Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 29/02) - It seems like a simple proposition: as people make increasing use of computers for tasks involving written communication, they write less. Because they write less, their handwriting gets worse.

Marlesa Brown pencils in her magnum opus, a story about a fairy who helps everyone. Brown is a grade 1 student at J H Sissons. - Nathan VanderKlippe/NNSL photo

Problem is, the proposition just doesn't work.

Penmanship is still taught in schools, same as always. Doctors still write prescriptions, and their handwriting hasn't gotten worse.

In fact, it may be getting better.

And office communications are still written in a semi-legible scrawl, each one bearing the distinct cant of its author.

Merril Dean is the assistant principal at Ecole St. Joseph. She says kids are learning handwriting in Grade 3, at about the same age she was taught the skill.

Kids now have the option of typing most of their stuff -- "I would be hard-pressed to hear a teacher saying, 'oh it has to be handwritten,'" she says.

And computers can be a lifesaver for kids with difficulties in fine motor control.

"Nowadays if you have bad handwriting, give them a keyboard," she says.

Dean isn't the only one saying not much has changed in handwriting.

Rosalie Power is an executive secretary to the mayor with the city of Yellowknife. She says chicken-scratching has followed her throughout her career.

"Throughout all of my years I've run into a lot of people with bad handwriting," she says.

Even the masters of reading illegible scrawl say handwriting hasn't gotten any worse. Daryl Dolynny, a pharmacist and owner of Shoppers Drug Mart, says, "I think physician's writing has actually improved since I started in pharmacy 11 or 12 years ago."

Computers can be a blessing because they allow easy deletion and reordering of sentences and paragraphs.

But they can also be a saviour for those who just can't form letters the way the penmanship books do.

"I always had messy handwriting my whole life," says Alan Petten, a computer teacher at Sir John.

"The computer has made my life easier because through university I typed work, because nobody would be able to read it."

But if the question is, why bother teaching handwriting at all?, Dean has a simple answer.

"The day will come where you're going to be somewhere without your Palm Pilot or your laptop," she says.