Maybe Cursive just give up and die already?

[KateGladstone]

Doesn't everyone need to learn at least enough cursive writing to sign his or her name?

 

Signatures don't legally require cursive, and never have -- please see the material on signatures in the FAQ page of my web-site: http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com/KateFAQ.html (I'm no lawyer, but I had legal counsel go over that page very thoroughly. It cites standard legal references sources.)

[KateGladstone]

Lozzic, I completely agree with your strong critique of teaching (or mis-teaching) methods!

 

As you say:

"... [when] presented with printed letters in a copy book and an inadequate writing tool, namely the ballpoint, and inadequate teaching, children will strip the printed writing style down to the absolute minimum of flair and practicality and even further. This creates an inadequate printed style that is largely their own invention in the absence of any effective teaching whatsoever."

 

Poor/neglected teaching can ruin even the best of styles and the aptest student; conversely, excellent teaching can make even a very poor style at least somewhat workable for a fair number of the students.

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

I believe cursive should be taught for the experience. With the experience of writing both in print and in cursive, one can choose what to use later in life. I learned both printing and cursive, and I use cursive. It's faster for me to write in cursive, and it looks nicer to my eyes.

 

I will have my children write with a pencil, ballpoint, gel, rollerball, and fountain pen, and when they are older, they can choose what instrument to use from day to day.

 

With the experience of trying each form of writing or writing instrument, they will know the pro and cons of each and can judge what they want to use.

 

If people write cursive, they often can read cursive. Many older documents were written in cursive. It would be a shame if only scholars could read those documents.

 

Dillon

[KateGladstone]

I read all this and then I turn to my right and see the class of my kid, 3 and 4 year olds, heads bent and tongues sticking out, concentrating in learning how to write "ea" and "ae" in cursive ( underlined in dots to make it easy), and can't help but smile......

 

The "ae" is a ligatured æ in one figure-eight stroke, entering at the top center and exiting at the bottom center, I trust.

 

Hmmm ... in other words, it would closely resemble the letters "x/X" in some European cursive styles. (See the attached graphic, from a chart by a German friend of mine comparing school handwriting models around the world.

 

The chart shows two or three school styles, past and/or present, for each of the countries compared:

 

two French, two Spanish, two Italian, one Czech ...

then a blank spot for Polish styles because their language doesn't use "X" so their copybooks don't include it ...

followed by three German, two Austrian, three Swiss, and two Dutch.

 

I can see where the "X/x" forms of most cursive handwriting in most of those countries could cause problems if (say) a person whose language uses the similar-looking "ae" ligature ever wrote a letter French, Spanish, Italian, German, or Dutch to someone who spoke one of those languages and who grown up using that shape for cursive "X/x"!

 

In the USA, cursive-users who study foreign languages sometimes unexpectedly run into similar problems (a letter-shape meaning one particular in one country's cursive, but meaning another letter -- or meaning nothing at all -- in another country's cursive) when they write their new language (in USA-style cursive) to a pen-pal in the country that actually uses their new language. (For example, the typical Spanish cursive capital "T" looks very like some North American cursive models' "C" -- and the typical Spanish cursive capital "Z" looks very close to a typical North American cursive capital "L" and nothing like North American cursive "Z."

[irish_monk]

Hello,

 

not too long ago I read an scientific article, which seconds what you assume. It has to do with the eye to hand connection and a different

understanding of the meaning of words. The "connected" writing (cursive) makes a difference in terms of synaptic networks.

 

IMO children should learn "the whole" skill of writing first. It's more difficult, but worthwhile for a whole lifetime. If they like to print later, they have a choice.

 

Best,

Anna

 

But I'd prefer the child to learn how to create a complete sentence then write it! Why teach something that fewer people use later in life?

 

 

Like Calculus? Or cell division?

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

"not too long ago I read an scientific article, ... "

 

Citation, please?

Over the past 15+ years, I've heard or seen at least 200 people (I stopped counting after the 200th) each tell me that they had "read a scientific article" proving that cursive makes your brain and/or neurons work better In each and every case, I've asked the person to please provide a citation to the article. So far, not one of them has done so

[MYU]

As Dylan said so poignantly, "The times, they are a changin'."

 

I think it's great having cursive writing classes available. But to mandate teaching it is... well, so unnecessary in this computer age we now live in. Just as people moved on from having to use fountain pens in school, so soon shall it be with cursive writing. I already know of some elementary schools that do not teach cursive--just printing.

