I am a
great supporter of touch typing and have been ever since that second year at
Wombwell Hall when I felt sure I was acquiring what was going to be a most
important skill. Twenty-four of us, fresh-faced fourteen year olds sat in a room
full of heavy and grim looking Underwood typewriters, some of them even
equipped with metal shields so that should we happen to sneak a forbidden
glance down at our fingers there was nothing much to tempt a second look. I was fortunate enough to be seated at a
machine without a shield for which I was thankful. Miss Wood half perched on what she called a
Master’s Chair at the front of the room and yelled out exercise instructions with
all the fervour of a Staff Sergeant which ensured that each one of us paid
attention and the typing room was at all times a hive of industry. I became a very efficient touch typist under
this old-fashioned regime and although I can’t say I found it altogether easy,
it was a great deal easier than Pitman’s Shorthand which some of us actually
opted out of after a few months. Nobody
opted out of typing however and even at the time we knew it was something we
would never regret learning. Miss Wood together with many of our mothers
had their eyes firmly on the Typing Pools of the late 1950s but I was equally determined
that I would most likely become a famous writer before too many years had
passed and I wasn’t prepared to write my astonishing novels and plays by hand.
I was of course wrong about what the future actually held for me but then so was
Miss Wood because although I had a great many jobs that required typing not a
single one of them was in one of those Pools she was so fond of.
I had
become such a fan of typing that my first major purchase when I was actually
launched into the work force was an Olivetti Portable Typewriter of which I was
inordinately proud. It wasn’t actually the
first typewriter I had owned because I had been fortunate enough to inherit an
ancient Remington machine from the husband of my mother’s employer Bertram
Lovell, a family solicitor in Gravesend.
He decided I was just the right recipient for the pre-WW1 office machine
once it had been replaced by a more up to date version. I was thrilled to bits because
to suddenly become the owner of a typewriter of any vintage was definitely
exciting. Over the years I don’t think
I ever fell out of love with typing.
I decided to teach my
older son to touch type when he was about ten years old and although I can’t
really remember the details of all the reasons why, I know that it had a lot to
do with his ability to spell falling well short of what was desirable and his
enthusiasm for putting pen to paper in any capacity whatsoever being even more
dire. This unfortunate combination meant
that he was incapable of completing even half a page of written work without a
great deal of real anguish. These days this condition might be called
Dysgraphia and he may well be offered some kind of treatment but back then it
was called Laziness which was probably much more accurate. Whatever the condition might be called, I
thought learning to type certainly couldn’t make it worse and may even improve
matters and that once he gained some proficiency he might be allowed to type
homework assignments. Patrick was far
keener on the idea than he was on tackling the problem any other way. In those days you could still buy textbooks
outlining typing exercises from a bookshop in Auckland called Whitcomb &
Tombs and once I cast a cursory glance over them they seemed to be identical to
those Form 2SC had embarked upon at Wombwell Hall back in the mid 1950s which
gave me great confidence. If they had
been good enough for Miss Wood then they should be good enough for Patrick.
He set about methodically
working through each exercise with more enthusiasm than I could ever have
imagined was possible, just ten minutes daily, initially with his hands covered
with a shield made of card. I was greatly
impressed because as a general rule anything that smacked of school work did not
inspire him in any way whatsoever but he clearly did not associate this new
endeavour with school. In fact a s d f
; l k j attracted him in such a compulsive way that
even my mother, on an extended visit from Northfleet admiringly observed that
he had `taken to that typing lark like a duck to water’. She added later though that she did rather
wonder how he would get on working in a typing pool which definitely implied
that she thought it an unnecessary skill for a boy to have. Undeterred by the thought of typing pools Patrick
ploughed happily through the required exercises and loved his new ability so
much that he elected to become the only boy in the typing class at Selwyn
College a couple of years later simply because he enjoyed it so much. His spelling improved dramatically though he
was still disinclined to write by hand and sadly schools at that time certainly
did not allow typed work to be handed in.
By this time he had his eyes firmly set on life as a career violinist so
essentially the pressures of academic expectations and restrictions diminished.
When my younger son began
to exhibit all the negative academic traits previously seen in his brother
especially as far as spelling and writing were concerned, he was hastily
introduced to the Olivetti portable machine with the same startling
success. In his case being able to type
actually gave him enormous confidence in writing by hand also. He too rapidly became an efficient touch
typist almost effortlessly.
By this time Sinead, the
youngest was desperately anxious to acquire the skill that everyone in the
family seemed to have a handle on except her and so she began to learn on the
very day of her seventh birthday, viewing it as an extra special birthday
gift! Like her brothers, she did not
argue about the general conditions of touch typing, accepted the starter’s
cardboard shield and within six months could type faster and better than most
young women entering office work for the first time. Her spelling and punctuation became
faultless and from the age of eight she never experienced difficulty with the
dreaded principles of the Possessive Apostrophe.
By this time of course
all my positive ideas as to the value of touch typing were well and truly set
in concrete and basically have never changed and now that the ubiquitous
keyboard has appeared in workplaces throughout a variety of industries can only
solidify further – if that is possible.
No matter how earnestly people explain to me that their particular child
taught himself to conquer the keyboard using two fingers only and has to be
seen to be believed as his hands fly over the keys I can only find myself dismissing
the claim as unlikely although these days I am loth to mount an argument. Learning the old fashioned way is far too
slow and boring they tell me. Yes, olde-worlde keyboard drills are indeed
overwhelmingly monotonous and very possibly stifling to the young creative vision,
perhaps even an indication of low personal expectations – and generally it will
be as difficult to settle a child into accepting them as it was years ago for
many of us to accept the idea of learning our Times Tables. But of course back then nobody thought to ask
us if we wanted to.
It’s certainly true that
those who come to terms with the tedium and tackle the task will undoubtedly
discover an unanticipated level of freedom with lasting benefits so perhaps the
answer would be to not provide a choice and to make touch typing part of the
primary school curriculum using the more modern term Keyboarding. Making it a subject that Grandma definitely
did not do all those years ago on machines such as Underwoods and Remingtons
would go a long way towards appeasing parents.
Today’s children are all
too familiar with electronic devices in the form of mobile phones, tablets,
ipads and laptops long before they have the physical ability necessary for
typing. They can analyse, investigate and
explore concepts in a way that would certainly astonish previous generations. But this familiarity does not mean that the
technology is being used to its optimum advantage. No matter how many school holiday computer
courses a child completes and how competent they become at Minecraft, unless
they crack the code of touch typing it will remain a stumbling block impeding what
they might possibly further achieve at some future date.
A thorough knowledge of
and familiarity with the modern keyboard allows giant leaps towards
success. Touch typing permits thoughts
and ideas to flow from brain to fingers and onto the screen at a pace and with
the kind of ease that can only be imagined by the two finger typist. Well I told you I was a fan didn’t I? It’s very clear that I am!
