The death of love (of the letter that is!)

I was sat in the coffee shop this morning and read with some concern that a school in Weston Super Mare in Somerset, UK, had banned its pupils from sending Valentine cards.

The first thing I thought was would this potentially stop them from sending cards in the future and what effect that would have on the post?

I personally think that it is important that children are encouraged to send thank you letters and cards, etc. – never mind the impact on mail – it is polite, courteous and research by LaPoste in 2007 found that a letter or card showed respect.

This respect is lost in our electronic comminication – be it text messaging, Facebook, email or many of the other channels that are opening. I guess one question is can respect be associated/attached to these new channels – I haven’t seen any evidence yet.

Rather than banning children from sending cards, schools should be encouraging effective and appropriate communication – the ‘slang’ of texting and email is diluting the English language and our ability to express ourselves may be fading. As a practicing futurist (sounds like a religion!) I look forward 50 to 100 years and wonder what heritage this generation will leave – will there be a record of anything – will all our emails and photos be lost forever?

Interestingly, when I was working in the US over the last couple of years, I learnt that respect is something that seems to be taught in schools, and I found it fascinating that whenever I interviewed somebody for a job I would get either a letter or postcard the next day thanking me. This could be why the sale of greetings cards in the US hasn’t suffered as much as in the UK.

The Valentine story reminded me of my own parents. When my mother and father died, and I was cleaning out the house, I found a bundle of love letters and cards that my father had sent to my mum. This was a side of my father I had never seen – a tenderness and concern that as a child went unseen. Some of these letters had come from Normandy when he was in the thick of battle – others when he was repatriated to the UK after being injured and laid up in hostpital. This was a record of a relationship that would not be known had it not been for these letters and cards.

So rather than ban cards let’s try and encourage our children to value physical communication and bring respect back into our communication.

What are your thoughts – is there a place for communications in education, or should we just leave things to run their course? If action is needed who should champion it?

Please comment below…