Did Anyone Else Have to Take a Typing Class in School?

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sacdecorsair@reddit

I did. On computers.

Extremely useful. I remember applying myself and eventually surrender to the method. Because at first you type slower than what you are used to.

I do 100 words per minutes easily thanks to that full year of typing classes.

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aytchdave@reddit

Same. Writer Rabbit was a great program.

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Glittering_Let_4230@reddit

I think ours was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.

Ours was essentially a Word Perfect class. My mom was a legal secretary at the time, so we had this setup at home and I was already familiar with the program and how to type. I took to the typing and application well. So well that won an academic award in high school my senior year. It was the most prestigious and yet most embarrassing award I’ve ever received. I didn’t know what award I was getting, and it wasn’t announced until they called your name. Everyone was getting awards for things like AP Bio, and I get called up for an award in “keyboarding”. 🤦‍♂️

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pixelpheasant@reddit

I had this experience, but if was for PhysEd

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knivesofsmoothness@reddit

Computers? We learned on cardboard keyboards.

sew with both a needle and threat

some of these folks can program seemingly as fast as I can type

... There's programming fast, and there's programming (or writing) well. Some can do both, but most can not.

Have you ever had to replace a loop that was written out long hand? Dude has a Master's of Computer Science but doesn't know what a for loop is for. The look on my bosses face when I said I'd deleted a few thousand lines of code. 🤣

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Aeredor@reddit

This morning, typeracer says 114!

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crlcan81@reddit

I was around 60 or so but had nerve damage in my hands from near birth complications thanks to my birth. One friend still made the 'you type like Data' or 'slam your fingers down and write a paragraph' jokes though since I'd get into a groove and unmask in the process.

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VaselineHabits@reddit

I taught myself, not correctly, but the office people are still impressed with how quickly I can do it incorrectly 😅

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exactly. why fix something that isn't broken?

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clutzycook@reddit

Same. I was one of the fastest in class and to this day people at work are flabbergasted at how fast I type.

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lordnecro@reddit

I started with British Legends on CompuServe. Along with MUDS, AOL chat rooms, ICQ, etc. my typing skills were extremely good by the time I had typing class. They kicked me out of typing class after about two weeks.

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CalpisMelonCremeSoda@reddit

Zork!

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nudave@reddit

A-fucking-MEN.

My kids can't type, won't learn it in school, and are resistant to me teaching them. Sure, most of their informal communication these days is on touchscreen or voice dictation, but I don't see that that ever replaces typing for more involved formal writing -- like the kind they'll need in most careers.

toejampotpourri@reddit

Yep, and am grateful for it.

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WheelOfFish@reddit

Ooh God I hated this class so much. I had already self-learned how to touch type and this was the biggest waste of time playing these typing games and whatnot that felt infantilizing to me, even as a middle school student.

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twilightswimmer@reddit

One of the best things I did. I’m a great typist and that’s come in handy.

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AtFishCat@reddit

I got put in a typing class in high school cos I didn’t plan my schedule. I had been using photoshop for 4 years and sitting in class typing E fifty thousand times drove me mad. Switch the class to drafting / CAD and was much happier.

One of my favorite classes. Totally useful even today

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theworldisonfire8377@reddit

scottimandias@reddit

For a couple of weeks in grade 9 "business" class, on Unisys Icon computers.

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lordravenxx@reddit

Yes, but I was typing like a pro waaaay before we had typing classes. I was a computer geek from age 2 on. (Copying BASIC programs into a really old TI computer without an operating system.)

I was also loud cuz those old keyboards were all clicky!

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I had a class called "Career and Family Studies" and it included lessons on birth control, job applications, checkbook balancing, and mental health. Lots of useful stuff. Thank you, California school system.

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stubbzzz@reddit

Yep. Failed it twice!

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soneg@reddit

It was my freshman year elective. Very useful

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Congregator@reddit

Yes, and funny enough I’m the fastest typeset I’ve met.

In 9th grade I wouldn’t stop looking at the keys, so my teacher put little squares made of black electrical tape all over each key, concealing the letters.

I adapted and became epic

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yup_its_Jared@reddit

Mario Teaches Typing, by Interplay!!

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GainHealMark@reddit

Yep, on computers though, not typewriters. I was one of the few who had access to a home computer and I used it to write stories, so I was already a speedy typer and finished the entire activity booklet before anyone else.

ailish@reddit

I had to in 9th grade

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bivo979@reddit

Yes , they called it Keyboarding.

