Rector’s eNews 36: 19 November 2025

With our boys writing examinations at present I was considering the nature of their learning processes and how relatively little time is spent in note-taking by hand as this is so often done on a laptop or another device such as an iPad. It is usually regarded as helpful to use such a device as a learning tool especially in the digital age; ideas and notes are often stored more appropriately and in a more accessible form than on paper, in files and with the correct solutions to, for example, mathematical problems.  And yet examinations are almost always written by hand – across the world, in all countries.

When I was on an educational visit to Australia in 1995, I was alerted to the fact that a major independent school in Adelaide had been the first school in the world to adopt a laptop-only policy. All notes and interactions in class had to be recorded on a laptop with no handwritten notes being taken. What the school discovered, however, was that when each year group/grade came to write their state examinations – and naturally did so by hand – the results dropped on average by one grade per pupil.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that, when you start to write a sentence, you have to have the end point of your sentence in mind. Not so on the laptop: most tend to start and then amend and then add to what they have written or reconstruct. So the thought process is different.

Recently I came across an article by Ian Kane, a spatial artist whose work is well known in the UK, Belgium, Norway, France, Canada, and Japan. He draws attention to the fact that neuroscientists have considered writing by hand important for brain development, learning and memory functioning; handwriting is considered to activate a broader and more integrated network of brain regions including the motor cortex, sensory processing areas and areas for memory formation than typing. The process of writing helps the brain to encode and retain information more deeply. In children the physical act of forming letters by hand, additionally, is crucial for developing neural pathways associated with reading and spelling proficiency.

Handwriting demands sustained attention and fine motor control and writing by hand in, for example, a journal can help people process emotions, reduce stress and enhance creativity and self-reflection.

There remains, to my mind, something special about a hand-written note to a colleague or friend. It carries one’s personality to a certain extent and, even though I have a measure of arthritis in my hands and notes are less legible than I would like, I still believe that such letters convey something special. They can never be mass-produced. Partially for that reason, I require applicants for teaching positions at the schools I have led to write a hand-written covering letter; I believe that, perhaps even to a limited extent, the personality of the applicant comes through in the letter.  He/she cannot mass-produce such a letter for a range of schools; it is particular to our school and I want to establish how badly they want to be at our school, and the extent to which their emotion, tone and personality comes through in what they have written.

If one sees a letter written in, for example, the Victorian era,  one is astonished at the rhythm, the flourish, the cadence and the elegance of the writing; the construct of letters was a work of art and I am not suggesting that we should abandon the ease of typing, which is cleaner, neater and, in the long term, more sustainable. We can reorganise material more efficiently and the end product of this eNews, for example, is better than if it had been hand-written. I accept that.

But, as all E Block boys will know, after they have come to dinner with Dr Clark and me in the first couple of weeks after their arrival at Michaelhouse, they are instructed that a hand-written note to thank us by lunchtime on the following day is required. They are being trained in good manners for a start and learning a skill which may be old-fashioned, but will prove valuable to them, I hope, as they move on in life.

 

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