A NEW Case for Books, Typewriters, Chalkboards and Penmanship

A NEW Case for Books, Typewriters, Chalkboards and Penmanship. 

Welcome, welcome everyone, to the grand opening of our new “Brain Gym” here in the Year of our Lord 2026! We offer only the best in mental exercises as guaranteed by the latest in neurology and brain research. Spend some time with us here and you will soon have a healthier, stronger and more adaptable intelligence. Yes, it’s true we might have had to dust off some of these old exercises, but believe us, our weight machines for your brain will be better than what you can get now in other places that are supposedly devoted to what can make us smarter. So how about I start right now with a tour of our impressive new brain development facility, starting with this impressive shelf of books! And then I’ll take us from the bookshelf to the typewriter, then to the chalkboard, and finally to the center of cursive handwriting! Okay, let’s get going. Right this way… 

BOOKS. First, we have here a bookshelf stuffed with every kind of printed material we could find… fiction, nonfiction, biography, history, science trade books, cookbooks, sports magazines, journals, and so much more! Of course, right there you’ll see one shelf devoted to every accepted translation of the Bible, the most influential book of all time. Why are books the first thing we see in our Brain Gym instead of a display of impressive screens? Here’s the latest neurological research… All the latest cognitive research point to books being a superior form of weight-training for the brain when compared to digital reading. The simple reading of printed matter in books leads to longer attention spans, better memory retention, stronger vocabulary, improved critical thinking, a deeper understanding of material, and a greater empathy for others. Digital reading, unfortunately, leads to superficial thinking like skimming, scrolling, scanning, impatient multitasking, and an inferior comprehension of what has been read. Digital reading builds distracted learners who can’t stay with one thought or topic from the beginning to the end. On the other hand, book reading nurtures analytical thinking like nothing else on the market. And so it’s no surprise that print-reading leads to higher academic achievement, greater brain growth and better comprehension. While digital reading leads to lower retention and a worrying drop in the way our brains process and absorb information. Book reading builds what neuroscientists call a “mental wrap” because the tactile experience of simply turning a book’s pages generate spatial cues that assist greatly in memory recall. There is a sense of a more meaningful participation in the reading experience with the multisensory reading of a book that you take off a shelf, hold onto it while reading, turn its pages, feeling the paper, replacing it on the shelf or in the bookbag. And generally, the more your senses are involved, the more effectively the brain kicks into gear. The book-reading experience is much more pleasurable and satisfying at the visceral level as well, and surveys always seems to find that book-readers are less stressed, less discouraged, have lower blood pressure, are more mentally resilient when coping with life’s inevitable challenges, and have a greater awareness of the world around them. Practically speaking too, book readers develop much less eyestrain and discomfort than digital readers, mostly because of the glare of the blue lighting in the screens. And of course, books are a source of enrichment and inspiration for all ages, not just the young. Books strengthen the reader’s ability to imagine what one doesn’t see, from young readers to old, and is a lifelong source of pleasure that truly satisfies at a much deeper level than anything read digitally. So what’s not to like about books? It seems that books not only build better brains, but better lives too!

