(teaching) Italic May Soon Be Illegal In The Usa

[JonA]

I think we should have a discussion on the handwriting itself, especially since yesterday was the first I had heard of HWT while searching Google for handwriting techniques. If we would like that in a new thread, that would be great. But before we all go knocking this approach down, we should justify the basis of our discontent.

 

I must say, from my initial perspective, that aside from the form being just down-right ugly (why is the top hump on the B bigger than the lower?), it is also illogical. I agree with the Handwriting Standards site that there are considerable parallels between handwriting (along with composition style in general) and thinking ability; unfortunately, the inconsistencies I see in the HWT model make me suspect that it will do more harm than good, and may encourage the poor thinking already rampant in the U.S. public (resulting from a lack of proper education in the first place) with its illogical, inconsistent connections, and other problems too numerous to list now.

 

Overall, I'd say any success of this method creating consistent handwriting would be due not to the method's inherit merits, but to its spread via forceful marketing and political bullying.

 

Anyway, I hope we can talk about the method itself; I searched for a thread but did not find one devoted to it. Once its problems are laid out, we might have more justification for our sentiments.

 

JonA

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

 

Where in the USA in 1988-1989 were they teaching a vertical cursive?

 

 

Maybe I'm mistaken, and it was a very similar style? This was a public school in NJ. On a second examination, the only letter that I can find that's different is the capital Q -- we were taught something that looks like a 2. I thought it was upright because I don't remember being taught to slant anything, but again I could be misremembering. I definitely write upright now. The hardest part of learning italic has been making my o shapes more oblong and tilted, and not perfect upright circles. That, and getting all my vertical lines to sit at the same angle. But maybe I can't blame elementary school after all. :-)

 

It was probably just a very similar style -- there have been a few of them.

Consistency (in any good style) is more important than the exact degree of slantiness -- though Italic and most styles function best within a range of 5 to 15 degrees rightward, I have seen some quite decent vertical Italics.

However, if your difficulties with Italic include not just trouble with slant but a problem with making any curves that aren't "perfect upright circles," then probably it does have to do with your elementary school training (you had a circular, vertical print-style, didn't you? -- and probably learned to hold the paper straight up and down, straight in front of you?) So here's a trick to try: move the paper so that its center is in front of your writing-arm shoulder (not in front of your chest) and tilt the paper a bit so that its long edges parallel your writing-arm forearm. (If you're one of those who inveterately "hook" your wrist when writing -- a very small number of right-handers, and a rather larger number of left-handers -- instead try having the paper's short edges parallel your writing-arm forearm.)

Once you have settled on whatever position, quickly make some bunches of downstrokes at various angles -- ///// \\\\\ ||||| and so forth -- and look at the results to see which angle produced the easiest and most consistent results. (With most people, this turns out to be not vertical, but very slightly right-slanted.) Use that angle -- with the paper-position you settled on, above -- for your Italic practice and other writing, and your slant and curve difficulties will probably disappear: you will find it easier, under these conditions, to make slanted/oval forms than to make the vertical/circular forms that your grade-school curriculum required (and probably used a particular paper position to alleviate the difficulties of).

[hardyb]

Oddly, the idea of one nation, one script, one way is not new and is all too familiar...:

http://www.waldenfont.com/content.asp?contentpageID=8

 

A curious decree:

http://www.waldenfont.com/content.asp?contentpageId=11

 

Our fundamental freedoms were inked in a clear, common hand and transmitted in many varying handwriting styles, font types, voices and languages. We are a nation of many strands and strains. It is our strength and our salvation. We have no more need for one style of cursive then we have for one race, one religion, one party or one prescribed set of political or social beliefs. If that ever makes me a subversive, then Gentle people , make the most of it (with a humble nod to Mr.Henry).

Edited August 1, 2010 by hardyb

[Triplet Mom]

The whole point of which teaching method is better may soon be moot, anyhow. Sadly, most people who will even attempt to write cursive in the future will be those of us who do it as more of a hobby than a requirement. My boy's intermediate school (5th and 6th grades,) have courses to improve computer typing skills, but nothing for improving handwriting. My teenage daughter (a 10th grader,) has not handwritten a report for school in going on over two years now. All of her reports are done on the computer and sent to the respective teachers email for grading. And here in the USA, all health care records are mandated to become completely computerized by 2014, so my husband does not even write out notes or prescriptions anymore...it is already done completely by computers in all of the hospitals and doctors offices here in this part of NH. While children will always be taught how to print letters as part of learning how to read in elementary school, I wonder if the overall need to learn cursive may even be thought of as a vital skill to teach or master in the future?

