Ashok Sharma
The importance of good handwriting can be gauged from the fact that 23 January is celebrated as Handwriting Day dedicated to good penmanship. Everybody’s handwriting is unique and as distinctive as one’s fingerprints. Therefore.there are as many styles of handwritings in the world as there are people.The scientific study of handwriting is known as graphology and graphologists claim to find the personal characteristics of people by deciphering their handwriting.
Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education,so wrote Gandhiji,the Father of our Nation,who had a bad handwriting.Many famous writers such as George Orwell,Earnest Hemmingway,Emily Dickinson,Walt Whitman and the great novelist,Jane Austen, were known for their weird handwriting whereas John Milton,Ravinder Nath Tagore were famous for their penmanship.There used to be a time when people would give great importance to good handwriting and the parents and the teachers would make the children write on the wooden plank(takhti) with a wooden pen(kalam) for years together to develop and master the art of good and flowing handwriting.It was followed by using holder or fountain pens to pracise writing on notebooks.The teachers would also make students use four lined notebooks to perfect cursive writing in English.The use of ball point pens was always discouraged as it affected the handwriting of the students.Then came the craze for Parker pens and owning a parker pen was considered to be a matter of pride.But today the parker and gel pens have been replaced by mobile phones,ipads and other electronic gadgets and most of the business,personal and official correspondance takes place through e-mails and printed letters.Thus,the use of pen and paper has much declined in the modern age of emails.
Handwriting is not just a matter of style.It is a complex psycho motor skill that affects the motor and cognitive development and exercises visual,motor and memory circuits of the child.Moreover,it is due to the brautiful strokes and effective penmanship that we create a connection.with others,sometimes more powerful and intimate than a handshake or a hug.While writing,a student builds hand-eye coordination and.practises finer skills.It must be remembered that a beautiful handwriting communicates much more than what is written on the paper.It reflects a lot about one’s personality and emotional feelings for the reader.
The need of the hour,therefore,is to popularise this beautiful art which is believed to have been.practised since 6000 BC.Parents should see to it that they develop good writing skills in their childrenand give them sufficient practice in penmanship.They ought to train the child in the mechanics of the writing in respect of proper size of letters,proper space between them and holding the pen and the chalk or pencil properly especially in early years.They should also encourage them to write ‘letters of thanks’for the gifts they give them on birthdays and other occassions.The children should be rewarded by giving them new pencil boxes, pens etc when they excel in calligraphy competitons. The teachers , on their part ,need to focus their attention on training the students in good handwriting.Calligraphy competitions must be organized more frequently and winners must be given prizes and commendation certificates.Students need to be given sufficient drilling in written words are easily learnt than those memorized.It has been proved that handwriting engages more circuits of the brain than those engaged by typing and strokes and pressure of the pen send messages to the brain training it in vision and sensation.Writing also helps in building pathways in the brain and more we write,more connections we build and more efficiently we learn.Studies have also proved that cursive writing ,in particular,activates the part of our nervous system which typing does not.
Technology has threatened us in various arts-penmanship,calligraphy and cursive writing with the invention of typewriter,mobile phones, computers etc.The growing interest of children on typing is a matter of great concern and efforts must be made to teach children in such a way that they miss the intimacy of letters and cursive writing of their childhood as they grow old and master a lovely flowing script which should serve as feast to the eyes of the reader.Children should also be encouraged to write post cards to their friends and relatives instead of sending emails or smses.The handwritten letters need to be bound in the form of a book and treasured.(The writer is serving as lecturer in English in Govt.Hr. Sec.School, Barolla (Udhampur)
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