Teaching Penmanship
As you prepare to become elementary school teachers, you'll be hearing a lot of disscussion about the relevance of teaching permanship, the qulity of one's handwriting. Now years ago when I was studying education in college, reading, writing and arithmetic were the basic of elementary school education. It went without saying that writing meant first and foremost penmanship. That is, the neatness of a child's handwriting. Back then, penmanship was often taught as a separate subject from the first grade right up through the sixth grade long after the children had moved from writing in block capital letters to cursive scipt. It was considered so important that sometimes prizes were even awarded for the best handwriting.