{"id":294934,"date":"2026-09-27T09:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/294934\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T09:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:18:24","slug":"texas-teacher-buys-28-typewriters-from-philly-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/294934\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas teacher buys 28 typewriters from Philly shop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He wanted 28 of them.<\/p>\n

Pamela Rogow describes the order received at the typewriter shop at\u00a06819 Greene St<\/a>.\u00a0At WPM Typewriter Shop & Garden \u2014 W.P.M. stands for words-per-minute \u2014 for nearly a decade, it has sold, rented and repaired typewriters for customers who still find a place for the machines in a digital world.<\/p>\n

Some work on computers all day and don\u2019t want to use one at home. Others say they think and write better on a typewriter. Rogow said poets are among those who prefer them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u00a0are\u00a0many ways in which typewriters foster creativity, attention span and careful expression,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Texas teacher Kevin Pajak, left, and Pam Rogow, owner of W.P.M. Typewriter Shop in West Mount Airy. (Jon Caroulis\/for Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

The caller was Kevin Pajak, an English teacher at Crowley Collegiate Academy in Fort Worth. His students can earn college credits and an associate degree while completing high school. <\/p>\n

Pajak does not like to fly, so he and a friend and drove from Texas to Rogow\u2019s shop.\u00a0He spent a little more than $5,000 of his own money on the typewriters.<\/p>\n

Now in his fourth year of teaching at the school, Pajak said he\u2019s confident that using typewriters will help his students write without relying on laptops, smartphones or AI.<\/p>\n

Rogow said she believes typewriters can change how people approach a draft. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you typewrite, for example, you make a deal with yourself:\u00a0How many drafts am I willing to do? You want to do the fewest number of drafts that is necessary \u2014 that might be three drafts or even nine drafts. So now, each time you write a word, a thought, a letter, you are doing your best to limit the amount to complete the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypewriting habituates you to do your best, which is the opposite of what goes on with electronic devices \u2013 you don\u2019t have to remember anything because the machine will.\u00a0 With electronic devices,\u00a0 you can get back to your writing later, and rely on delete and cut and paste.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rogow said electronic devices can encourage black-and-white thinking, which she calls \u201cdichotomous thinking.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThat does not foster deep thought, it doesn\u2019t foster reflective thinking. It\u2019s short-term thoughts, little teeny thoughts,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She said she believes typewriters give writers more time to sit with an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we use typewriters, we can hold onto thoughts. We held onto thoughts longer when we used typewriters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pajak described his first three years of teaching as \u201ca learning curve, all the little tidbits of things that I had to do to stabilize the teaching. I\u2019m finally done with that, now I can focus on refinement of my methodology,\u201d which could include a typewriter. \u201cAs a teacher, you\u2019re never done learning,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pajak began looking for a way to address students\u2019 use of AI on writing assignments. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their addiction to AI, so I have been addressing the AI problem the last two years, with in-class essay writing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But handwriting longer responses during a 90-minute class posed another challenge, Pajak said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause public schools have decided to stop teaching cursive, they\u2019re maybe able to do a page, maybe a page and a half\u201d during a 90-minute class, just to answer two questions,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not enough. I thought typewriters\u201d could help.<\/p>\n

\"\"This typewriter has the keys on the side instead of striking the page from the center. (Jon Caroulis\/for Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

Pajak said he plans to have students use the typewriters for tests and papers written in class. About 70% of a student\u2019s grade is based on in-class work. Three six-page papers written outside the class, account for 15%, he said, because he said students may use AI to write them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Teaching English was a change of course for Pajak. He studied engineering in college and worked in the field for three years, but found it \u201ctoo easy and boring.\u201d He later worked in research and development chemistry labs, but found that work too easy as well. <\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up doing science. My mom worked in science departments at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked myself, what\u2019s hard? English is hard \u2013 it was hard, hardest thing I\u2019ve ever done, and it still is not boring, and if classes get boring, [then] I change how we\u2019re reading, how we\u2019re thinking,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Texas teacher Kevin Pajak packs a typewriter for its trip from Philly. (Jon Caroulis\/for Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

So how are his students dealing with typewriters?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the students first started using the typewriters, I thought of activating prior knowledge.\u00a0 So, I had them type up their thinking about the previous night\u2019s homework.\u00a0 They did not like this.\u00a0 So, instead, I thought about the previous spring semester where they wrote stories in the genre of their choosing.\u00a0 I said, \u2018Hey, what about crafting stories instead of typing up stuff related to class work.\u2019\u00a0 They loved the idea. So, now, for practice, we take 20 to 30 minutes of class time at the end of class to write stories.\u00a0 This only happens if we finish the day\u2019s classwork,\u201d he said. \u201cThis works better because they don\u2019t see typing as a chore but instead as fun!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pajak offers 20 types of categories for the students to write about, such as nonfiction, horror, cyberpunk, romance and other genres.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of their desire (to write), they are more focused during class time.\u00a0 I think this is the case because they want to get to writing on stories.\u00a0 I mention that it is not about filling the page with words but about practicing fingering.\u00a0 As they write, I walk around the room checking their fingering. I tell them that it will seem odd but that the fingering will become both natural and habit\u00a0as long as\u00a0they constantly think about what they are doing.\u00a0 All fingers return to home.\u00a0 \u2018Asdf\u2019 for the left hand and \u2018Jkl\u2019 for the right hand.\u00a0 I think a few more practice sessions and they will have it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. He wanted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122026,227,564,69,71,70,122027,85064,38634],"class_list":["post-294934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-ai-in-education","tag-education","tag-featured","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-w-p-m-typewriter","tag-west-mount-airy","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}