Question about "typing"

[Canice]

or, I suppose, "keyboarding": Do more young people or fewer learn to (for lack of a better word) touch-type today than say 25 years ago?
This is brought on by Matt's home ec thread. When I was in high school in the early '80s there were very, very few boys in typing class, though teachers admonished *all* students to learn the skill, to facilitate typing reports in college. So now that everyone uses a computer, does everyone learn to "touch-type" or do most people hunt and peck?
(I word this question as if someone were going to post a quantifiable response, lol. :rolleyes: )

[badunnin]

In my district all kids take 10 weeks of keyboarding in the 6th grade.

[GingerPow]

I was in the business curriculum in high school in the mid-70's (back in the day:D ), so I learned bookkeeping, typing and shorthand. There was one boy in my typing class, that was it. My two DD's and DS all had computer class in elementary and middle school years learning "keyboarding."

[wallycat]

I remember taking bookkeeping in Jr. high, but I taught myself to type in 5th grade so never paid attention to what was offered and who took what.
Quantifiable enough :p :D ;) ??

[tbb113]

My younger son is telling me that his older brother did (different middle schools). He isn't home so I can't verify it. I know that between instant messaging and texting...they are both pretty quick on the keyboard now :rolleyes: :cool:

[DeeK]

In the early 70's I took typing. The beginner class was on manual typewriters. The second year (if you took Typing II) you got IBM Selectrics!
I learned 10-key adding machine on my own. I don't do it correctly, but my way works for me. I don't have to look and I hit the correct keys.

My son (circa 2001) took keyboarding, but was not graded on his ability to touch-type. He types fairly quickly but he HAS to look at the keys.

DH (circa "really old") types with 2 fingers on each hand. He's pretty speedy when he's typing things he knows, but I've noticed if it's an uncommon word, he hunts and pecks.

[Grace]

I took typing and 10-key adding machine in high school. I went to a highly academic high school and those classes were totally looked down upon, and were full of the not-so-bright kids, and few, if any boys. But I enjoyed them and figured they'd help me in my life (and I was no AP Chemistry student so I wasn't about to take anything like that like just about everyone else did, although I was far from being a total dope).

They did help me in my life in many ways, and I made lots of money typing papers for my fellow students in college. I was so fast I could type papers last minute for the procrastinating kids and charge a lot more for that.

I don't know about kids nowdays, but I see lots of hunt and peckers out there (at work - I work with lots of 23 -27 year olds).

[stefania4]

Yet another required class (if I remember correctly)... if it wasn't required, it was at least popular. I graduated in '87 so the computer-driven need to type hadn't really hit yet. Like Grace, I made $ typing papers in college and my 90+ wpm had me working in an office over the summers.

[Robyn1007]

I don't know about kids nowdays, but I see lots of hunt and peckers out there (at work - I work with lots of 23 -27 year olds).

Hmmm, that's interesting because I'm 29 with a lot of friends in the 23-30 age range and none of them are hunt and peckers. I took a class my freshman year of high school but already had some typing skills by then.

[blazedog]

When I was in high school, no one on an academic track took typing -- it wasn't even an option or course at my high school. None of my friends in college had taken a typing course -- or learned how to type -- male or female. It was really a skill that was relegated to those who went to vocational schools.

Keyboarding is now a part of the curriculum for most of the kids I know -- and almost every younger person I work with now has excellent typing skills -- unlike when I started working when every executive had his/her own secretary - we would hand write everything and give it to our secretary to type up -- no reason at all to have typing skills. Completely different work environment now since everyone needs to be able to use a keyboard to some degree or another.

[Clover]

When I was in high school, no one on an academic track took typing -- it wasn't even an option or course at my high school. None of my friends in college had taken a typing course -- or learned how to type -- male or female. It was really a skill that was relegated to those who went to vocational schools.


Interesting. When I was in school in the '60s, typing was an elective starting in 8th grade. I would say that almost all the kids in college prep courses, both boys and girls, took a semester of typing. Starting in 9th grade, we were expected to type our papers. I don't think there was a single person in college who couldn't type. We had papers to write all the time and they had to be typed. We certainly didn't have secretaries. After college, though, if you were a management-level employee, you could forget how to type. Someone would do it for you.

[gertdog]

I took it in 1988 as a junior in high school. It was a semester-long class and they called it "keyboarding" but we were using electric typewriters. And it was taught by the track coach, who taught PE for 3 class periods a day and typing for the other 3. It was definitely an elective, but I remember fairly even numbers of boys and girls in the class. I needed something to fill in after taking a required semester-long class, and I didn't have many choices w/o rearranging the rest of my schedule, so I went for the easy option. Similar to what blazedog said, it wasn't a class that most students on the college track took at my school. I don't think any of my friends took it. In retrospect, I'm glad I did.

[honeygirl1971]

When I was in high school (graduated '89), the real year-long "typing" and "shorthand" etc classes were all for non-academic track kids (those of us on the academic track never had room in our schedules for them) but there was a one semester typing class that filled in the hole left after one semester of Driver Ed (which was required), and so many of us took that course and got the basic skills, if not all the fancy stuff. I taught myself a version of 10-key one summer at a really boring temp job. In my age group, I know a lot of hunt and peckers, though. Once I moved here, I quickly taught myself the French keyboard just by using it (it is slightly different--certain letters in different places), but I now have to look for some of the symbols whereas before I didn't...

