Maybe Cursive just give up and die already?

[Titivillus]

While waiting in a dentist office I read an article in Newsweek that made alot of sense with respect to cursive writing. The jist was that as long as people could read and write printing that there was no real need to spend time teaching it in schools.

 

To me this makes alot of sense that in an already strapped school day the time spent trying to get childern to learn and produce cursive writing and then grade them on this skill is wasted time.

 

Once comment that I thought was interesting was that during troubles times people try to recapture some of the good old days and slowing down to write cursive would be one such method.

 

Honestly I can not say that I have ever seen a single line of cursive writing in my normal work and letter writing to use my pens is mostly what I do.

 

Maybe cursive is the equivalent of a task past it's time and the effort to force on our children something that they will never use once out of school should stop.

 

 

just some thoughts

 

K

[Randal6393]

Must disagree, Kurt. The effort to teach handwriting is not wasted. No more than teaching multiplication and long division. After all, most math will be done on the computer or calculator, why does a student need to understand anything other than how to punch the buttons? Well, if you don't understand the basics, you will not master any higher mathematics. Our country lead in science and innovation from 1950 or so on. The further away from teaching hard science in school, it seems to me the further away from any real innovation we have gotten.

 

As we get away from the basics of reading, WRITING, and arithmetic our SAT scores get lower and lower. And our children understand less because they have no basics to build an understanding of the universe on. Any wonder that evolution is under attack from ignorant, bigoted, and superstitious idiots of all persuasions? Now, I don't feel that every student should learn Copperplate, Spenciarian, and/or Italic handwriting. But schools should teach a good, basic understanding of writing. How to print, how to write in cursive. Those students that may desire more should be encouraged to learn more disciplined writing systems.

 

I am not against technological progress by any means -- I learned to type at age 13, long before most of my peers learned. Always was willing to use mechanics to shorten the work process. When I found a systematic process that promised improvement in my almost-illegible cursive I learned italic handwriting. Practiced it assiduously from then on out. It was to my advantage to do that. Feel that many students today will eventually come to feel that they have missed out on many of the better things in life because the teachers were too busy teaching political correctness and not teaching reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.

 

Enjoy,

[dannzeman]

All I know is that whatever the schools decide to do, as long as I'm a live I'll write in cursive and if I have kids then I'll teach them how to write in cursive too.

[Paddler]

I think one needs to teach children (and others) more than what is necessary to make a living. Teach the survival skills and the ways to put food on the table! Yes! Emphatically! But there has to be a little time and a little effort for more. Teach some handwriting; a bit of music; a sprinkling of art. You are not a competent denizen of the planet if you cannot catch a fish and cook it; ride a horse, milk a cow, dip a candle, call an owl, or make a cat smile. Meat and potatoes are necessary. A few herbs and spices make the basic fare worth eating.

 

with kindest regards,

Paddler

 

[Sonnet]

I do see your point Kurt, but I'm leaning more towards Randal's suggestion: Teach kids the basics of how to write by starting with printing and then, if possible, expand their skills to include other, more advanced kinds of handwriting.

"But schools don't have enough resources to teach handwriting!" Well, schools often don't have enough resources to teach any subject, be it math, science, language arts (or whatever they call it nowadays), art, etc. So...'ya can sit there complaining about it like it's a new phenomenon or you can make an attempt at doing something about it (and by "you" I mean society as a collective whole).

 

[tongue-in-cheek mode ON]: And why doesn't anyone teach touch-typing anymore?! If people are spending that much time on computers, they should know how to touch-type, for pete's sake! [tongue-in-cheek mode OFF]

[ProfMike]

I'm afraid I'm another vote for no. I could go on about this for a while, but for now I'll try to keep it simple. I've been teaching for seven years and try to convince my students that the easiest way to do something isn't always the best way. Yes, almost everyone has access to computers and can produce a legible document via word processors quite quickly, but we haven't gotten to the point in technology that each of us can carry a portable word processor and printer with us at all times. There are still instances every day when we (especially us here at FPN) want to put pen to paper to convey a message. Some of us do it for necessity, some for pleasure, but it happens either way. If we don't know how to express ourselves in a clear, consise manner, we have effectively lost our voice.

