Joshua Johnson S00414454 ENGL-2010-Sp14

The Keys to Growing Up

In todays society an individual is expected complete different tasks by a specific age.
Whether this is crawling, walking, talking, reading, or writing there is a set time in which each of
these tasks should be accomplished. Depending on where you fall on this time frame you are
placed into different categories by your peers. Examples include being called a prodigy, normal,
or slow. his has held true throughout my entire life but the one task that I have noticed that has
the widest time frame of acceptability is typing. !opefully my story will help younger students,
parents, and even teachers notice the importance of proper typing techni"ues.
I remember my first experience with the keyboard when I was the age of #. $y grandma
had a exas Instrument gaming device that utili%ed the keyboard as a controller. &s a kid the
keyboard was the part I was least interested in. I was far more occupied by the lights flashing
across the screen. I do remember a game that involved matching the letters on the screen with
corresponding letters on the keyboard. his led to me frivolously trying find and press the letter
in a pecking fashion on the keyboard. $any people may not consider this typing but this
interaction did put me in the mindset that maybe the keyboard wasnt a terrible device.
'ears had passed and great distances were traveled before I ran into my friend $r.
keyboard again. $oving to (regon and playing outside left me with little to no time to play with
any electronic devices let alone a computer. his is probably why it brought me such )oy to be
reunited with my old friend. I remember the smile on my face in first grade when my class finally
got access to the computer lab. he sound of an old apple computers loading up still gives me
chills. he game was $ario yping. It consisted of the famous $ario character from *intendo
running across the screen )umping and ducking over turtles with letters on their shells. +adly
enough this game inhibited my typing ability by teaching me to hunt and peck. his is the
Joshua Johnson S00414454 ENGL-2010-Sp14
techni"ue of looking for a letter on the keyboard and pressing it with either your right or left
pointer finger.
his techni"ue carried throughout my elementary years and well into ,unior !igh +chool.
here really was a problem with this techni"ue up until then either. 'es my speed was slow but I
was always able complete my assignment by the due date. I thought I was )ust a regular typist
until I had my first - page paper due in high school. I went home and typed at full speed for
several hours. I felt defeated. here was no way I was going to be able to complete the paper
by the next day. .rustration, anger, and a feeling of worthlessness ran through me. he next
day turning in my miserable / page paper my teacher asked me why I didnt complete my
assignment. &fter some explaining I found myself placed into a typing class the following
semester.
0oing through that class was a really great experience. his was truly my first
experience with the keyboard. I can only describe it like being taught how to read. !ow can
something that has been in my life for so long on the back burner flip a 123 and become so
magical. I may be exaggerating "uite a bit but that is how it felt. &fter this simple class on how to
touch type classes became easier, my free time increased, my grades went up and I actually
en)oyed school more. I went from typing a miserable 451/ word per minute to over -3 in one
short semester.
Why wasnt typing more of a focus when I was younger6 I was in classes for typing as a
kid but my teachers never focused on setting a goal and helping me achieve it. he main point I
have learned with typing is the sooner you learn how to do it the better off you are. With
computers becoming one of the most important tools in todays society typing should be one of
the tasks that we set a time frame for. 7earn from my mistakes and lets try to make proper
typing a priority.