[cctalk] Re: Typing class in high school

I took typing class in High School all four years. Because I had developed an interest in typing when I was much younger, one of my relatives had given me an old Royal typewriter when I was something like 6 years old. I was proficient with the alphabet and had a pretty good vocabulary for my age, so I started to use the typewriter to write out my ideas for various inventions that I thought up(most of which were completely impossible, but I actually did make some of them). Of course, I typed in a way that was my own creation. It was at first hunt and peck, and evolved as I got more familiar with the layout of the keyboard into my own version of touch typing. I started using a Teletype 33ASR in sixth grade for learning programming on the HP 2000C timeshared BASIC system that the county school system owned, and the familiarity with a typewriter keyboard meant that I got pretty good at typing on the Teletype - being able to type on it about as fast as the mechanism would allow. Since the vocabulary for typing in BASIC programs was fairly limited, my fingers got muscle memory on the various keywords and I could rip them out such that the interlock on the keyboard held back the pressure of the finger to type the next character in a keyword that when the mechanism finished printing, that key would immediately be depressed. About the only place I slowed down a little was typing literal text in PRINT statements, math expressions, and print formats in IMAGE statements. By the time I got to the High School typing class, I could easily type 70-80 WPM with very low error rates for extended periods of time, and could burst up to 110WPM. But, I typed in a way that was completely incorrect as far as the formal way of typing goes. After the first few weeks of class, it became apparent to the instructor that I could type quite well, as well as quite quickly, but I did it all wrong. I was the second fastest typist in the class (there was a girl in the class who was faster), but I had the lowest error rate in sustained high-speed typing. The teacher was a great guy. He was constantly on me to type the right way out of due diligence, but didn't press it, and I'd constantly ignore him. He would stand over me and watch me type, and would shake his head in both disgust, and in marvel that I could type as fast as I did using a completely bizarre method. He often told me that it was a wonder that I didn't tie my fingers into knots typing the way that I did. When it came time to grade my performance in the class, he was torn. He told me that he wanted to give me a failing grade because I did not learn the proper way to type, but at the same time because I could type all of the material very accurately and quickly, he could not help but give me an A because I performed better than the vast majority of the students in the class despite the bizarre way that I typed. I still use this strange way of typing to this day (many decades later), and can still type pretty darned fast, although my error rate has crept up quite a bit due to arthritis in my fingers, as well as general neurological degradation due to age. It works for me, and in the end, I got all As in typing class for all four years. I took the class after my Freshman year even though it was no longer required (it was required for all students to pass at least one year of typing in order to graduate, which was quite forward-thinking for those days) because I really liked the teacher, and the practice was good for keeping my speed up and error rate down, which proved very helpful for writing papers later on in High School, as well as in my computer programming classes and work after I graduated. It's always interesting to study the unusual methods that get used when people (especially young people) come up with their own ways of doing things out of interest or necessity versus what is the traditionally-trained way. I think in a lot of cases as people get into the school systems, their unique ways of doing things get trained out of them, even though their unique methods had evolved into a superior means of accomplishing something. I had a great deal of respect for this typing teacher for realizing that my unique way of typing worked very well for me, didn't affect the results of what was required, and thus left me alone and didn't try to force the "correct" way on me. It is unfortunate that the insight that this teacher had is not more common in the educational realm. RIP Al Yanzic! -Rick -- Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum https://oldcalculatormuseum.com Beavercreek, Oregon