In School and Out

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 11

In School and Out

“Why must school children still write with pen and ink in this ballpoint era ?” a correspondent asked recently in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The newspaper, from inquiries, found much the same situation as in New Zealand. ,

The question is somewhat misleading, for the smudgefree ballpoint is in fact widely used in the higher school grades. It is by far the most popular writing implement at high school, and it may also be used at the teacher's discretion in the fifth and sixth primary school grades. Only in 5 lower grades where the art of writing is acquired, does the Department of Education ban ballpoints. “We don’t encourage the ballpoint at this stage,” said the Deputy Director of Primary Education in N.S.W., Mr P. W. Beckenham, “because we feel that the child needs to develop some sort of individual style. This is

important for the child’s own satisfaction.” Even without the homogenising influence of the ballpoint, it is difficult enough for a child to develop an individual style these days. For the sake of legibility and fluency, the Modified Cursive style taught at most N.S.W. schools has dropped the looped letters of the former Copperplate Cursive, adopted uniform letter heights, and abandoned variation in stroke thickness.

With such a style as this, the difference between nib and ball writing is not very great. Indeed one suspects that the official disapproval of ballpoints during the early grades is as much sentimental as practical. “We wouldn’t want to produce a generation which simply couldn’t use a pen,” says one teacher.

With Modified Italic, the alternative official style in N.S.W., there is of course a great deal of difference between the results obtained

from nib and ball. But before going into that, let us see how the teaching of writing begins. Starting in kindergarten with crayons and chalks, and continuing in first grade with a big “learner’s pencil,” the child first learns to do mahuscript writing—large, unconnected letters which are plain and easy to read rather than stylish. The big 12-sided “learner’s pencil” is easy , to hold, and it produces thick, satisfying lines with little or no pressure. : The letter size drops from about one inch to a quarter of an inch in second grade, and at third grade it conies down to standard writing size, In third grade, at the age of about eight, the child begins to learn "running writing”— either Modified Cursive or Modified Italic, both of which styles were introduced for the first time in 1961. Modified Cursive, which is the more familiar of the two, is taught at most schools. Although the Department of Education disclaims any precise knowledge of the percentage of schools teaching Italic, the figure is thought to be less than 10 per cent. Modified Italic, a simplified version of the style developed in Italy by Renaissance scholars, has unlooped letters and printed capitals like Modified Cursive, but it uses a basically triangular letter shape in place of the Cursive ellipse. Eyes accustomed to elliptical script may at first find Italic difficult to read. But once the style has been mastered it is easy to write even at high speed. Children learning Italic use a special wedge-pointed nib from third grade onwards.

The Cursive pupils use a pencil in third grade but in fourth grade they change to a sharp stainless-steel nib equipped with a small ink reservoir. In both styles, uniform light pressure is used in place of the heavy down-strokes and light upstrokes of the old Copperplate Cursive. The width of the Italic strokes ihay be varied by altering their direction rather than their pressure. This cannot be done, however, with a ballpoint. Another disadvantage of the ballpoint is that it produces slightly more friction than a nib does, and consequently over a long period of writing it may cause greater fatigue. This is perhaps the main reason Why many pupils who have happily used ballpoints throughout high school revert to fountain-pens for tertiary education. “When the chips are really down, and you’ve got to write long and hard, the nib is better,” says one lecturer at Sydney Teachers’ College. “Over the last few years I’ve noticed that exam, papers have been about fifty-fifty—-half ballpoint, half nib.”