[PamN]

My son is now a senior in high school. He and most of his contemporaries took keyboarding in middle school in the 7th-8th grade. Although the class was an elective, I think they were required to take 2 semesters of some sort of "life skills" class (shop, home ec, keyboarding, etc.) so many chose keyboarding for one semester and then went on to another semester of basic computer apps (Word, Power Point, I think some Excel). Not enough training to make them experts by any means, but enough so they don't freak out when they need to do reports and projects.

[sdcook]

When I was in high school (graduated in '93), it was required to take keyboarding before taking any computer classes. The school offered it during the summer and most kids took it then.

I believe in the district my kids attend keyboarding is taken in junior high. Although they do so much computer work in elementary school now that my kids are better typists than my DH.

[doggerham]

My mother suggested I take typing in summer school in about 1976. That way, it wouldn't interfere with academics, but she said that I would appreciate the skill later.

And, of course she was right!

[blazedog]

I do think it's important to put typing as a skill in historical perspective -- when I entered the work force in 1977, it was a skill that women were instructed to HIDE if they had executive aspirations -- it was also the era when there was all kinds of advice regarding how women could gracefully refuse to get coffee or take notes at a business meeting -- because these tasks were routinely expected of women.

My high school was all girls and quite deliberately didn't have typing as a course -- although oddly they did have a cooking class in the first semester of 7th grade. We were being deliberately taught to aspire to be doctors, lawyers and college professors -- and typing back then was not a skill for any of these.


As to college papers, we all (men and women) seemed to get them out somehow -- the details are hazy.:D

In law school, everyone paid to have them typed on the precursors of word processors (those odd machines that used punch keys) because revising and typing citations properly would have taxed any amateur's typing abilities.

I learned to type from the equivalent of Typing for Dummys -- wasn't all that hard and typing is really the kind of skill that only practice improves so once I had the basics of the keyboard, the speed and accuracy followed -- Of course with word processing, accuracy isn't quite the necessity it was when a typing mistake could really be a disaster -- the horrors of erasable typewriter paper, gloppy white-out and those little pieces of paper that sometimes didn't accurately cover the letter.

[Miss Giggles]

I graduated HS in 1995.

It was an elective that I did not take. Maybe junior high. I taught myself though.

I have worked with a few people who don't know how to type. And they are in IT.. they figured out their own way of typing slowly..

[ChristyMarie]

I graduated in 92 and took typing as an elective. I'd say half boys, half girls. Considering how many papers I had to type in college I would think those on the college path should absolutely take typing!

[Curiosity Hears]

Both our girls could touch type quite well by the end of sixth grade due to computer classes in their grade school.

In seventh grade I would often stay after school and go into the typing classroom. I started at page one and went through the whole book page by page. The typing instructor got a kick out of this and sometimes would give me tests. By the end of the book I could type around to fifty words a minute. My family laughs saying I was Metilda as a child. lol. Knowing how to type served me well in college I would type other people's papers for money.

[MusicMom]

My kids are 17 and 13 and both were required to take a semester (18 weeks) of keyboarding in 6th grade. DD's teacher covered the keys with tape so they couldn't see the letters. Now she types on our home computer with the keyboard drawer underneath the desk.

[sneezles]

I do think it's important to put typing as a skill in historical perspective --




My high school was all girls and quite deliberately didn't have typing as a course --

Well, that is fairly odd!

I entered the work force in 1972 (without a college degree :eek: )...I did, however take typing twice in high school. Once as a freshman when Spanish class was full and I had no desire to take Russian (it was the late 60's and who in their right mind would take Russian at that time?) and then again as a Junior (different school) when I'd fulfilled my math requirements. Went away to school but then quit university and took a job in the retail world. My father thought that I should persue a job with the gov't and since that would require office skills I then took typing and shorthand at the local JC...loved shorthand (120 wpm) but still detested typing (35 with multiple errors...truly a sign!:p )

Many, many years later I was the mentor of a Montessori middle school class. One of the jobs I worked with thte students on was the yearbook. The company we used had many forms that had to be filled in and this was before scanners were affordable. Most of the students had never seen a typewriter, what a grattime it was fo me to watch them "play" with that "antique"!

[ADM]

I have always said there are 3 very important skills which everyone should learn - Driving, typing, and swimming -- even if they don't have to use them often.

[jjsooner73]

I took typing as an elective in 9th grade (87-88). It was looked upon as a fun class.
I went to a small rural high school, so we didn't have such designations as 'academic' or 'non-academic' track. There wasn't really room/money for a lot of extra classes (i.e. Chemistry was offered every other year).

I did transfer to a larger HS for my last 2 years...where there were many more choices of electives and academic classes.

I spent a lot of time on a computer in my last 2 years of college (math degree) and grad school and surprisingly was a rather quick keyboarder, even though there had been many years in between without much computer/typewriter use.