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BidInteresting8923@reddit

We had keyboarding. It was on computer, but was the first year before the school switched to windows computers. So, even though we had a cheapo desktop at home with Microsoft works, I had to learn all the word processor commands at the time that would center the text or do other formatting.

I’m sure the class included typing skills/speed. But I only remember doing the formatting stuff.

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Witty-Bug8222@reddit

Our class started on typewriters then we moved to computers.

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circes_victory@reddit

Most useful class I ever ever took

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VioletVenable@reddit

Yes! We had weekly computer skills class in elementary school and began touch-typing lessons in third grade. I started learning at home, though because my dad was a fast typist and I wanted to be just like him. By fifth grade, I was over 70 WPM. When I took another typing class senior year, I could do 100 WPM.

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1101base2@reddit

I did in 8th grade I believe (maybe 7th) but I was in the last class before they switched to computers and I was already using a computer to type up all my homework at that time because my handwriting is medically terrible (disgraphia)

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Catsrus666@reddit

I didn’t have to take the class but opted to in high school back in 1989 NZ. Despite the class being renamed ‘Keyboard Skills’ instead of ‘Typing’ so as to improve the chances of boys signing up, I was still one of just three boys who opted in across two full classes.

On balance, I maintain that it was the best class I ever took as I was far better equipped for Uni come 1994 than most of my peers at the time.

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drewcandraw@reddit

The high school I attended required Typing as a prerequisite for Computer I. I don't remember if either were required for graduation, but they were strongly recommended and pretty much everyone took at least those two classes.

I took Typing first semester of my senior year. It was on typewriters and sometimes the teacher played those learn to type records that were probably made when my parents were kids.

I couldn't even finish it in a minute lol

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Apprehensive_Hat8986@reddit

Sounds like the standard methods just didn't work for you. There must be different approaches available now?

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Echterspieler@reddit

Idk. I can't just memorize the keyboard layout. That's some kind of psychic ability

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Apprehensive_Hat8986@reddit

Fair, but I wouldn't describe myself as having memorized it either. I could reconstruct it probably, but it'd be based on pretending to type something, rather than knowing immediately where each key goes.

aaa sss ddd fff jjj kkk lll ;;;

Mavis Beacon, baby!

Fickle-Addendum9576@reddit

In second grade, we had to do hand exercises and we got these keyboard typer things. I always zoned out hard in class so that's all I remember haha

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LocallySourcedWeirdo@reddit

It was called "keyboarding" when I took it in high school. Wonderfully useful class. We had a section at the end on the number pad, which I didn't appreciate until I became a bank teller in college and could touch-type account numbers on the number pad without looking.

I'm always amazed at who does and does not have touch typing skills. My boomer dad hunts and pecks, but I have seen other boomer men touch typing like pros. Gen Z doesn't seem familiar with PC keyboards at all.

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tr3k@reddit

yes, but it was on wordperfect

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silverfang789@reddit

My tenth grade typing class (1993-94) was one of my favorites. We started out on electric typewriters, learning to put our hands on home row, type without looking down, and use correction tape if we made a mistake.

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RainbowButtMonkey1@reddit

I had a computer typing class that evolved in to a general computer class

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MysticKei@reddit

I signed up for Shorthand during my HS Junior Year and I was excited about it because they wouldn't let me sign up for it as a Freshman or Sophomore. Unfortunately, only 3 others signed up for it so they put us in typing class and removed Shorthand from the curriculum 🤨.

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Visual-Fig-4763@reddit

Yes, I was in a work/study program in high school and there was a typing class for that. It would have been helpful if we weren’t learning on 1970’s typewriters. At work, I was using a pc and windows 95. There were definitely students that needed that class more than I did though considering I was one of the few students that had computers at home throughout my childhood. My dad was a programmer and then in software development later in my childhood.

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melanthius@reddit

My 9th grade was the FIRST time computers were available in my high school (there were still typewriters available).

I had a computer class which included a little typing.

Naturally no one knew anything about these computers or about security in any way.

Someone figured out that all the PC’s loaded their desktop wallpaper from a single unprotected file. It was fun as hell having battles where someone would replace the desktop wallpaper with something different and it would show on all the PCs in the class at the same time.

Then we were supposed to learn how to make a document, and the teacher assigned us to write a multiple choice quiz in Microsoft word.

They had just recently updated the class name from typing after they started replacing all the old word processing machines and typewriters with Apples.

