of this might be the situation we have historically had in the US with math, where the experience of being clumsily force fed this additional material can be so painful that it induces PTSD-like symptoms and a lifelong aversion to the material. A similar phenomenon even occurs with cursive and PE class.
That obviously isn't to say that I don't think people should learn these subjects, nor that we should avoid presenting them at all to young minds. It's just that, as someone who failed math all through grade school and now does pure math research as an adult, I don't think "forcing them" in the sense of introducing yet another high stakes and high pressure set of evaluations to all the others is really the enlightened path here
Well sure, but if you force feed anything clumsily you can ruin it. We had a nice teacher, and took our sweet time in first grade learning to write the alphabet in first grade. Then it was done. IMO it wasn't "additional material", or material at all, it was part of the fundamental skill set with which to interact with the material. And there wasn't a thought in my mind that it could be any other way, of course you learn to read and write when you go to school.
How can you tell if they learned anything if you don't test them?