 

Don't get me wrong... I think it's a worthwhile thing to learn. However, given the limited bandwidth and budget in school systems these days, there are other things that take priority. Sadly...

Edited April 7, 2009 by MYU

[HDoug]

Hey, I know the solution. We should all just live longer. Not necessarily forever, but say a thousand years here on Earth before moving on (or not). We could spend a few hundred years in school learning math, logic, literature, art, music, and of course, how to share our toys. Then we could learn all the styles of writing until we had achieved a satisfactory excellence at all of them. Then, instead of going to a job, we could start off being retired first. We could write our novels, paint our paintings, travel, grow things in our flower garden. Then, as our mobility became more limited, and our memories and sensibilities less acute -- well, I guess that would be time to go out and get a job.

 

Doug

 

[Margana]

Hey, I know the solution. We should all just live longer. Not necessarily forever, but say a thousand years here on Earth before moving on (or not). We could spend a few hundred years in school learning math, logic, literature, art, music, and of course, how to share our toys. Then we could learn all the styles of writing until we had achieved a satisfactory excellence at all of them. Then, instead of going to a job, we could start off being retired first. We could write our novels, paint our paintings, travel, grow things in our flower garden. Then, as our mobility became more limited, and our memories and sensibilities less acute -- well, I guess that would be time to go out and get a job.

 

Doug

 

"A few hundred years in school" not to mention studying "all the styles of writing" sounds incredible. Sign me up now!

[Ondina]

Ms. Gladstone, that you've seen the drawings does not mean you've ever visited the caves even once. If so, you would have seen not only the very touristic drawings but the signs, the impressions left by feet, hands, fingers, the utensils. Not only it can be known through DNA forensics and anthropological techniques if it was a man, a woman, a kid, is that I can tell you the height, age, color of eye& hair, wounds and illnesses they've suffered and which they were prone to, what they ate and if they are enough remains, put in front of you a very accurate 3D image of the person. It can also be determined if the art of an specific wall comes from a group or a single hand, and if that hand, that day was arthritic or not and if they preferred the far right hand corner to poo or if they dwelt in the cozy and warm one with their deities on the roof in the cold winter months.

Personal written expression was born then, and not with Palmer's method, and thus my affirmation that is has evolved but it hasn't changed ( so please don't twist my semantics and syntax) . The spirit of being able to write, and do it in a unique, personal way was born with Humanity, and it will cease when we're gone.

 

Why do you infer I'm a foreign or foreign to the US educational system? Wrong. Most of my academic diplomas are issued by the same educational system than yours, and that I've been fortunate enough to travel and live in a good part of the planet has only added to a broader vision and on field knowledge, not to mention respect to others to start with. This debate about if cursive writing is kaput or not is only taking place in the US, as a result of a lowering of basic educational standards, or of whatever you like. But is Newsweek, not Le Monde, The Times or the Aftenposten where you can find "death to cursive" in print (google it up, please).

 

Before claiming that any of my statements are false, you would help much to the actual truth, instead of lecturing about the "monoline Italic styles" used in Iceland and Finland, explaining they are used there due to the specific linguistic and sociopolitical idiosyncrasy of those countries as in both cases they have besides Latin alphabet, characters and runic letters (see below for those curious)

Eth , also spelt edh or e, is a letter used in Old English language and present-day Icelandic alphabet, and in Faroese alphabet in which it is called the letter edd, and in lvdalska....

Ðð and the runic letter thornThorn (letter)

Thorn, or orn, is a letter in the Old English language and Icelandic alphabet alphabet. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with th. The letter originated from the runic alphabet in the Elder Fuark, calle...

Þþ

 

Æ and ö are considered letters in their own right and not a ligature

 

The Suomi Finnish alphabet is even more complex and my knowledge on it very limited, so you can find more accurate info here: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/finnish.htm But the country is officially bilingual in Suomi and Swedish.

 

In plain English: when you receive a letter from those countries, you see a perfectly legible, recognizable writing, made of mostly familiar characters with or without the ligature that would formally make it a "cursive". I'd like to add that both places have outstanding educational systems, and that my family is lucky enough to get correspondence very often.

 

Note from a 7 year old Icelander to my kid: http://i348.photobucket.com/albums/q347/Ondina_2008/Gudrum001.jpg

 

Letter to me from a kind Finnish member of the forum:

 

http://i348.photobucket.com/albums/q347/Ondina_2008/Gudrum.jpg

 

 

Just in case anyone was wondering which exotic hand they are teaching.

