Fountain Pen In School, Where Is It Mandatory?

[opitzs]

Another thread about the lending of fountain pens, led me to ask myself, where is fountain pen use in the school mandatory?

 

I am from Germany, here every child in school has to use a fountain pen in the beginning. I gather, that in the US it is a personal choice, but not mandatory.

 

I don't even know, if it is mandatory in Germany's direct neighbours, what about the rest of the world?

 

Thank you for your information.

 

Sven

[rockspyder]

Another thread about the lending of fountain pens, led me to ask myself, where is fountain pen use in the school mandatory?

 

I am from Germany, here every child in school has to use a fountain pen in the beginning. I gather, that in the US it is a personal choice, but not mandatory.

 

I don't even know, if it is mandatory in Germany's direct neighbours, what about the rest of the world?

 

Thank you for your information.

 

Sven

 

Fantastic to hear that such societies exist. The whole world should do it, again!

[professionaldilettante]

The only think I remember being mandatory was number 2 or HB pencils, and black/blue ball points. I went to school in the 1990's and so being that wasn't that long ago, I doubt things have changed. The only reason for the pencils being #2 or HB is that they are used to write on Scantron forms and to fill out machine readable bubbles. However, todays scoring machines can read ink too, but they still make you use pencil.

[Malcy]

It's compulsory in all my lessons!! - only kidding of course.

 

To be quite frank, you are lucky if many kids even bring a pen of any type these days. They expect to be supplied with something to write with in each class. This has not suddenly happened, I remember the same issue 15 years ago.

 

However, I am slowly winning converts, selling them fp's at cost which are very cheap but decent writers.

 

It can be quite amusing to watch them try an fp as many have never come across one and will often say 'It doesn't work'. Of course, it is usually just the way that they are holding the fp. One thing that the bp seems to promote is very strange pen grips because they work at most angles. Some children just can't use an fp as their writing grip is just so way out.

 

The other comment is 'What do I do when it runs out'. The bp that they are used to is just replaced when it runs out, if it lasts that long. I make sure that all the fp's that I supply take short international carts as they are the most readily available here.

[jgrasty]

I'm pretty sure I was the only kid using a fountain pen in my high school... in the 70's, no less.

[nightwing]

Interesting topic! I really have no idea where the use of fountain pens is mandatory. For me, there really was no rule except in the case of scantron sheets where we had to use an HB pencil (I still used a mechanical pencil, though!).

 

When my parents were growing up, dip pens (then fountain pens) were mandatory in school until college. By then, ballpoints were gaining popularity in the region and my mom took to them readily, as she had a strong dislike for her scratchy and leaky fountain pens. Her dislike of fountain pens still exists to this day! While she does admit that my Lamy Studio writes very smoothly, she would choose a ballpoint over it. To each her own, I suppose!

[ravantra]

Went to school in Chicago (public school) and never saw a FP until college. Been using one since. I remember the desks still had inkwells ...

[Emoo]

I'm fairly certain it's not even a matter of personal choice in US schools these days. Teachers at my school were so worried about messes that we could hardly do anything at all, much less try fountain pens. Probably would have vastly improved my handwriting if I'd learned to write with one tho.

[art_ok]

I was attending school in the former Soviet Union in eighties. It was mandatory to use ballpoint pens and exclusively with violet ink. After year 7 or 8 it was allowed to use any kind of pen with either blue or violet ink. I do not remember anybody was using fountain pens though (myself included). I know that it was mandatory for teachers to use fountain pens and violet ink to fill class journal (my mother was a teacher). Interesting fact is that though almost nobody used fountain pens, all school writing pads always had a sheet of blotting paper and paper quality was very good. I discovered that later when started using fountain pens in Uni.

 

Now I'm in Australia and my kids attend school here. Here in Australia children must write only with lead pencils at least first several years. In year 6 or 7 students allowed to use any kind of pens, but I haven't heard that any of my daughter classmates use fountain pens. I gave my daughter Lamy Al-Star as a present. She likes to write and draw with it but never uses it at school because students have to write in school issued notepads with paper of very bad quality. By the way she still prefers to use pencil for all her writing.

 

In high school nobody cares about what student use for writing, but again, students are expected to write in "standard school notepads" paper on which feathers and bleeds as mad effectively preventing students from using "proper" pens.

