Winchester College has abandoned laptops in favour of pens and paper in a crackdown on screens in classrooms. In a recent article in the UK Telegraph, Emily Smith wrote:

The headmistress of one of Britain’s most academically selective schools said it was returning to traditional teaching methods because of concerns about screens hindering learning. Elizabeth Stone, the school’s first female headteacher, said the use of laptops in lessons was “distracting”, and that students would only be allowed to use them where there was evidence that they would be of “substantial” benefit to the children’s education. She told The Sunday Times: “There’s no point just tackling the phones if we’re going to say ‘Here’s a laptop that you have to have with you all the time, and you get access to it whenever you want’, because the vast majority of the activity that they’re doing on the phone can then just shift as easily onto a tablet or a laptop.”

Ms Stone said the removal of laptops had already led to an improvement in learning. To give two examples of this:

In the era before laptops and power-points, a New York bishop was a master of chalk and the blackboard.

His name was Fulton Sheen. Before every television broadcast, during the 1950s-’60s, Sheen walked onto a bare stage, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote three letters at the top of a blackboard: JMJ — Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. 

He would then lecture on a spiritual topic, writing the key points on the blackboard in beautiful cursive graphics. “Sheen was able to take complex intellectual teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and communicate them in clear, practical terms to anyone who would listen,” said Father Patrick Flanagan, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John’s University.

When I look back at Sheen’s TV sermons, which are now available to view on YouTube, I always remember those key points he made on the blackboard. Even the sound of the chalk hitting the blackboard had a tactile feel to it as it entered my brain. During my lecturing years in journalism, I once asked my class to not use their laptops but take notes on paper instead.

I also gave the lecture using chalk and a blackboard. The students told me the lectures were more effective using the old-fashioned method, as it was slower and seemed to connect better with their brains. I also found when I used such a method, the students’ essays were far better compared to when I used power-point and the students used the laptops.

Handwritten notes boost memory because it requires more thought than typing on a computer. Also, one writes slower forcing one to process information more effectively. Handwriting activates broader brain networks — FMRI Studies show:

Handwriting activates brain regions involved in reading acquisition, whereas typing does much less. Handwriting supports higher‑order thinking — Learners who handwrite notes engage more in conceptual processing, selecting and synthesizing information rather than transcribing verbatim. This leads to better long‑term understanding, memory, and learning. Notes by Hand Promote Better Learning Than Notes by Keyboard | Psychology Today

I welcome the return to cursive that is spreading in many schools and colleges but there is something else we should be concerned of: Grammar. There is no denying that standards in grammar/punctuation, and English education, have reached an all-time low in some academic institutions. (I write this from my proverbial grammar ‘glasshouse’, so I have to be really careful that the copy is ‘clean’.)

When I started lecturing in print journalism part-time some 30 years ago, one of the toughest subjects for students was grammar. When you think of it, it’s not advantageous for the State or big business to educate people with excellent writing and grammatical skills for superior communication, combined with critical perception of world events.

Such people are a threat and might eloquently expose corruption, which is rife amongst the wealthy Establishments worldwide; or, worse still, demand higher wages. I wrote about that here: Let’s Eat Grandma!: The Vicissitudes of Grammar – New English Review