 

I do consider my own hand to be cursive, and although the formal definition of it is "having the successive letters joint together" most of us don't, or at least not all of them. And still think is cursive. And by the way, the same Farlex online dictionary offers a very explicit thesaurus section where italic, copperplate and minuscules are considered synonyms. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cursive

 

I've never affirmed that there is no variation on the standard cursive types in each country, so please don't twist my words and keep the same respect that you demand. Is true that there are slight variations in each place around the globe. Not all use even the same number of characters. Did I say the contrary? No. You're wrongly affirming -once more- I stated "Printing" in the US does not include in some cases lower case. What I said is that if in Europe you're demanded to print (as in an official form, at times) they're talking about capital letters and capitals only.

 

I kindly remind you nor me nor most other members of the forum are alumni of yours, so please save that tone for those who are not in a position of replying accordingly, madam.

 

 

 

Re:

 

"Cursive was born with Humans: the hunters and medicine men of the prehistoric caves of the north of Spain and south of France ... "

 

What leads you to equate cave drawings with cursive writing? I've seen many cave drawings: not one contained (e.g.) Palmer or Spencerian.

(By the way, how do you detect from the cave drawings that their artists were, in particular, medicine *men*? Can you indeed look at a drawing 10,000 years old and somehow know with certainty whether a man or a woman drew it?)

 

Re:

 

"It has evolved but it hasn't changed."

 

Self-contradictory -- as if someone said that French did not change from Latin during its evolution from Latin. That which does not change does not evolve.

 

Re:

 

"If the US is determined to eradicate it, how will they understand the rest of the world? Because the rest is not giving it up at all."

 

Your absolute statement (claiming that no nation outside the USA has discontinued cursive "at all")

falsely presents the situation of at least two European countries (Finland and Iceland) whose schools discontinued cursive in the 1980s when they adopted (and still employ) monoline Italic styles. In another European nation, Sweden, the teaching of Italic in schools has grown (and the teaching of cursive in schools has correspondingly diminished) since 1971 as a result of national curriculum changes.

The rest of the world (that you present as so unanimously adhering to cursive) includes also ...

 

Australia (where four of that nation's six states, as well as the educational system of the capital city, Canberra, teach variously-named monoline Italic styles rather than cursive styles: they adopted these Italic styles at various times 1970 - 1990 and still retain these),

 

South Africa (which designed/adopted an Italic national school style, named "Natalia," in 2003),

 

and about 4/5 of Scotland and 1/3 of England (a variety of programs all easily identifiable as monoline Italic.)

 

Please note also that you have incorrectly stated:

"what is call[ed] 'printing' in the States is 'writing in capitals only' over the other side of the pond" -- here in the States, those who teach printing generally teach a form of printing that consists of (and that requires) capitals AND LOWER-CASE together -- at least, for children above age 5. You would dislike it greatly, and you would rightly object, if I ventured to define incorrectly some term used in the handwriting program of your own country -- please show a similar respect for factual accuracy when (for instance) you describe American practices to an audience which includes Americans.

 

If all of the cursive-using world wrote its cursive alike, you might have some grounds for asking the United States to do the same. But not all the world -- not even all of Europe, not even every cursive-using nation within Europe -- writes the same cursive ABC.

 

Please see the attached material from a chart prepared and sold (inexpensively!) by the handwriting-styles research project http://www.manuscribe.org -- showing just some of the vast differences in how different European nations' cursive systems write the alphabet (This section of the chart shows the letters "T" and "t" written in two French school styles, two Spanish school styles, two Italian school styles, a Czech school style, two Polish school styles, three German school styles, two Austrian school styles, three Swiss school styles, two Dutch school styles, and two UK school styles. The chart also includes some USA school styles, but I have not reproduced these because your message urged the USA to write cursive in order to follow the example of Europe.)

 

You do not complain (I think) against any European nation for writing very differently from other European nations -- not even when (as the illustration shows) the differences make the cursive of one nation partly or largely unintelligible to persons who learned to write cursive anywhere else. Why castigate only the United States alone?

 

Of course, all of these various cursive styles share a common ancestry. They all descended and differentiated from Italic: a writing-style whose letters anyone can read (no matter how he or she learned to write) wherever people use the ABC. Since you very laudably wish to see handwriting understood internationally, logically you should support a handwriting style whose letters do not differ (or hardly differ) between nations, rather than supporting a handwriting style which differs so greatly from one nation to the next. Teach people to write a consistent style of the ABC, and to read other ABC styles that they will likely encounter, and you need not fear that the handwriting of one nation will become, or remain, a closed book to people who went to school in some other nation or decade.

