The Overlooked Skill That No One Is Talking About in Education

Without this tool firmly in the tool belt, many adults struggle to participate in today’s economy.

Think for a moment.

What if there was a physical skill that could actively determine an adult’s willingness to write virtually anything of length for any reason?

What if this single skill determined whether basic academic tasks required minutes or hours?

And what if proficiency in this same skill dramatically limited or expanded the number of academic options available to students outside of high school?

Wow. That’s huge, right?

If such a skill?existed, you would think it would get a LOT of attention in our K-12 education systems.

I believe such a skill does exist.

But it hardly receives a mention.

We’ve seen a massive shift in attention to soft skills

Education has been all about the soft skills for some time now, and rightly so. We’re talking here about the transferable skills that will take our learners forward and allow them to flourish in many industries.

I’m a big fan of these skills. Such core competencies are far more likely to determine student success than, say, sets of memorized knowledge.

But there is still one hard skill that has made a big, big impact for decades. And it’s a difference-maker today.

This skill could make or break grad school

I have a cousin in law school at the moment. His program is intense and his workload is enormous. On top of massive amounts of daily required reading, demand for regular academic output is high.

He is required to write a lot of papers. Long ones.

Time is at an absolute premium in that kind of an academic environment. So what’s the skill that can make or break success in a program like that?

Typing speed and accuracy, or what we now call keyboarding skills.

Keyboarding proficiency is an absolute game-changer

I have some older relatives who tell me they hate email. That used to mystify me until I watched one or two of them operate a keyboard.

Ahhh, I thought after seeing them in action.?Your hatred makes so much sense now. It’s not that you hate reading, conversation, or the exchange of ideas or information.

You’re just really, really bad at typing.

And that low proficiency (ie. hunting and pecking) makes the entire ordeal of formulating any reply longer than two lines utterly painful.

In contrast, check out some of my middle schoolers. I’ve seen students in 7th or 8th grade who can type 70, 80, and even 90 words per minute. Accurately.

I’ve seen an eighth grader compose a coherent, mistake-free, 300-word story from scratch on the Most Dangerous Writing App in five minutes flat.

Now I’m not saying these kids love email — ha! Different developmental issues going on there.

But what I will say is that these youngsters have no fear of typed communication. Their ideas flow on the silver screen.

They can type multiple times faster than they can print or write. In fact, some can type as fast as they can speak.

Of course, that’s not the same for every student. Have you ever sat down beside a middle or high schooler who is facing any kind of writing task, only to see them take that first, hesitating, one-fingered stab at a letter on their keyboard?

Uh-oh, you think with concern and silent sympathy.?This is going to be a challenge.

Addressing pushback: are keyboards an endangered species?

Here’s where the futurists will chime in to say that typing is about to go the way of cursive handwriting.

Really? Call me old and short-sighted, but I don’t see keyboards going away any time soon.

I’ve been typing for the last 35 years, and although artificial intelligence and?speech-to-text?tools have reached truly impressive heights, we’re still miles and miles from the place where I can construct and publish a blog post like this one without touching a keyboard.

(Not to mention all the social limitations of trying to compose in a room full of students, a noisy cafe, or on the plane using speech-to-text.)

Others will pipe up to say that more and more writing today takes place on?mobile devices. And it’s true that a lot of our written communication has moved in that direction.

But … you know how it is. Anything of significant substance or length is still painful on a mobile device.

You can get those thumbs going on your phone as fast as you want. My 90 WPM middle schooler is still going to smoke you when it comes to writing 1,000 words.

It’s a no-brainer decision: let’s give our children the gift of strong keyboarding skills.

Being fast on a computer keyboard is all wins for young learners:

• Less time on email and written communication
• More confidence and less fear around writing tasks
• More margin and willingness to take risks and revise while writing
• More options and opportunities in terms of academic paths and participation in the Information Age

Not every student will go into fields that require regular writing. I get it. But let’s set them up so that those fields are at least options. And let’s equip them to contribute to meaningful conversations for life.

States, districts, and schools will all view and handle typing differently, and that’s fine. There are a million keyboarding development tools out there, and just as many philosophies for how and where typing programs should be integrated into the K-12 journey.

I really don’t care how you do it as a school.

But have a plan, start students early, and carry it forward with consistency and intention. Raise the bars of typing speed and accuracy each year.

Our graduates will thank us.