The Cult of the Mechanist
A long time ago I went to University. I was about 18. The arts degree had a compulsory touch typing component. It wasn't in any way a typing degree. But the university argued that graduates in the liberal arts should be able to type quickly because of the amount of essays set. It was mandatory. That is if you didn't pass touch typing you did not complete your degree. So you wouldn't be awarded it. No matter what your passes were.
However for me that was a huge problem. Because I cannot touch type. I know that there is Mavis beacon and you put your fingers on certain letters as home points. Yes. I know. But having had a family member do a secretary course, I know what all the typo errors are that a course trains you to avoid. I make them all. Moreover every year I make more of them because my typing gets what I call "intelligently wrong". That is I make double chaining etc errors that are the most efficient ways to use my fingers!!
I call the above requirement the cult of the mechanist. The mechaist believes two things.
[1] that anyone can by physical mechanics do anything.
[2] they can be taught that thing and produce an outcome such as passing a touch typing course.
For the record I have nothing physically wrong with me in any way. My reaction times are exactly average. I just cannot touch type. I produce gibberish. The harder I try the more gibberish I make. There is no teacher or course taht can change that. The only possible thing would be a dvorak keyboard. But universities have no interest in that. That seems to be point [3] of the cult of the mechanist. They make no effort of any kind to cater to someone who is mandated to follow their requirements.
As it turned out I dropped out of the degree with other reasons. But I have to disagree with any such typing requirement in the strongest possible terms.
Thank you
However for me that was a huge problem. Because I cannot touch type. I know that there is Mavis beacon and you put your fingers on certain letters as home points. Yes. I know. But having had a family member do a secretary course, I know what all the typo errors are that a course trains you to avoid. I make them all. Moreover every year I make more of them because my typing gets what I call "intelligently wrong". That is I make double chaining etc errors that are the most efficient ways to use my fingers!!
I call the above requirement the cult of the mechanist. The mechaist believes two things.
[1] that anyone can by physical mechanics do anything.
[2] they can be taught that thing and produce an outcome such as passing a touch typing course.
For the record I have nothing physically wrong with me in any way. My reaction times are exactly average. I just cannot touch type. I produce gibberish. The harder I try the more gibberish I make. There is no teacher or course taht can change that. The only possible thing would be a dvorak keyboard. But universities have no interest in that. That seems to be point [3] of the cult of the mechanist. They make no effort of any kind to cater to someone who is mandated to follow their requirements.
As it turned out I dropped out of the degree with other reasons. But I have to disagree with any such typing requirement in the strongest possible terms.
Thank you
Comments (7)
Quoting orcestra
I take it that you have no problem producing cursive or printed writing? This isn't a neurological problem in the language section of the brain? You weren't sexually abused by a typewriter when you were a child?
You can hunt and peck? Lots of people get through life without touch typing.
One writer related how his college writing teacher told him that he should "stop writing with his fingers" (meaning touch-typing); he should write with a pencil. So he did. That was Robert Caro, who is writing the final volume of his multi-volume Lyndon Johnson biography. He also wrote a bio of Robert Moses, the Czar of New York City planning fame. All written out in long hand, and revised before he typed the publisher's copy.
Before the typewriter came along, everything was hand written. Shakespeare. Dickens. Trollope. Johnson's dictionary. Scribble, scribble, scribble.
I can totally empathize with those that find it horrible. But then again, people can find things like gymnastics, cooking or wood crafts horrible too when they have to learn them. They don't have the interest, they notice that others pick it much easier and from all of this, they really get this loathing fear against the whole subject. And when something is as regressive and monotonic as typing, there really aren't many ways to teach it. Or learn it.