Shorthand: The class I Should Have Taken
"Those that achieve high rates of accuracy right from the start usually fall into one of two categories: they currently teach special education reading, or they once taught shorthand."
Speaking Solutions © 2002
My mother made me take keyboarding over 30 years ago... back when it was a class for girls. In a room of about 27 there were only two of us boys. It was impossible to rest your hands on the table with our clunky manual typewriters; albeit, the tendency for the two of us was to drop our wrists in a lazy fashion while slouching.
While we didn't appreciate it at the time, the teacher would walk around with a 12 inch ruler and smack our knuckles if our wrists were not in the "neutral" position. Her teaching technique got our attention and we sat up straight in a hurry when we saw the ruler approaching! It hurt, but not as much as carpal tunnel would hurt 20 years later. I've learned that keeping wrists in a neutral position is still a very good idea.
I have always been glad I took typing. As it turns out, there was another class for "girls only" that I should have taken.
Shorthand.
Since my first speech instructor training session back in 99, I've noticed a consistent trend, that I was reminded of while training at Southern Nevada Community College last week. Those that achieve high rates of accuracy right from the start usually fall into one of two categories: they currently teach special education reading, or they once taught shorthand.
Special education teachers consistently read to their students, emphasizing enunciation -- which leads me to believe that elementary teachers are going to do very well with speech recognition.
And then there are the former shorthand teachers. They always do well.
The reason they give for their extraordinary accuracy is consistent, "We taught dictation in shorthand!" It must have been a class to make Henry Higgins proud. I only wish that I could have learned to speak that clearly at an early age.
But there was something else that I missed out on by not taking shorthand -- the grammar and writing instruction. To a much greater degree than even our English departments achieved, shorthand teachers fine-tuned writing skills, proper usage, and consistent rules of grammar for technical writing, formatting, and business writing styles.
We need to get back to some of that. As the keyboarding era gradually winds down and speaking and handwriting skills take over, we need to re-emphasize some of that outstanding writing curriculum. My question is, "Why did we stop teaching shorthand in the first place?