I Am a Teacher With Really Bad Handwriting

Andrew Simmons:

My students squint desperately at my handwritten comments on their papers. They turn the paper sideways as if a fresh angle might lend clarity. They shrug or giggle and fold the paper up, resigned to the grade and regrettably impervious to the constructive criticism I carefully crafted the previous night.

"I can't read this, Simmons," a student sometimes announces. I hustle over to translate and feel the warmth of real shame creeping along my neck when it takes me more than a few seconds to figure out what I've written. I can read my own writing, but even I am sometimes momentarily baffled by what I behold.

I have terrible handwriting. Being left-handed and not particularly committed to tidiness in any capacity, my scribbling, whether cursive, print, or some ugly amalgam, never evolved significantly from my elementary-school days. If anything, it is now worse.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 20, 2013 12:22 AM
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