 

This may seem like an exaggeration at first, but please follow me for a moment... If we only teach the most basic, rudimentary handwriting skills and stop with printing (which, typically, is last taught in 2nd Grade), then no one will learn to write better than the average 8-year-old. You may be thinking, "Well, what's wrong with that?" Well, when you see high school students whose writing still looks like it was produced by an 8-year-old, then you might begin to reconsider. I have high school seniors whose handwriting (not cursive per se, but rather what they can accomplish when they put pen to paper) is so terrible that I've had to ask them to resubmit a typed version of what they did in class. What truly breaks my heart is when they look back at what they've written and don't know what it says. All their thoughts and efforts have been wasted because they didn't know how to write properly. Sometimes the basics really are that important!

 

This problem is compounded in difficult times because the technology that would make handwriting less important (computers, word processors, printers, etc.) is less accessible, especially among less fortunate students. All students need to know how to put pen to paper and take notes and complete work in and out of class. If they can't do that, it is very difficult for them to succeed. I'm not suggesting that everyone need to produce Spencerian flourishes, but rather that students are taught to take their handwriting beyond the basics of printing - whether that be cursive or an efficient, easily-read italic hand.

[RayMan]

  Titivillus said:

While waiting in a dentist office I read an article in Newsweek that made alot of sense with respect to cursive writing. The jist was that as long as people could read and write printing that there was no real need to spend time teaching it in schools.

 

This particular argument does not make sense to me. If it is true now, it was equally true at the turn of the century.

 

If the argument is that we all use computers to communicate, therefore making cursive unnecessary, doesn't the same argument apply to printing? So why teach printing?

 

On the other hand, if the ability to write by hand is still a useful skill, why not teach students a method of writing that is esthetically pleasing as well as functional?

Edited April 5, 2009 by RayMan

[Randal6393]

Mike,

 

High-school students unable to write well? How about college students that can't write well enough to turn out a one-page essay in an hour? I graduated with a BA in 2004 and most of the students thought I was an old fuddy-duddy. Until ...

 

The bane of most of my peers was "Computers In Society". Every other Friday, an essay question on the board. Handwritten, one-half to one-and-one-half page essay turned in at the end of the class. After the first essay, I was conducting remedial classes in how to write an essay. And a few quick tips on Handwriting Repair. Never failed to ace the essay questions.

 

Blessed be,

[WendyNC]

Okay, assuming we are operating under a premise that some sort of handwriting is still necessary (we are, aren't we?), I don't get why we aren't teaching smooth, simple cursive earlier rather than later as I find printing to be slow and tedious, with all its stopping and starting. I find that when using cursive script, I focus on words, while with printing, it's just letters. I recognize that I'm probably the oddball here, but wanted to share an alternate perspective.

 

 

[Achim]

I think teaching currsive is very important - not only for the reading and writing skills, but also for the fine motor skills that are useful in many different areas. Handling scissors, painting (artistically), playing the violin, making pottery, making watches, fine soldering (to make computers to write on!) ... the list is endless. You could as well drop sports from the teaching plans. Let's face it: who needs to be able to play football/baseball/soccer or do a cartwheel, really? To survive, today it's more important to be able to handle the tiny knobs on the cellphones to call for pizza!

[Titivillus]

  Randal6393 said:

As we get away from the basics of reading, WRITING, and arithmetic our SAT scores get lower and lower. And our children understand less because they have no basics to build an understanding of the universe on. Any wonder that evolution is under attack from ignorant, bigoted, and superstitious idiots of all persuasions? Now, I don't feel that every student should learn Copperplate, Spenciarian, and/or Italic handwriting. But schools should teach a good, basic understanding of writing. How to print, how to write in cursive. Those students that may desire more should be encouraged to learn more disciplined writing systems.

 

 

But what benefit is there from teaching printing & cursive both are WRITING? What part of the Universe is understood by using cursive?

[Titivillus]

  RayMan said:

If the argument is that we all use computers to communicate, therefore making cursive unnecessary, doesn't the same argument apply to printing? So why teach printing?

 

Because we do not all use computers to communicate all the time. There is still a need to learn printing

[Titivillus]

  Achim said:

I think teaching currsive is very important - not only for the reading and writing skills, but also for the fine motor skills that are useful in many different areas. Handling scissors, painting (artistically), playing the violin, making pottery, making watches, fine soldering (to make computers to write on!) ... the list is endless. You could as well drop sports from the teaching plans. Let's face it: who needs to be able to play football/baseball/soccer or do a cartwheel, really? To survive, today it's more important to be able to handle the tiny knobs on the cellphones to call for pizza!

 

 

Never said that writing/ printing should be removed and it probably gives as much fine motor skills as cursive writing. I think that scissors & painting are still done!

