--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:

>
> Why not train them? Why such a patronizing attitude?

My two closest colleagues, responsable for producing more and longer
documents than I do, both use hunt and peck. I couldn't believe it at
first but sneaking up behind them I have confirmed that this is their
native keyboarding strategy. At their age there is not a chance in a
million they will alter their style, and there is no sign that they
feel at a disadvantage. I would never *dare* to suggest that they
learn now - not if I care to maintain good workplace relationships.

The teeming millions do not want to learn how to type - certainly not
before having accesss to the internet. I haven't seen any school
curriculum that would suggest teaching typing before grade 3 or 4.
Many school do not teach typing at all. That doesn't mean that the
quality of research, or presentations is any worse.

Schools concentrate on teaching children not to copy verbatim from
the internet and not to quote any text without both an identifiable
author, and publisher. This makes wikipedia problematic for schools.
We simply cannot accept it unless an author can be found.

Schools attempt to teach children to be critical of information on
the net and not believe everything they read. If there were any time
left over from this gargantuan task, we might teach typing.

Suzanne