Learning through writing

11 October 2020 Off By historic-pen

Before the emergence of school as we know it today, knowledge was passed from father to son and from master to apprentice. The evolution of our cultures and our means of communication has overturned a system of several thousand years in a very short time. The use of the pen has universalized a new way of learning, that of the school benches.

Once upon a time, experts taught their knowledge by word of mouth, by practice, and over time. Today, it is with a pen, a notebook and on a bench that knowledge is passed on, that theoretical knowledge comes to educate the minds of the youngest.

A student’s notebook contains the most useless, the least enriching, as well as the most esteemed and sought after knowledge. Once man understood the importance of information as well as its necessity, he used it, kept it and shared it. First to those close to him, then more broadly until today – a time in which any individual can acquire any knowledge by asking the right question.

In the fields technology and science, we owe all the progress of recent years to the pen. This ink-sowing medium allows us to validate calculations, to retain an idea, which is capable of being read, reread and corrected. All of our creations have been laid on paper, and man has seen his knowledge deepen thanks to his work. We can pass on knowledge and information thanks to the pen.

Fountain pen writing on an old handwritten letter — Fountain pen writing

However, it would be foolish to believe that only the intellectual arts have been metamorphosed by the use of the pen. Manual trades depend heavily on it and reminds us of how much our ephemeral memory, how bad our vision of reality is and it brings us back to our own, human, condition. A condition in which we are able to use everyday tools to survive. We can build our own identities, our social bonds and change our environment so that it adapts to our presence over time for better or worse.

You’ll never see a pen the same way again.