Cum grano salis

One of the things my Latin II class provided was a list of pithy sayings we had to memorize.  Some I’d never heard of at the tender age of 13, but I still remember a few, and one of them is “cum grano salis”–take things “with a grain of salt.”  I am reminded of the continuing validity of this advice almost every time I read a post about education, especially education and things digital.  This morning I read the following statement in a post from eSchool News:

Students who resist typical writing instruction with pencil and paper may blossom as authors when given the opportunity to compose electronically on computers and tablets. Some that struggle with the fine motor skills necessary for producing legible print are liberated by the ability to type. Although pressing letters on a flat screen without being able to feel them may be awkward for an adult accustomed to typing on a keyboard, students that learn to type on these devices when they’re young are likely to be as skilled on them as they are on a traditional keyboard

Maybe.  And certainly St. John’s is not usually the target audience of most statements about educational posts.  But this spring, for the first time, I had a senior who wrote many of his in-class essays on his phone, even though laptops were available in the room.  He could type fast (for using a phone), I grant–but his essays were very short and hence more brainstorming sessions, perhaps more of the “here are some ideas on this topic,” than they were persuasive arguments.  His technical skill on the tiny phone keyboard was, perhaps, noteworthy.  His essays were not.