Band 8 model answer: opinion (agree or disagree)

A Korean primary school teacher I know now spends barely two lessons a week on penmanship, compared with the daily calligraphy drills she herself endured as a child in the 1990s. This shift, replicated in classrooms across the world, has clear causes, and I regard it as a largely negative development despite its practical conveniences. The primary cause is the sheer efficiency of typing. A university student writing a 2,000 word essay can produce it on a laptop in a fraction of the time handwriting would take, with the added benefit of instant spell checking and easy editing. Smartphones and messaging apps have also normalised short, typed communication from an early age, so children practise thumb typing on a phone screen long before they master holding a pen. Schools, under pressure to prepare students for standardised computer based exams, such as the digital SAT introduced in the United States, have correspondingly reduced time devoted to cursive writing. The consequences, however, are troubling. Neuroscience research from Princeton, cited in classroom teaching guides, shows that the physical act of forming letters by hand activates memory centres more effectively than typing, meaning students who take notes on laptops often retain less. There is also a cultural loss: countries like India and China have centuries old calligraphic traditions, and a generation unable to write characters fluently by hand risks losing a tangible connection to that heritage. Even practically, handwriting remains necessary in situations like signing legal documents or filling out forms during a power outage, and I have watched adults struggle to write a simple birthday card because their hand cramps after two sentences. That said, I would not romanticise the past entirely; typing has undeniably widened access to writing for people with motor impairments, who previously struggled with pens. Yet on balance, given the cognitive and cultural costs, I believe schools should preserve at least a modest place for handwriting instruction rather than abandoning it wholesale in favour of screens.