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RE: Typing requirement in a tech writing ad - how to respond?
Subject:RE: Typing requirement in a tech writing ad - how to respond? From:Allan Ackerson <Allan -at- profitsystems -dot- net> To:'Watson Laughton' <WLaughton -at- orphan -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 11 Sep 2003 07:40:11 -0600
Back when I was in high school (class of '67) everybody was required to take
typing. And boys had the option of taking home ec (but not many did).
Maybe my small Illinois high school was more progressive than I thought.
Cheers!
Al
-----Original Message-----
From: Watson Laughton [mailto:WLaughton -at- orphan -dot- com]
Subject: RE: Typing requirement in a tech writing ad - how to respond?
I don't think that's universal (or United States-al, anyway); when I was
in high school in the early 70's (in West Springfield, MA), I had to kick
and claw my way into typing class, and was branded a troublemaker for my
efforts. And I was the only boy in the class. Perhaps I could have taken
a commercially available class, but boys were strongly "discouraged" from
taking typing with the budding secretaries. We "didn't need" that skill.
Most guys I know that are my age don't know how to touch type.
And you should have seen the stink they
raised when I signed up for home ec.....
__________________________________________________________________________
I have no idea whether that is true in Quebec, but typing classes have
been open to people of both sexes in all parts of the US that I'm
familiar with for many decades. I took typing in the summer of 1961 and,
while the instructor was a woman (as were most schoolteachers), the
class was not predominantly female. My dad was not offered a typing
class by the US Army in WW II only because his two-finger typing speed
was high enough to pass the course exit exam (and so he never did learn
to touch-type).