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puppy-nub-56@reddit

Yes - and while I did pass the course I still can't type well (and I have been a programmer for decades) 🙂

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0le_Hickory@reddit

Yeah. It was mandatory in high school. Every already knew how by then. AIM was a great teacher

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FaceRidden@reddit

Ohhhh that racist old bitch hated me because I could two finger faster than the whole class and refused to break my wrists trying to fit my giant hands on a keyboard. Flunked me and made me take it again. Mind you I was top 1% on every test ever. Definitely fed my anti authoritarian issues.

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FigNewton555@reddit

They offered it but I avoided it like the plague. Learned to type playing MMOs instead :D

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no1jam@reddit

Yes, required before you could move in to computer class. Typing has definitely payed off in my adult years tho

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Krazylegz1485@reddit

Did anybody else have the training glasses that didn't allow you to see your hands? For the life of me I could not find a picture of them anywhere on the Google before posting this. These ones pictured are intended for basketball dribbling training.

The ones we had in school were more like regular glasses but they had a small "shelf" on the bottom of the frames that protruded out and blocked your vision of the keyboard. They were molded plastic and were kinda off-white in color, and didn't have any lenses in them.

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roentgen_nos@reddit

I didn't have to, but I did.

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iamrosieriley@reddit

Our typing class was on a converted school bus! It went from school to school. I still remember being in 4th grade and the teacher telling us “one day you’ll be able to talk and tell it to type what you want”. I think about this conversation often.

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Horror_Purple1867@reddit

Our high school, just switched over from typing with a typewriter to a computer (Apple) early computer. Boy, I miss the clicking of the old fashioned typewriters.

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Confident-Cellist-25@reddit

I was an overachiever, so to keep me busy my fifth grade teacher plunked me down in front of an old IBM Selectric with an antique typing instruction manual. By the time I took "Keyboarding" in 7th grade, I was already an old pro.

Come to think of it, that typewriter is probably the reason I basically refuse to use a non-mechanical keyboard now. It's just not the same experience

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Lasod_Z@reddit

Failed miserably, learned to type playing mmos. My home row is w,a,s,d

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ScubaTela@reddit

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

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Lvanwinkle18@reddit

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fubo@reddit

Sure, with PAWS on the Apple II.

At home we had MasterType on the C-64.

Apprehensive_Hat8986@reddit

Could have? Yes. Have to? No.

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MLDaffy@reddit

I took Keyboarding aka "Computer Class" but we didn't have computers. First day the teacher said hopefully we would have them by end of year but don't hold our breathe. We had typewriters to use. I already knew how to type so I would blow through classwork in a few minutes. We finally got computers the next year.

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ApatheistHeretic@reddit

I chose to, it was an elective. It was 'keyboarding' when I did it.

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Thatdewd57@reddit

One of the few things from high school that I learned that was actually useful. I probably spend 95% of my work day on a computer typing.

We had competitions for who was the fastest and most accurate typers. Anyone else?

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PoliticsAndFootball@reddit

I remember “Mavis Beacon teaches typing” Then later we hard “Mario teaches typing” where it was like super Mario 3 and the question blocks were the keys you had to press to make Mario jump (in my vague memory of 1993!)

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polly_solomon@reddit

Yes, I think in 7th grade. I can type 55 words per minute now. That class, and my consumer math elective senior year, were the most beneficial skills I learned in my schooling, aside from reading, writing, and basic math.

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Reason-Abject@reddit

Yup. I think I had like…3 or 4 typing classes by the time I graduated?

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Cultural_Till1615@reddit

Yes, on a typewriter in 7th grade and I’m so glad I did. I wish they would offer typing classes in school now. Remember the typewriter art? So fun! 🤓

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apt_get@reddit

Not on typewriters, but on ancient Macs using FrED Writer.

I took typing class in 10th grade on a typewriter and almost failed but we moved where the typing class was on a computer and that helped a lot.

I push typing on my daughter and tell her how important it is.

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PumpkinSpice2Nice@reddit

I didn’t ’have to’, but I did sign up for typing as one of my classes for three years and I’m really glad I did. Touch typing really helped me out at university and beyond when I had long essays and things to type out.

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DZello@reddit

nope, we had a few computers. Never seen any typewriter at school.

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poindxtrwv@reddit

In middle school computer class, the teacher for the 7th and 8th grade classes did nothing but teach typing. Both years. Then when I got to high school, it was required to take two years of typing classes before you could take computer classes. I refused to do that since I had already spent two years learning to type, so I chose other electives. Now I work in IT.

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