[MJSchuelke]

  WendyNC said:

I find printing to be slow and tedious, with all its stopping and starting. I find that when using cursive script, I focus on words, while with printing, it's just letters.

 

I agree -- I take a lot of handwritten notes every day (both in meetings, or just scribbling ideas on a notepad while I am working on something else entirely) and I just couldn't do it if I had to print everything.

 

That's not to say that the cursive I use today much resembles the cursive ("lateinische Ausgangsschrift", like this) I was taught in school. I went through a couple of years of nearly illegible cursive (school years 5 to 10, roughly), then started printing, then integrating some of the printed shapes into my cursive, before I arrived at a legible handwriting; and it's still changing, if only subtly.

 

BTW, we were never taught to print in school -- print was what you read (in printed books, typewritten sheets, etc.) , cursive was what you wrote.

[RayMan]

  Titivillus said:

  RayMan said:

If the argument is that we all use computers to communicate, therefore making cursive unnecessary, doesn't the same argument apply to printing? So why teach printing?

 

Because we do not all use computers to communicate all the time. There is still a need to learn printing

 

Actually, I would agree that because we do not all use computers (and texting) to communicate all the time, there is still a need to learn how to write by hand. If does not logically follow, however, that writing should be limited to printing.

 

[Titivillus]

  ProfMike said:

This may seem like an exaggeration at first, but please follow me for a moment... If we only teach the most basic, rudimentary handwriting skills and stop with printing (which, typically, is last taught in 2nd Grade), then no one will learn to write better than the average 8-year-old. You may be thinking, "Well, what's wrong with that?" Well, when you see high school students whose writing still looks like it was produced by an 8-year-old, then you might begin to reconsider.

 

 

I've seen doctors lawyers and other professionals who write like and 8-year old now. So we force kids to do something that they won't for the most part later in life and this is a good thing?

[Titivillus]

  RayMan said:

  Titivillus said:

  RayMan said:

If the argument is that we all use computers to communicate, therefore making cursive unnecessary, doesn't the same argument apply to printing? So why teach printing?

 

Because we do not all use computers to communicate all the time. There is still a need to learn printing

 

Actually, I would agree that because we do not all use computers (and texting) to communicate all the time, there is still a need to learn how to write by hand. If does not logically follow, however, that writing should be limited to printing.

 

 

I never said that writing should be limited if you want your kid to learn cursive then teach them but don't force an entire class of kids to do the same.

[Titivillus]

  MJSchuelke said:

I agree -- I take a lot of handwritten notes every day (both in meetings, or just scribbling ideas on a notepad while I am working on something else entirely) and I just couldn't do it if I had to print everything.

 

 

Maybe shorthand should be taught in school rather than cursive, it gives the benefits of a much faster writing

[MJSchuelke]

  Titivillus said:

I've seen doctors lawyers and other professionals who write like and 8-year old now. So we force kids to do something that they won't for the most part later in life and this is a good thing?

 

So you're saying that we shouldn't be teaching children good (i.e., efficient, legible, aesthetically pleasing) handwriting because there are people who managed to get by without it?

 

That's like saying we shouldn't teach children 10 finger typing (which, unfortunately, most schools aren't, despite increasing computer use) because you can get by with one- or two-finger typing systems; or like saying we shouldn't be teaching basic arithmetic, because there are always calculators to fall back on.

 

If you're reducing schools to teaching the bare minimum of basic skills needed to just get by, you are depriving the students of the ease and efficiency that comes with knowledge and training how to do things right later in life.

 

  Titivillus said:

Maybe shorthand should be taught in school rather than cursive, it gives the benefits of a much faster writing

 

I'd love to learn shorthand, but I know that my fine motor skills aren't up to it -- I just can't handle a pen quickly and carefully enough to write legible shorthand, paying attention to the sometimes minute differences between glyphs.

[Paddler]

We teach almost all kids mathematics, geometry, trig, algebra, etc. when we know that hardly any of them will ever use this stuff later in life. We teach math because later in life, you are going to need to think like that.

 

Give a person two wrenches in one hand, a feeler gauge in the other, and have him adjust the valve lash in a hot engine - while it is running. The guy who has had a year or two of piano lessons can do it. The guy who hasn't, will probably make a hash of it.

 

The person who has been taught to write well will have the fine motor skills he can use elsewhere: repairing circuit boards, or brain surgery.

 

Paddler