[LynnK]

 

Anyway, I hope we can talk about the method itself; I searched for a thread but did not find one devoted to it. Once its problems are laid out, we might have more justification for our sentiments.

 

JonA

 

I hope this isn't inappropriate for this thread or getting too off topic, but I can provide what is probably close to an example of how HWT could turn out. As Kate guessed, I was taught to hold the paper upright, which produced fairly upright script with very similar letter forms. With 20 years deterioration here's where it's ended up (if it looks left-leaning it's because I kept indenting more ):

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/porticas/P1010043.jpg?t=1280682232

 

I ditched the cursive capital G decades ago. To this day I hate the lower-case Rs. This wasn't my fastest scrawl, but a medium pace.

[Clydesdave]

This is a very interesting topic. I am very aware of my script while I'm writing, and I am not very happy with my style, but I never realized there were people that could help me with it. I find it interesting that anyone is paying attention to the teaching methods used in the schools, let alone trying to establish a single method and style. Personally, I was taught to write script in the third grade, about 1965. My writing style, I have been told, leans toward Spencerian. I don't even know what that means. I think I will give Kate a call and see what can be done with it.

 

In my humble opinion, HWTears is probably not interested at all in what is best for students, but more interested in how they can lock in a profitable market. It amazes me, the way people make money. I try to think of ways to get the government on my side and send me money all the time, but I would have never come up with this one. I just have to broaden my scope, simply working, isn't working.

 

Lobbying the government to establish a monopoly. :hmm1: I wonder if they are going to need the Perfect Ink Bottle.

[J0rdan]

I am in favor of national public school standards - currently all GEDs are nationally equal, although state programs can differ considerably.

 

But this kind of micromanagement is too much.

Why not introduce kids to a variety of styles, and let them choose which ones they would like to focus on (say, a print style and a cursive style)? Children are not stupid; having one standard for handwriting would be like having one standard for Bicycle, or Action figure. If anything, it only increases stress & pressure on the student, and nervousness produces worse handwriting.

 

I can't stand the high peak in the middle of a W.

Edited August 1, 2010 by J0rdan

[omicron]

In California, schoolchildren can decide what gender they want to be for the day, and use either sex washrooms.

 

... But now they are forced to write without accents?

 

Someone should make a case that italic engenders the written word, and to ban italic writing would be sexually repressive, and we can't have that, now can we?

 

 

 

[Ghost Plane]

 

Anyway, I hope we can talk about the method itself; I searched for a thread but did not find one devoted to it. Once its problems are laid out, we might have more justification for our sentiments.

 

JonA

 

I hope this isn't inappropriate for this thread or getting too off topic, but I can provide what is probably close to an example of how HWT could turn out. As Kate guessed, I was taught to hold the paper upright, which produced fairly upright script with very similar letter forms. With 20 years deterioration here's where it's ended up (if it looks left-leaning it's because I kept indenting more ):

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/porticas/P1010043.jpg?t=1280682232

 

I ditched the cursive capital G decades ago. To this day I hate the lower-case Rs. This wasn't my fastest scrawl, but a medium pace.

That definitely resembles what they tried to teach me in Florida grade schools.

[donwinn]

I am in favor of national public school standards - currently all GEDs are nationally equal, although state programs can differ considerably.

 

But this kind of micromanagement is too much.

Why not introduce kids to a variety of styles, and let them choose which ones they would like to focus on (say, a print style and a cursive style)? Children are not stupid; having one standard for handwriting would be like having one standard for Bicycle, or Action figure. If anything, it only increases stress & pressure on the student, and nervousness produces worse handwriting.

 

I can't stand the high peak in the middle of a W.

 

The person you quote in your signature would be horrified by your opening statement. The 9th and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution remove academic standards from the purview of the Federal Government; however, the Supreme Court, in McCullogh vs Maryland, effectively removed the 9th and 10th Amendments from the Constitution, citing the "necessary and proper" clause of the basic constitution. Apparently that court did not understand the purpose of an Amendment, as the 9th & 10th very strictly limited the powers of the Federal Government.

 

Donnie

[KateGladstone]

Yes, let's start a new thread (what shall we call it?) and tackle these questions there. I will get back here about 6 hours from now, and do my best to address the VERY interesting comments that this thread has generated on that subject!

[czar]

Will Your Handwriting

Become Illegal Nationwide?

