The
importance
of
proper
handwriting
by
Walter Pall http://walter-pall.de/
In
Germany we have this Institute of Adult Education in every town.
Regardless of age or former education one can study such things as
languages, music, painting, pottery, astronomy, philosophy –
endless offers of education for very little money but with qualified
teachers.
I
took a class called „Poetry“. The instructor was a man who came
from Italy where he was a poetry legend. In the beginning the man
spoke five minutes about the history and importance of poetry and the
immense importance of proper technique. Then he handed out a blank
piece of paper and a pencil to everyone. „Write a poem of twelve
lines“ he said. There were a couple dozen folks in the room, female
and male, old and young beginners advanced – all sorts. After 30
minutes the poems were collected. The master took the first one and
said „I cannot read this terrible handwriting, do it again.“ Then
about the next one he said „very bad handwriting you have, again“.
After glancing over the rest he decided to teach proper writing for
the rest of the lesson.
In
the following week I cam back only to find that abut a third of the
original students were present. Same thing - „Write a poem of
twelve lines“. We all tried very hard to concentrate on
handwriting. I had practiced my writing over the weekend and thought
that it was pretty good. Anyway, the master found many faults again
on my handwriting and, of course, also on the rest of the class. Only
once he was kind of happy and briefly spoke about content – he
changed some word, but we could not understand why.
In
the third week I came back and found myself to be the only student of
poetry left. Same procedure. I wrote my twelve lines and concentrated
a lot on my writing. He looked at it for a while, changed a few
words, shuffled a bit and indeed the poem seemed to be better to me,
at least different. He said „Now you have started to master the
most important thing necessary to write good poems“. Then he went
on to criticize my spelling and syntax skills. He made it clear to me
that he planned to concentrate on this for the rest of the term.
I
never went back and the master, I heard, left town disappointed and
vowed never to come back to these ignorants who had no talent for
poetry and no will to achieve.
I
gave up poetry after this.
What
has this to do with bonsai?
4 comments:
I see the analogy.
People fall for bonsai because of it´s grandeur, beauty, because every one of them is unique, that´s what inspire us.
If we are taught techniques only from the start, discussing bad wiring, etc. only, it might lose it´s magic for us.
In bonsai as well as in poetry we strive to express ourselves, there is not much desire to discuss writing/wiring more than necessary.
That´s why I never took a poetry class and started to write my poems in the privacy of my room.
And as in bonsai I do not care much if it speaks to as much people as possible.
My old poems bring up my memories, my trees speak to my soul.
Rafael Najmanovich: So the Italian poet was using the Japanese model of teaching bonsai to teach Poetry?
Hi Walter, i am guessing you are hinting that the Japanese bonsai masters are bad teachers and must have "killed" many students due to their rigid style & attitude :-) I can relate to that in a sports context - you once mentioned that your wife loves to play tennis but would never be a world champion. Probably, her coach's goal might be exactly that but her goal is to have some fun & exercise without sacrificing her normal life. She probably does not want to get up at 4 am for warm up and physical training, give up her favourite foods, give up her social life etc for tennis. All she desired was to hit the ball with a bat in a casual match, according to her convenience. A national level tennis coach may not be the right person to teach her or a newcomer how to play tennis.
I often feel that most beginners (in any field) should not be learning from the top experts, initially at least. Getting a casual intro to the new field by an ordinary coach at first is a far better idea and would usually be sufficient for most students. A school student just needs an ordinary teacher to start learning, not a noble prize winning expert.
Vinny,
you hit the nail on the head right there.
Would you want to learn driving an ordinary car from a Nascar Racer? Or would your neighbour be better for you?
It
i s not really the Japanese teachers I am aiming at. It is those who have learned in Japan to become masters and think the methods they were exposed to are the right ones for everybody. This is a big misunderstanding of the nature of the average students.
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