Reply #91: i sympathize w/ you, but still disagree. especially after music & E. Asian lang.

[NuttyFluffers]

my penmanship was always C grade, and oh how i hated it with a passion in elementary school...

however fine motor skills and structured reproduction being tested repeatedly to faster and faster levels has a very crucial element to other forms of learning in general. it's this level of rote learning that leads to muscle memory development where the mind is then freed up to do more processing tasks. when the mind is freed up then you can finesse skills you already have high levels of familiarity with, and then perceive where else to apply them.

handwriting very much falls into this category, as much as i want to dismiss it. and in an alphabetic script it may have less of a relation to parallel thinking or spatial development, but in pictographic (i.e. glyphic, ideographic, etc) scripts knowing the pieces and where they go quickly helps you understand the components of more complex graphic symbols -- and how to finesse them into greater shades of allegorical meaning.

it's the same reason i hated scales and arpeggios in music, but noticed that the kids who practiced these mundane exercises the most went on to be the better seated in the symphony. when you practice a scale so much the organizing principle substructure becomes second-nature; one could glance at key changes and not even have to think about which notes/fingerings to avoid. suddenly you are liberated into noticing overall patterns in musical structure, and given leeway to introduce diacritics to evoke a greater emotive work.

it does have a point, as much as my inner child grudgingly hates to admit it.

edit: i have noticed the same level of dedication to structural form reproduction in the beginning when dancers, painters, and martial artists are first taught the basics... it seems to be the very basis of all the arts and crafts.