 

A handwriting program called "Handwriting Without Tears" (hwtears.com)--

in my professional observation and experience, one of the worst programs ever created

(see model-samples at http://www.hwtears.c...WT_Alphabet.pdf ) --

 

is now aggressively lobbying to make every detail of its own particular instructional method and writing styles required (with no exceptions) in all schools under USA law

(piggybacking on current White House efforts to create and impose a detailed national curriculum for USA schools).

 

Their founder announced this publicly 7 years ago (that they would be doing this),

at an event where I was present.

Thereafter I tried to warn others, but almost nobody thought she meant it.

Specifics:

 

HWTears has created, and is fully funding and operating, an innocuous-sounding Washington lobby-group called "Handwriting Standards" at http://www.handwritingstandards.com

(note the teeny-tiny copyright notice at the bottom of the page, to see which handwriting program owns that lobby-group!)

 

The lobbyists' web-site is designed to sound neutral on the surface,

but if you dig deeper and actually read their proposed standards,

these are verbatim quotes of particular details of the HWTears teaching sequence and even stylistic features

and they are very closely tied in with the HWTears.com web-site's own descriptions of the same endeavor --

to the point that, if the "Handwriting Standards" lobbyists succeed, no other program but HWTears will conform with the details of teaching method/style that their lobbyists are trying to have written into law.

 

In other words: the proposed national standards for school handwriting are very closely tied in with HWTears program sequence, to the point that they are basically a step-by-step, practically verbatim summary of that program's sequence/curriculum/practices and of no other.

This is clear if you are familiar, as I am, with the HWTears program materials/lesson plans/teacher-training sessions and if you read the lobby's proposed "Handwriting Standards" for yourself in the level-by-level blue links at http://www.handwriti...iting-standards and then the full document at

http://www.handwriti...20k-4_FINAL.pdf .

 

Of special note:

adopting those standards would make Italic illegal

in all schools throughout the USA.

Although the word "italic" is nowhere mentioned in the standards,

things required by the standards would prevent Italic from being used, because of the standards' stylistic requirements for loops, for particular types of curves, and so on (note particularly the contents of the standards for Grade Three and beyond: "Pre-Cursive and Cursive" skills in the PDF and at the above-referened blue links.)

 

Many of the people receiving this letter (and -- I hope -- passing it on to others of like mind)

use and teach Italic and have seen that it is a far better approach than the one proposed.

Others will have other concerns -- at least, about the ethics of the HWTears company before (and during) this campaign, and/or about other aspects of HWTears which some of you will have heard/seen me discuss.

 

If you care even a little bit about this, e-mail me at handwritingrepair@gmail.com (subject-line should include the words "Italic handwriting"_ and/or phone me at 518-482-6763 to decide what we must do, and how. We must act now.

Prologue

I am Italian so I am a little polarized in my opinion. So read my post with care

 

Main body of my message

Italic handwriting, also called reinessance handwriting, has thre great masters: Arrighi, Tagliente and Palatino.

 

Anyone can see what Italic Handwriting means (if you don't, look at arrighi on scribd.com, I uploaded his "operina")

I have learnt a lot from American research (I am an electronic Engineer with specialization in Computer Science and a MBA)

and I am grateful to USA people that were masters for me in that field.

But please, some things are untouchable (Galileo, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dante...Arrighi.....)

 

Epilogue

Let me know how I can help

 

Yours

 

cesare

[LisaN]

Well, thank heavens for my elementary school's "Palmeresque" handwriting instruction.

(Can't call it true Palmer because I don't remember any "method")

It was close to Spencerian without the shading, and some of the loops pruned. We were allowed a bit of freedom of choice for capitals A, M, N, P. Once I got to public school, there was no penmanship. All could be submitted manuscript printing, so that's what I did.

35 years later, my writing is re-settling into a good natural hand with a little practice.

[aditya.shevade]

Re:

 

i doubt it will make any real difference in schools anywhere...

 

it'll just be another program without teeth.

 

at least that's my opinion about it. could be completely wrong.

 

but in my art classes, i will be teaching some italic and penmanship lessons...

 

 

I've seen HWTears in operation. They use severely unethical marketing tactics to take over school after school: within the past 5 years, they have gone from doing maybe 2% of USA schools that teach handwriting to doing about 50% of USA schools that teach handwriting, even though their program is very accident-prone and says that speed is never, ever important. (I sat through a 6-hour HWTears training to find out more about them: Know Thine Enemy! About 1% of the training was actually about handwriting -- the other 99% was on how to persuade people to buy a handwriting program when they think it is no good.)

