I wrote a teaching-related post last week revisiting the real purpose of writing: to transmit ideas from one person’s mind to another. When you consider the openness of this definition, it is liberating and empowering. One of the reasons I think I have stuck to my writing resolution, almost to perfection, is because I enjoy the act of writing at least once a day. It doesn’t always flow easily. I don’t always have something obvious I’d like to write about. At least once a day though, I try to put some ideas down on paper and on the whole this is a pleasant experience.
Sadly, writing in classrooms is not always packaged or perceived as an experience which should be pleasurable. Perhaps this is some small part related to teachers’ conceptions of the act of writing. I remember my former council colleague Mike Biggin, who also gave me the kernel of the idea which underpinned the purpose of writing post, talking to me about one of those reoccurring Facebook quizzes asking people to discover their true vocation. We noted that both of us had been told we should have been writers. Mike suggested this shouldn’t be a surprise as a big part of teaching (Mike was a retired educator) was storytelling. Whether all teachers would agree with this, it doesn’t necessarily mean we all enjoy putting pen to paper.
How often is writing reduced to purely being a functional act – for comprehension, for recording, for assessment, etc? How often is the writing just something that we’re going to end up grading? Through these lenses, is it any surprise that many teachers and students alike miss the potential pleasure of writing?
I’ve also written before about my enthusiasm for Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. This was an enthusiasm that evolved through much trial and effort. One of the things I like about the brand is their motto ‘thinking with the hand’. They explain this philosophy on their website through a wonderful article outlining ‘eight reasons why thinking with the hand makes you smarter‘.
Using pen on paper definitely stimulates the mind in ways which typing on a keyboard doesn’t. The free form of writing gives you flexibility. The option to note down whatever you need to is liberating. The word-by-word momentum of writing gives your thoughts impetus. The patterns and traces we put on paper help our memory.
I think educators could definitely do more to give writing a better reputation in students minds. It shouldn’t be the necessary evil, loved only by the creative writing types. This may require less structure in some ways, less adherence to convention all of the time, more feedback and less grading – writing as a work in process, a way of shaping thoughts rather than just documenting end points.
Commonplace 