Beyond the duties that children do at home, it seems to me that it is difficult to see them take a pencil and paper to do writing work and calligraphy practices. And it is that with all the technology at their disposal it does not seem necessary to use a device as sparsely attractive as a pencil when from a screen, including television, you can access a universe full of leisure and entertainment.
In addition, as the children grow, the use of technology is more integrated in their lives and we move on to the phase in which messages with friends and colleagues are common, and of course, there the simplification in writing leads to kicks to the dictionary and ignore spelling teachings at school.
So in North Carolina, in the United States, they have rushed to draft a bill that mandates that writing is taught in all elementary schools of the state. However, even nostalgia is not enough reason to force students to learn something that is not fundamental to their education.
And the challenge is to integrate calligraphy and spelling in applications that run on mobile devices such as iPads and the like. In Spain we have many initiatives, some of them we have told in Peques and Más, which I imagine can be applied in class or at home for children to practice, even with the limitations of these devices, calligraphy.
In any case and although it is difficult for us to recognize it, Neither calligraphy nor spelling has a long way to go in the future. Technology has advanced a lot and any way of communicating can be done using a keyboard. And on spelling, dictionaries and text proofreaders are increasingly integrated into applications to avoid mistakes.
And to realize the impact of the loss of writing you just have to shop around any large warehouse and observe how spaces dedicated to handwriting are being replaced by the sale of electronic devices of reading and access to leisure.
