I did touch typing in High School in Canada in the 80s. It was optional but was preferable, for me, to Home Economics (girls did baking and sewing, boys did car mechanics and woodworking - seems bonkers now). We used an old-fashioned typewriter, very satisfying noise! So glad I learned how to touch type, though I still can't do numbers and symbols very well :-).
70 year old here who in the 1970s spent 2 years at "Commercial College" learning the typing and shorthand plus other topics with the aim to being an "executive assistant". Hated every minute of it as really I had wanted to do Geography at University but not enough money in the family to send me (loved drawing the maps especially with the "twiddly and fiddly bits" - starter for 10 if you get the connection). Who was to know that keyboard skills would become such a big attribute from the 90s onwards as computers became household items. I still can touch type but have lost a bit of the connection with the various punctuation symbols. Something to work on to keep the aging brain active - keep the cognitive abilities from degenerating!!!
The gap between female equality being taken seriously and computer keyboards being relatively commonplace is surprisingly small. I, (b. 1956) found my late teenage years fell squarely into the gap, and I am one of the very, very few men (I've never met another) who was taught, by an actual human teacher, how to touch-type, using a proper old-fashioned typewriter but with blank keys.
I'm not quite sure why, but I'm quite proud of this; it has certainly been a useful skill in life.
Just one year younger than you, Miss Kinney was our typing teacher, in a class of thirty or so boys and girls around age of thirteen. Manual typewriters, of course. No blank keys but Kinney did employ music. The boys never had a problem asking me to cheat and turn in a timed test with a passing speed and bearing their name, but after your comment, I wonder why they didn't find the experience, and the skill, more interesting.
Graduates of the University of Mavis Beacon: Assemble!!
The drunk driving amazed me most by the crazy photographers being so close to the cars!
I did touch typing in High School in Canada in the 80s. It was optional but was preferable, for me, to Home Economics (girls did baking and sewing, boys did car mechanics and woodworking - seems bonkers now). We used an old-fashioned typewriter, very satisfying noise! So glad I learned how to touch type, though I still can't do numbers and symbols very well :-).
70 year old here who in the 1970s spent 2 years at "Commercial College" learning the typing and shorthand plus other topics with the aim to being an "executive assistant". Hated every minute of it as really I had wanted to do Geography at University but not enough money in the family to send me (loved drawing the maps especially with the "twiddly and fiddly bits" - starter for 10 if you get the connection). Who was to know that keyboard skills would become such a big attribute from the 90s onwards as computers became household items. I still can touch type but have lost a bit of the connection with the various punctuation symbols. Something to work on to keep the aging brain active - keep the cognitive abilities from degenerating!!!
It was decades ago but I still remember sitting by myself in a room full of Rothkos in the old Tate museum. They had a somber charisma.
The gap between female equality being taken seriously and computer keyboards being relatively commonplace is surprisingly small. I, (b. 1956) found my late teenage years fell squarely into the gap, and I am one of the very, very few men (I've never met another) who was taught, by an actual human teacher, how to touch-type, using a proper old-fashioned typewriter but with blank keys.
I'm not quite sure why, but I'm quite proud of this; it has certainly been a useful skill in life.
Just one year younger than you, Miss Kinney was our typing teacher, in a class of thirty or so boys and girls around age of thirteen. Manual typewriters, of course. No blank keys but Kinney did employ music. The boys never had a problem asking me to cheat and turn in a timed test with a passing speed and bearing their name, but after your comment, I wonder why they didn't find the experience, and the skill, more interesting.