Edited February 23, 2011 by art_ok

[omassamo]

Another thread about the lending of fountain pens, led me to ask myself, where is fountain pen use in the school mandatory?

 

I am from Germany, here every child in school has to use a fountain pen in the beginning. I gather, that in the US it is a personal choice, but not mandatory.

 

I don't even know, if it is mandatory in Germany's direct neighbours, what about the rest of the world?

 

Thank you for your information.

 

Sven

[omassamo]

I'm dating myself, but in grammar school we used the pens with the detached steel nibs, that you inserted and wrote with after dipping the pen in an inkwell on the desk. All the boys had ink-stained hands, the girls were too neat to have this happen to them. Can you imagine what a lawyer's dream this practice would be today, with kids stabbing themselves and other students, accidentally or on purpose?

[Jared C]

In elementary school (K-5), pencils were mandatory, and many a mean bratty kid would sharpen their woodcase pencil to a syringe-like point, and give another kid a nice graphite dot tattoo.

I can't imagine what the kids that left omassamo's school looked like, they'd be covered in black freckles.

[ehemem]

In elementary school (K-5), pencils were mandatory, and many a mean bratty kid would sharpen their woodcase pencil to a syringe-like point, and give another kid a nice graphite dot tattoo.

I can't imagine what the kids that left omassamo's school looked like, they'd be covered in black freckles.

Hey, I have 1 of those tatoos above my right knee! My 1 and only tat. No black freckles though. :ltcapd:

[Ethereal Winter Wind]

In high school nobody cares about what student use for writing, but again, students are expected to write in "standard school notepads" paper on which feathers and bleeds as mad effectively preventing students from using "proper" pens.

 

Really? We never had standard school pads, everyone brought what ever paper or exercise book they wanted in my school, which usually meant the cheapest bargain stuff they could find.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Ethereal Winter Wind

[Pengrump]

Back in antiquity when I was in school, students had to use fat, yellow pencils until third grade. Then from fourth grade up to junior high school, ballpoint pen was required for everything except mathematics where pencils were required. The paper was always quite thin and cheap, black marbled composition books through third grade and then loose leaf binders with thin filler paper that always tore at the holes unless one attached 'reinforcements' to each hole individually on every page, a tedious undertaking and a bit sticky. In junior high school, one could use anything to write with. Many students, particularly the girls, discovered Sheaffer cartridge pens that had clear or translucent barrels, very scratchy nibs unless one was fortunate enough to find one with a B nib, and metal caps. These pens were leak-prone, especially if one didn't know to carry them nib up in a pocket or case. The joy of Sheaffer cartridge pens was the possibility of using wonderfully colored cartridges. I can remember that the "fashion"in ink colors changed. In junior high, the favorite was Peacock Blue, with Burgundy and Lavender tied for second place. (Many teachers did not accept Lavender ink on assignments because they found it too light.) In the first two years of high school, Burgundy became the favorite for girls. And by the final year in high school, almost everybody had gone back to ballpoints. The few boys who used cartridge pens always used black cartridges. Black was cool and counted as masculine.

 

After elementary school, however, one's choice of writing instrument was up to oneself, with restrictions occasionally imposed by individual teachers.

[genevatypewriters]

I live in Switzerland, and the kids I used to babysit told me fountain pens were mandatory (elementary through high school). The shops here are full of Pelikanos around back-to-school time, and their parents would purchase cartridges in jars of 100 each.

[oldstoat]

Both my kids went to the same junior school where all kids went from pencil to fountain pen. Mind you, it was a private school, so that may have had something to do with it. At their senior schools, it was optional at one and compulsory at the other.

[kubalai]

My old school, mind you it was private. These days its mostly BP , RB or PC

[2schnauzers]

It was mandatory at my (private) school in the UK - we went directly from pencils to FP. I can't say I have lovely writing because of it, but perhaps it might be even worse had I not been forced to write 'properly' using appropriate tools! I had Parkers and Sheaffers as I recall, but always was in awe of the MB 149 my dad wrote (and still does) with.

[Pen Is Mightier]

Definitely not mandatory where I am. The only thing that was mandatory was the #2 lead pencils for scantrons, or a blue or black ink for handwritten assingments. Some teachers would let you have other colors so long as they were not yellow as that was usually too hard to see for them.

 

I wish we had fountain pens that were mandatory back in school, my handwriting would have been much better then.