Edited April 7, 2009 by Ondina

[Ondina]

Hey, I know the solution. We should all just live longer. Not necessarily forever, but say a thousand years here on Earth before moving on (or not). We could spend a few hundred years in school learning math, logic, literature, art, music, and of course, how to share our toys. Then we could learn all the styles of writing until we had achieved a satisfactory excellence at all of them. Then, instead of going to a job, we could start off being retired first. We could write our novels, paint our paintings, travel, grow things in our flower garden. Then, as our mobility became more limited, and our memories and sensibilities less acute -- well, I guess that would be time to go out and get a job.

 

Doug

 

I don't know if great minds think alike or not, but I'm with you on this 100%!.

[Ondina]

Hi,

 

I believe cursive should be taught for the experience. With the experience of writing both in print and in cursive, one can choose what to use later in life. I learned both printing and cursive, and I use cursive. It's faster for me to write in cursive, and it looks nicer to my eyes.

 

I will have my children write with a pencil, ballpoint, gel, rollerball, and fountain pen, and when they are older, they can choose what instrument to use from day to day.

 

With the experience of trying each form of writing or writing instrument, they will know the pro and cons of each and can judge what they want to use.

 

If people write cursive, they often can read cursive. Many older documents were written in cursive. It would be a shame if only scholars could read those documents.

 

Dillon

 

 

Personally, I can write cursive much faster than I type, but it may be the result of practice. Shorthand could have come handy at University ( as well a a tape recorder!)

[Titivillus]

Hello,

 

not too long ago I read an scientific article, which seconds what you assume. It has to do with the eye to hand connection and a different

understanding of the meaning of words. The "connected" writing (cursive) makes a difference in terms of synaptic networks.

 

IMO children should learn "the whole" skill of writing first. It's more difficult, but worthwhile for a whole lifetime. If they like to print later, they have a choice.

 

Best,

Anna

 

But I'd prefer the child to learn how to create a complete sentence then write it! Why teach something that fewer people use later in life?

 

 

Like Calculus? Or cell division?

 

When was the last time you used calculus or talked about cell division. :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho:

 

[Judybug]

http://bestsmileys.com/eating1/4.gif

 

Judybug (who is riveted to this discussion - in a position of neutrality with a slight lean toward cursive.)

[Peregrin]

I'm pro-cursive!

Edited April 7, 2009 by Peregrin

[Ondina]

As Dylan said so poignantly, "The times, they are a changin'."

 

I think it's great having cursive writing classes available. But to mandate teaching it is... well, so unnecessary in this computer age we now live in. Just as people moved on from having to use fountain pens in school, so soon shall it be with cursive writing. I already know of some elementary schools that do not teach cursive--just printing.

 

Don't get me wrong... I think it's a worthwhile thing to learn. However, given the limited bandwidth and budget in school systems these days, there are other things that take priority. Sadly...

 

Hum.....I'm going to demand San Serif next time in Times Square, Piazza Espagna, Ulan Bator, Lagos, Beijing and Quito and report results back......

[Ondina]

Most people I know who cares about their children will directly take them out of a school where cursive was, not only not taught, but emphasized.

 

So Peregrim, I'm very pro-cursive, pro reading, comprehension and pro sound good education.

Edited April 8, 2009 by Ondina

[Lozzic]

When was the last time you used calculus or talked about cell division. :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho:

 

I have talked about cell division with my father when we discussed whether mathematics is a distinct thing i.e. whether numbers exist in a Platonic sense, or whether it is simply a grammatical problem i.e. numbers do not exist independent of the 'physical' world.

As for calculus I am not a mathematician but I have touched upon the theories etc when studying the philosophy of time and change.

 

:roflmho: :ltcapd:

[effrafax]

Couple of things.

 

Firstly, how come kids are so much more busy at school these days than when I was at school? They sure as hell don't seem to be learning any more, mostly they seem to know much less. [i went to school in the UK, from '61 to '74 - age 5 to 18.]

 

Secondly, one point of view regarding print script can be found at this page.

 

I'm stuck with cursive I'm afraid. My printing is worse than my normal handwriting! And so much slower ...

[Titivillus]

Reading a book about handwriting in America and they brought up an interesting point that with the amount of standardization in the modern world that the one real place that a person can show their individuality is by using their own modified version of cursive. And with the standardization that is forced upon all people maybe cursive should stay.

 

So nevermind.

 

 

K