We began our journey with chunky wooden pencils and a lesson book where we traced letters. I always loved the smell of those pencils (and still do), and I kept asking for a new one more frequently than probably was fair! Luckily, in 1946, the San Francisco school system had an endless supply of them.
When I was a kid, cursive writing lessons began in kindergarten. Every school set aside time to learn this skill – if you were left-handed, too bad. You did the same sessions.
As I moved forward, we used real pens that needed to be dipped in ink, which is why there was a hole in the desk. Our classes were called penmanship, and I truly loved them. To this day, I still avoid using ballpoint pens; instead, I have a collection of fountain pens and Japanese-made felt-tip pens. Young Japanese students writing in Kanji or Katakana with a pencil just doesn’t seem right.
Students all over now write in a kind of printing that feels a bit strange to me. It all looks quite similar, no matter where I see it. I suppose they think my use of pens and ink is old-fashioned. I wonder what my family will do with them when I’m no longer here.
Are we there yet? 