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?
