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18/19 November 2022 - Teatro Olimpico, ROME
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The line and the development of the Self

  • Manfredi B.,
  • Dionisi R., Giangrandi C., Iannuzzi I.
47
ABSTRACT

Key words: Cursive writing, Handwriting, Theory of Birth, Primary school, Development of child identity, Disappearance fantasy

1. Introduction

“All students will have to learn to write in cursive.

Do not take away from us the one thing that we are all able to do and it is unique for each of us.

Cursive is the fingerprint of our creativity.”1

Why is it important to protect the acquisition of cursive writing?

Writing is a system of signs and symbols that allows you to convey ideas, concepts, and images over time and space.

The act of writing down spoken words and unexpressed ideas frees the thought and transforms it in doing so.2 . This is especially true if we discuss about cursive writing which, unlike print writing, constrains you not to take your hand off the page. It forces the child to make complex and fine movements that stimulate logical-linear thinking, thus giving greater structure and coherence to one’s ideas. «Writing in cursive means translating the thought into words, writing in capital letters instead means dissecting it into letters, breaking it up, denying the time and breath of the sentence. And the cursive writing as it binds letters, binds thoughts»3.Furthermore, according to very recent studies, the shift towards typing or simplified forms of handwriting (such as print writing) reduces the stimuli of ideational and linguistic productivity and even slows down reading comprehension.4

2. Targets

The following work will try to investigate the cognitive, pedagogical, psycho-neurological implications behind the acquisition of cursive, in order to highlight the importance of handwriting in the construction of a child’s identity. For this purpose, it will be essential to propose an idea of teaching that is not purely notional, but which stimulates the spontaneous emergence of the child’s abilities. In this sense it will be useful to question pedagogical studies. This will be important to integrate the idea of a child as an active protagonist of their own education with pedagogical practices that are functional to the realization of their identity.

3. Materials and methods

Through this work we will try to investigate the connections between the development of the child’s identity and the progressive achievement of the ability to write. Particular attention will be given to the evolution of the graphic line, which will then characterize the learning of cursive writing. These considerations are reflected in the Theory of Birth, theorized by the psychiatrist Massimo Fagioli, which focuses on child identity development. The main core will be on the dynamics that allow the formation and development of thought, the “disappearance fantasy”5. The work will investigate the involvement of this particular dynamic in the creation of the first graphic signs and in the subsequent acquisition of cursive.

The link between writing and the child’s identity development

«From the possibility of making the line that one has at birth, over time, beyond the ability to make the line, we reach writing.»6 According to the theory put forward by Italian psychiatrist Massimo Fagioli, the possibility of thinking and “ drawing the line” happens during childbirth, together with the first act of the mind, that is a thought in images. This first “thought” is made possible thanks to a specific psychic dynamic of the human being, defined as “the disappearance fantasy”7. The child will be able to know the world and develop his own identity through a continuum of separations and transformations implemented through this particular internal dynamic.

For a re-humanization of the school

The learning process of cursive writing begins around the age of 6-78, a period in which the child has reached adequate neural, motor and psychic maturation. As a result, he will be ready to hold the pen and start tracing the first letters on the paper. The student will need a valid emotional relationship to allow the full development of graphic skills. This learning relationship will then have to make the child feel safe to allow him to explore and acquire new knowledges9. The relationship with the teacher then must not only be a transmission of knowledge, but must stimulate an active construction of consciousness and understanding of reality10. There are several theoretical and methodological11 contributions that see the child as an active protagonist of his knowledge12 and that therefore gives greater importance to the quality of the relationship within which the teaching takes place. Elise and Celestine Freinet have developed a natural method of teaching reading and writing. This approach limits the exercise as an end in itself, and focuses on the search for the sense / meaning that the language conveys. From this perspective, the group is widely valued as a resource in which everyone contributes to the learning process.

4. Conclusions

Human Birth Theory and the latest studies in the neurological13 and pedagogical14 field demonstrated how cursive writing plays a fundamental role in the development of cognitive abilities. Therefore, a confrontation with teaching and school becomes fundamental, with the aim to favor and protect the full development of the child’s identity. This research places us in the position to reflect further:

  • Can the acquisition of cursive writing be considered an element of support (through self narration) in the development of one’s own identity?
  • Warding the acquisition of cursive writings could be protective for a more harmonious transition to middle school and therefore adolescence?

Note

  1. Point 15 of the program presented by the American director Michael Moore: Michael Moore on FB: “to do list
  2. Angelini, C., Manetti, E., 2018
  3. https://www.riabilitazioneuropsicomotoria.it/2019/11/14/limportanza-del-corsivo-collegamento-mano-cervello/
  4. Natta, F., 2016
  5. At birth, the child defends himself from an intense stimulation, closing his eyes to the “non-human” external world. At the same time he creates the image of the relationship he had with the amniotic fluid thanks to his imagination. This will bring to the first human thought.
  6. Left, 2014, p. 216
  7. Fagioli, M., 2017
  8. Sheridan, 2008
  9. in that area that Vygotsky called proximal development.
  10. Ferreiro and Teberosky, reported how the acquisition of writing is not linked to a technique of reproducing the graphic stroke, but to the meaning of the graphic representation. Starting from these studies we can deduce what is the delicate process that accompanies the passage from the scribble to the first attempts to “make the cursive” and how the differentiation of the two languages puts the child in the condition of active researcher in his learning
  11. Starting from Dewey’s theories about the democratic school, and Freinet’s popular pedagogy, going through experimenters of new practices such as Gianni Rodari and Mario Lodi, up to the practice of the Education Cooperation Movement.
  12. knowledge implies a separation from the condition that is currently being experienced, What lead to knowledge of the death of the current self. The disappearance fantasy directed towards one’s own current object-relation leads to psychics realization […] The result (aim) will be the creation of a more fully developed human self. (Fagioli, M., 2019, p.88)
  13. Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes JC.,et al., 2008; Bounds, 2010;Pani, 2012;James, H., K., Engelhardt, L., 2012; Howard-James, P. A., 2014
  14. Dewey, Vygotsky; Ferreiro; Teberosky; Freinet, C., Freinet, E.

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