One of my colleagues told me that she was hanging up her keyboard for Christmas yesterday.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Now, it is what everyone has.<\/p>\n
But, a thought occurred to me. Who is actually teaching people to type?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
And what else should be taught in this way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"