Joyful age of pen pals
A few years ago, before the invention of mobile phones, having a pen pal was such a big deal.
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It was the letter writing age, where the post office connected people to others they had never met before.
It was an opportunity to make friends with people in other places, where one could learn more about their culture, languages, values and much more through regular correspondence.
In those days, people kept in touch, shared their thoughts and beliefs, and poured their lives out onto paper that could travel weeks to its intended destination.
These were very exciting times for children, as they looked forward to the contents of the next letter from their friend whose photo was about the closest knowledge of them they had.
Though pen pals still exist, technology has gradually closed up the distance that made having a pen pal somewhere far away exciting.
Now it is much easier to reach friends all over the world.
Writing long letters and transmitting by mail may not be so attractive.
There were organisations that aimed to encourage students to develop their knowledge of other countries through making new friends.
There were pen pal adverts in newspapers and magazines that students could select to make friends with.
By sharing short profiles, it was easier to make a choice on the basis of a common interest.
The whole idea of having a pen pal is still beneficial today because it offers the opportunity for students to hone their reading and writing skills.
Writing a letter to a peer in real life and sharing information is not the same as writing an essay for a teacher.
Writing to a pen pal requires the capacity to gather one’s mental prowess and emotions so as to clearly express one’s self in a meaningful conversation.
The desire to be coherent, to generate a sustained interest and to give a good account of oneself on paper is actually beneficial to the holistic development of a growing child.
English
In those days, most international pen pals had to communicate in English as a second language.
Children from English speaking countries became the role model of some sort for learning the language better.
For adolescents, having a pen pal share first-hand stories from their own different settings helped to take someone else's perspective and to think outside of themselves.
This is important as children mature.
Having a pen pal share their own life experiences of war or economic hardship can serve as an eye opener to the real world that some adolescents elsewhere may never know.
Children also learnt to be patient.
There was this anticipation of hearing from your pen pal after many weeks.
This experience was unconsciously working in us the mental capacity to wait for the materialisation of an expectation.
Skills
Having a pen pal also promoted many key social skills, including reciprocation.
Questions were posed to each other in order to know more.
Replying to a letter required emotions such as empathy and mutual concern when it was needed.
The sense of connectedness, which is a need of adolescents, was also met by engaging friends more deeply than will happen in a virtual space where one is bombarded with so much information at a time, and so many friends calling for attention at the same time.
Social media has robbed our children of these benefits of having a pen pal.
I can imagine that if children of today had to write letters to a pen pal via social media, many would even employ the services of AI technology.
The times have truly changed.
The writer is a Child Development Expert/ Fellow at Zero-to-three Academy, USA.
E-mail: [email protected]
