Why aren’t people taught to type?

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One of my colleagues told me that she was hanging up her keyboard for Christmas yesterday.

There was nothing unusual, it seems, about Christmas break having started yesterday. All over the place, tools are being downed for a fortnight, which does slightly surprise me. Instead, what I mused was the fact that the keyboard was now the symbol of her working life.

I am old enough to have trained in accountancy when there was not a single PC in sight, and computers were very largely peripheral to working life.

When I started on my own in 1985 and decided that every person in the firm I was creating would always have their own computer, I am sure that the decision was decidedly unusual.

Now, it is what everyone has.

But, a thought occurred to me. Who is actually teaching people to type?

I recall my parents' horror when at the age of 8 or 9 my twin and I both asked for typewriters - because we wanted to write newsletters for each other. Blogging began young, in my case. The idea that a boy might type was, however, completely alien to them. No-one ever taught me to type. As a result, I am still not a great typist.

Now, typing is normal. But does anyone actually teach anyone to type properly now? It certainly does not happen in any school that I have heard of.

Why not, I wonder? Given how much productivity could be increased by if only people knew how to do it properly, wouldn't that be worthwhile?

And what else should be taught in this way?


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