Dear Friends,
Recently, as I was heading to the
podium for an invited talk on AI use cases in Education, someone in the first
row murmured that he would now pull his handwritten notes out of his pocket.
Immediately, I turned to him and smiled! After reaching the podium, I publicly
announced that a day before every event I speak at, I write a handwritten
script. Many people use their mobile phones, but I prefer keeping my own
handwritten script (not even a printed version), no matter how long I have to
speak. For a 10-minute speech, it runs to 2 pages, and for a 1-hour speech, it
goes up to 5 pages.
You might be wondering why I
prefer a handwritten script with my own scribbling. I have experimented with
this multiple times. Whenever I type rather than handwrite, there is a huge
difference in how I remember facts, pauses, key expressions, and sentence
sequencing. These are essential for storytelling. During my college days, I
used to prepare notes for myself and my good friends. Every month, I used to
buy one ream of paper (500 sheets). I still remember that I scored higher in
the subjects for which I prepared handwritten notes than in those for which I
did not. I believe there is a scientifically supported connection among writing
surfaces, finger pressure, muscle movements, sensory feedback, and learning.
If you remember, during Aksharabhyasam
(a child's formal introduction to learning), parents have the child draw
letters on a surface of sacred yellow raw rice. This is our tradition, but I am
sure our Vedic scriptures recommended this practice on the basis of some form
of scientific validation.
Why have I taken up this topic
today? A couple of days back, there was a viral video about Indira Amma, an
85-year-old who taught children Malayalam, Hindi, English, and Maths through
Ashan Kalari, where little fingers trace letters in the sand. (Video). We
learned on black slates, whereas my grandfather used to teach my cousins using
sand. I saw their index fingers become hard. I remember hearing from my
grandfather that this hardness was proportional to the hard work put in.
On the contrary, whenever we
conduct project vivas or invite students to give conference introductions, we
see Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids bringing mobile phones and simply reading the
sentences written on them. Often, their heads get glued to the podium because
they cannot raise them; once they do, they lose track of the small characters
and sentences on the mobile screen. This is not a characteristic of public
speaking.
There are two important senses
involved while writing: Tactile sensation-feeling texture, friction, and
contact through the skin; and Proprioception-sensing the position,
movement, and effort of our fingers, wrists, and arms, even without looking.
When these work together with vision and letter sounds, they provide additional
information that can support learning.
Kiefer et al. (2020) studied 147
children and found that pencil-and-paper training produced better letter
recognition than keyboard training. A 2024 Electroencephalography study (which
measures the brain's electrical activity via small electrodes placed on the
scalp) also found distinct brain connectivity patterns during handwriting and
typing.
This is a far more useful
technique, especially for Waldorf Grade 1–2 classes.
Have you experienced this embodied
cognition—the idea that learning involves not only the brain but also the
body's movements and sensory experiences?
Ravi Saripalle
Inspire to Innovate Storytelling Movement since 2011
i2iTM.blogspot.com
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