 

Their favorite tactic (they have many) is

to initially sell the program (including a WIDE range of required supplies that you can buy only from them) at an 80% discount --

then suddenly raise the prices after a contract is signed,

then again raise the prices back to the (very expensive) list-price (a 5x increase)

if any student is reported as not doing well with the program and needing something else to supplement/modify/replace it.

This, of course, makes the schools/districts want to report that ALL students are doing well, even though at least half of them are not.

 

The other tactics are rather more questionable, and therefore much less pleasant to discuss. I do not want to discuss them in a public forum, but will discuss them privately if asked.

 

If this is really happening then I am sorry to say but the school administrators are either very stupid or the marketing guys/gals of this program are quite a charm. If the contract does not mention all the things about additional training, maximum increase in the program cost (at least approximations) and still the schools are opting them then - well then god save those kids.

[KateGladstone]

To Aditya Shevade --

 

Oh, the contract mentions every one of those things -- but they don't seem as important (at the time) as an 80% discount.

Edited August 2, 2010 by KateGladstone

[KateGladstone]

To Lisa N. --

 

I'd like very much to see your writing -- your writing now, and your childhood writing if you've any samples.

Edited August 2, 2010 by KateGladstone

[KateGladstone]

The Czar asks how he can help.

Grazie, Cesare!

You are the first person who has asked this question!

 

To figure out how you can help, I need to know if you are in Italy or in the USA or elsewhere. If you are outside the USA, maybe your efforts should go towards challenging the handwriting program of your own country (if that program needs challenge). What is Italian school handwriting like? Is there a national requirement for a particular style?

 

I leave this question in this thread (instead of going to the HWTears thread) because the answer is likely to relate to Italian school styles rather than to USA school styles/proposals.

[LisaN]

To Lisa N. --

 

I'd like very much to see your writing -- your writing now, and your childhood writing if you've any samples.

I feel ...naked here.

I generated this sample very quickly just now.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nsPJVMfHDsQ/TFY-e8dWHdI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/x84qaD0hsFU/s640/P8010781.JPG

Here is writing from earlier this week:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nsPJVMfHDsQ/TFY_1ta41zI/AAAAAAAAAaE/38ThY0jNivw/s640/P8010783.JPG

and

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nsPJVMfHDsQ/TFY_1XZRZnI/AAAAAAAAAaA/J01t0hH3uJI/s640/P8010782.JPG

I don't have a childhood sample, but here is a male teacher's handwriting on a report card for 6th grade (1977).

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nsPJVMfHDsQ/TFY7nyPsJiI/AAAAAAAAAZs/DIxcllij2MA/s640/P8010780.JPG

[Guest Pjay]

A national curriculum is being implemented in Australia, but at this stage the choice of handwriting style is still an issue for each state. This comparison (you need to scroll down), shows that most states use a modified Italic script, with minor variations, but HWT obviously has some market penetration Downunder as well, in private schools and home schooling.

[KateGladstone]

Where can we see what the different Australian styles look like?

 

Also, what company is distributing HWTears in Australia?

I ask this because in the USA the HWTears company does its own distribution, but I know that in the UK the HWTears program is distributed by the large educational conglomerate Pearson.

 

This amuses me because Pearson UK prints or distributes brochures saying that the research proves that HWTears is the best program for all children, but Pearson USA's brochures say that the research proves that another, very different program is the best for all children -- naturally, the program recommended in the Pearson USA brochures is the one that Pearson USA owns/distributed (that they acquired by buying up the USA company that owns the rights) -- a program called D'Nealian.

(You can see samples of D'N at http://www.dnealian.com -- all I will say about it is that, in 10 years of directing the World Handwriting Contest ... and 8 previous years of directing its predecessor, the Annual American Handwriting Contest ... I have never yet seen any Contest judge pick either a D'N-trained writer's sample or a[n] HWTears-trained writer's sample as deserving an award. This includes those judges who themselves favored one or the other program.)

 

So I wonder what Pearson may have to say if I can reach their editor/CEO for Pearson USA and show him that one of his company's biggest-selling products (D'N) could be outlawed in the USA -- at the request of the CEO of a program being distributed by another arm of the worldwide Pearson company ...

 

I actually asked the Pearson people (UK and USA) once before, about why their company was telling Americans that one program was the best, but telling UK people that another and very different program was the best. They never answered ... but maybe this recent news will make it more important to answer. (No company wants to see a lucrative product outlawed -- so maybe Pearson USA can use some fraction of its millions to stop their competitor's lobbying ... which will be very interesting, given that Pearson UK distributes the competitor's program ... )