I think we’re wasting our time and money teaching kids practical “computer literacy” when the technology is changing so fast that nothing they learn in school will be part of the job landscape by the time they go to work. Nowadays, the theory has a longer shelf life than the application. Its better teaching them the fundamentals, and let them pick up the application on the job. I’ve learned that lesson myself, the hard way. I retired from a high tech career(Geomatics)just five years ago, with plenty of academic and job experience to support me, and I gather from conversations with my former colleagues that today I’m unemployable. I used to manage a section of GIS specialists, today I can’t even log on to the basic mapping systems, and they have capabilities and products that were unimaginable when I was working.

It used to be that experience was cumulative, that what you learned in navigation, astrometry and photogrammetry was vital when picking up remote sensing and image processing, which was a prerequisite for learning computer mapping and cartographic data management. Today, working too long in one shop, or even one industry, makes you over specialized, not more experienced. In order to keep up, you never have tihe time to get really good at anything. I used to be a FORTRAN expert, for Chrissake! Today, job skills have a tendency to go bad when not frequently exercised, and mastery of one discipline doesn’t necessarily transfer, or even be useful, in another. Students are taught specific software packages and GUIs so they can be productive employees from the moment they’re hired.

Sure, if I went back to work, I could pick up the new technology on the job, but why hire me when a youngster fresh out of school either would already have the skills, or could pick them up even faster than I could–for a lot less salary?

In this sort of fast-moving environment, putting a lot of effort into educating kids in skills that will be obsolete by the time they get to college is a big mistake. And for the worker, getting out of high tech and leveraging oneself as quickly as possible into management is the only way to fully secure a career. The result, of course, is a managerial/administrative class who doesn’t really understand the technology.

Typing is now taught in 2nd grade. My 9 yr old spends much of his school time on a chromebook. His parent teacher conference was self led on a powerpoint-like presentation he worked on himself. All 3 kids writing assignments are done on Google
docs and shared to the teacher.

As for myself. I became fairly proficient in cursive up through the 6th grade. At some point I realized my hand was more legible printing than cursive, so as soon as I wasn’t required to do penmanship anymore, I dropped the cursive and haven’t used it since.

As for drafting, my lettering wasn’t ever great. People think that since I’m an architect I must have great handwriting. I just say if it weren’t for CAD, I’d simply not be employable.

As for typing, I’m a sad case. My freshman typing teacher had bad eyesight and never caught me looking at the keys. I still look at the damn keys even though, I know damn well where they all are. I get by with my 30 wpm, but am pretty jealous of my wife’s 60 with her eyes on what she’s transcribing. Not jealous enough to change though. I tell my kids that hoping they follow her example not mine.

I had to take “Secretarial Science” as a sophomore as a requirement for graduating the previous school year. And for years I was the only male I knew who could type.

It was a blessing to learn.