TYPEWRITERS. Here we are at the typing tables, folks. You may be wondering where the monitors and power cords and fancy electronic gadgets are that usually accompany keyboards. But, guess what, there isn’t any of that digital equipment here! This is your basic, very inexpensive and easily maintained typewriter, a dinosaur from the olden days. There actually are many good reasons for their presence in our modern Brain Gym, believe it or not… These machines stimulate your brain because they don’t try to do all your thinking for you: no spell-check, no grammar-check, no editing tools, no automatic writing that attempts to read your mind and put words into your mouth, and all those other “helps” that keep you from using your own good brain. Depending on your own thinking encourages a much more disciplined and intentional writing experience with more careful word choice, since it costs you a bit to undo mistakes. Brain researchers call this benefit the “cognitive commitment” that strengthens the brain to be more deliberate and thoughtful in word choice. Unfortunately, it appears that digital writing tends to be shallower and less thoughtful. It turns out that your creativity is boosted with the typewriter as it keeps the typist in more of a flow state without the computer’s constant interruptions which constantly edit everything you type. Computers are open invitations to multitasking, while typewriters build on single-tasking which produces a deeper quality and a more thoughtful writing experience. It turns out that we really can’t focus on more than one thing at a time very well. So, when typing first drafts, the finished draft is much more likely to be an improvement over a digital first draft. The digital writing experience has more built-in distractions and special effects, and breaks the creative flow, so the typist on an old Underwood or Royal is more likely to slow down to a pace that is more likely to lead to a more mindful and deliberate writing process. The manual typewriter has many benefits connected to its tactile feedback: The typist actually hears the creative process at work and literally “feels” the words one is producing. One writer described it as “a rhythmic dance between fingers and keys.” The physical pleasure of watching a page fill up with your words is a vast improvement over the relative emptiness of watching letters appear on a screen. Because of the physical experience on a typewriter, the writer tends to be more present and focused on the moment, and is more motivated by noticing the finished pages stack up instead of a screen’s growing word count.  Also, the multisensory experiences of rolling the paper onto the carriage, hearing the clackety-clack of the keys hitting the paper, feeling the slight resistance of the keys to your fingers as they type, the pleasant sound of the carriage return, and even the removing of the paper from the carriage, all that sensory input produces a more enjoyable experience and engages the brain that much more fully and effectively. And of course, there are no worries over viruses, data breaches, hacks, or any privacy or safety concerns with the trusty typewriter, so no worries whatsoever about confidentiality with whatever you’re composing on paper. Yes, computers were in many ways the greatest invention of this era and a true work of genius, and computers give us the benefits involved with digital memory storage, quick editing, formatting, speed and effectiveness when in a hurry, and is probably best with polished final drafts and larger documents too. But, don’t forget that typewriters may be artifacts, but they have their virtues too. And sometimes, depending on what you want to accomplish, what one loses in efficiency and speed can be otherwise gained in creativity, productive thoughtfulness and peace of mind during the writing process.

CHALKBOARDS. Now I present to you in our modern “Brain Gym” this row of classic chalkboards. No, this isn’t a one-room schoolhouse. This is an old tried and true artifact that is returning to a measure of popularity because of the recent cognitive research that shows them to be excellent in brain development. The secret to a chalkboard’s effectiveness in brain stimulation is its “drag” of the chalk against the board, the friction between the chalk and the board that provides just enough resistance to stimulate the brain in an effective way. The tactile experience in this exercise activates the brain and stimulates the important multisensory experience that helps the brain encode information more deeply than the omnipresent whiteboard or smartboard. The chalkboard is now seen as helpful in motor skill development, memory retention and promotes muscle memory, a foundational skill in so much of early learning. Writing on a chalkboard is now known to increase brain connectivity that supports reading acquisition and critical thinking. Neurologists call chalkboard-writing a “full-body workout” that supports various important learning processes in students. Evidently, according to the latest cognitive research, “the student’s brain uses the chalkboard’s sensory data from the tactile resistance to make continuous minor adjustments to arm position, providing constant touch feedback that accentuates learning and spatial awareness.” The increased effort of writing on a chalkboard, as opposed to the whiteboard, forces the brain to slow down, process the information more thoroughly, and thus lead to better conceptual understanding of the material. A student is in the best of all learning worlds when s/he learns to write cursive on the chalkboard because of the broad network of brain regions involved in that exercise… Which leads us to this final section in our tour of the “Brain Gym“…

PENMANSHIP. Here we are at our center for cursive handwriting, and this is beautiful to behold, people. But that’s not the only profound benefit to this old-school style of writing. Modern education is finally catching up with contemporary brain research and discovering that cursive handwriting strengthens the brain and is very helpful in the neurological development of the writer… Old-fashioned penmanship is making a comeback because the physical act of writing cursive officially boosts cognitive efficiency and brain activity. Cursive writing has now been discovered to activate more brain regions than simple printing or digital writing, because of the complex, fluid and continuous movements involved. Cursive handwriting helps to integrate the brain’s left and right hemispheres, and so strengthens a brain’s neural pathway, stimulating different electrical activities in the brain. Cursive actually activates the brain’s “reading circuit” more effectively for reading retention, language skills and fine motor skills as well. Penmanship has now been shown to make learning in general much more efficient and helps a student to a deeper understanding of what one has learned. And we can’t forget that computer typing on a keyboard does not even come close to the advantages of penmanship when it comes to improving hand-muscle control and dexterity. The complex motor skills used in cursive handwriting stimulates the brain, but also produces a beautiful product of self-expression that will bring lifelong satisfaction.

Well, that’s the end of our tour for now, people. This is all rather eye-opening, isn’t it? Who would have known that taking a few steps backward might actually be bringing us forward in the educational world? For those who are interested, we will be hosting a conference tomorrow here at the “Brain Gym” on the educational benefits of phonics, multisensory science, old math and calculation without calculators, recess, and nature studies. Hope to see you then!