55 Years in School: Pondering the Pencil Grip — The Good Men ...
Some grip that utensil like they’re trying to throw a knuckleball, some like a dagger, some like a fork, and some like a paintbrush. If you’re fighting a lot of battles, like trying to get kids to read and competing with the South Koreans over Math scores, then the hell with the pencil grip. Photo credit: Flickr / lindaaslund , pencil grip example photos courtesy of Carl Bosch My first comment on this piece is to say, very interesting topic and well-written. I have pretty standard handwriting but I’ve had students, on more than one occasion, tell me that they couldn’t read it because they don’t read cursive. And you practiced it and practiced it and practiced it. It was like the exit ticket to the next grade. Did they ever get a birthday card from grandma or grandpa and simply hand it to their parent and say: “Mom, will you read this to me. ” (This doesn’t really surprise me because I have 8th graders who cannot tell time on a machine that has numbers... Now, kids can text before they enter school, maybe before they walk. It was a definite and specific skill that came with taking classes and practice and practice and more practice. There are standard pencil grips, non-standard but efficient, and finally, inefficient. Pencil grip probably doesn’t say too much about the individual, except to point out another very real display of how different we all are. Are you kidding me. It wasn’t that my “s” was weird, or my “e” was closed, they just can’t read cursive. If you walk into any classroom there are more different pencil grips than there is color of hair, size of feet, or almost any other mark of difference. Go find a school age kid. I can’t decipher most doctors’ writing, but the next time I go to the doctor’s I’m going to check out his or her pen grip just for a laugh. Can I blame the kid. We usually pay absolutely no attention to how someone grips a pen or pencil. Students tend to have adequate or inadequate penmanship regardless of how they grip a pen. Look at their pencil grip. The pencil grip must not be important to teachers and schools and curricula. When I was in school there was no way you were getting out of second grade if you didn’t hold that pencil correctly. Maybe in the future people won’t bother with pens and pencils at all. Hand them a pencil and ask them to write their name down, a few lines, or dictate something to them. I don’t think it would have mattered if you were missing a finger, you’d still be made to hold that damn pencil correctly. I look at students writing and some is simply beautiful, some are completely indecipherable. This has popped into my mind before and I’m glad to read something about it. My second comment is to make a bit more of a conservative argument in favor of structure and discipline. As you point out, we can also glean something about the state of the education system by the quality of penmanship. This doesn’t have to do with handwriting (meaning old-fashioned penmanship), but it does play a role. I don’t mean in 10 years, but maybe in 50 or 100....