Would You Teach Your Child To Write In Cursive?

[kapilapshankar]

Would I teach my children to write in cursive? Absolutely. I will teach them writing with fountain pens too, and set them up with their own starter collection.

 

And then, I'll also teach my children good print writing and calligraphy. To round if all up, they'll also get lessons in the art of penmanship and learn to appreciate the joy of handwritten notes.

[GabrielleDuVent]

Well, what d'ya know. Even Martha Stewart is concerned that we aren't handwriting any more. No, I didn't go looking for that article, but perusing through a copy that's lying around on the sofa can do that to you. (I also learned that wearing layers is the new in from the W Magazine.) Apparently we're all getting dumber for not grabbing a pen.

 

But despite almost EVERYTHING I see pointing to "yes, handwriting is important! It makes you better in between your ears!", I don't see anyone moving to change the system. It's like the battle of the veggies... yes, vegetables in your diet's important, but a good majority of the population don't get enough. For all the yakking about exercise and eating properly, it's like a hypothetical New Year's Resolution that always gets broken in the third week of January.

[amberleadavis]

How about this:

 

Only 6 percent of women and 4 percent of men still write love letters, but 96 percent of women and 92 percent of men will send romantic emails. Ninety-seven percent of women and 89 percent of men will profess their love via text message, while 43 percent of women and 39 percent of men will tweet their love.

But 57 percent of women and 42 percent of men have kept old love letters, even when they've moved on to another relationship, Hockwalt said.

 

----

Exhibit at Pickens County Museum looks at the art of writing

Writing is quickly becoming a lost art.
The act of putting together words to form a sentence or putting sentences into paragraphs isn't necessarily a lost art, although that would depend on to whom you talk.
But the actual physical act of writing – of putting pen to paper – is becoming lost, especially in the day of smartphones and electronic mail, which are rapidly replacing snail mail, said Helen Hockwalt, curator at the Pickens County Museum of Art and History.
One of three current exhibits at the Pickens County Museum, "Writing: Putting Pen to Paper," looks at history's changing views on cursive writing and the art of calligraphy.
"Writing as an art form is leaving," said Hockwalt, who curated the exhibition.
Hockwalt has a knack for curating unusual art exhibitions. Previous exhibits she's curated included "Lock, Stock and Barrel," which featured muzzleloaders, and "The History of Tattooing in America," an exhibit on tattoos and tattoo artists.
"I like to look for art in people's everyday lives," she said.
Hockwalt said 44 states no longer mandate the teaching of cursive writing in their curriculums. Indiana and Hawaii have taken it out of their curriculums altogether, she said.
"Writing: Putting Pen to Paper" starts with documents from a time when writing was regarded as an art form, she said. Pages are decorated with illuminations and scrolling calligraphy, and interspersed and surrounded by vibrant embellishments.
In Colonial times, writing was something few people could do, she said. But those who could write did so with the care and flair of artists. They left behind beautiful poems, Bible verses, letters, journals and business ledgers.
In ledgers from railroads and mills, journals kept by people keeping track of expenditures and production on a daily basis were written in with pristine handwriting.
"The penmanship is just beautiful," she said.
Love letters exchanged by soldiers and their sweethearts marked wars up through Vietnam.
In the 1970s and 1980s, schoolchildren continued to strive to master cursive writing because penmanship was included on report cards. Shorthand, which was based on cursive writing, used to be taught in schools.
But typewriters went from the office to homes. Nearly every household had one in the 1950s and 1960s, Hockwalt said.
Now, the simple act of writing entire sentences can be difficult. Tweets are limited to 140 characters; grocery lists are typed into a smartphone. Instead of sending a note, people send emails or texts with their own forms of abbreviation.
The change is reflected in the statistics Hockwalt found during her research.
Only 6 percent of women and 4 percent of men still write love letters, but 96 percent of women and 92 percent of men will send romantic emails. Ninety-seven percent of women and 89 percent of men will profess their love via text message, while 43 percent of women and 39 percent of men will tweet their love.
But 57 percent of women and 42 percent of men have kept old love letters, even when they've moved on to another relationship, Hockwalt said.
But the question she ponders is whether the day will arrive when children can neither copy nor read the Declaration of Independence.
"Writing, as an art form, is leaving us," she said.
Two other exhibitions also run through Feb. 7.
"Crossing the Line: Thirty-One Drawings by Thirty-One Artists" is an invitational exhibition curated by museum director Allen Coleman. The exhibition features Upstate artists pursuing traditional drawing media in both a traditional manner as well as exploratory approaches to new application.
The drawings in the exhibition have been selected to help define and also stretch the boundaries of what a drawing is. Various mediums in the exhibition include metal-point, graphite, charcoal, ink and chalk.
Artists included in the exhibition are Matthew Baumgardner, Victoria Blaker, Michael Brodeur, Bruce Bunch, Steven A. Chapp, Dale Cochran, Diane Kilgore Condon, Melody M. Davis, David Donar, Luiz Galvao, Joe Goldman, Suzy Hart, Ryan Heuvel, Ashley Holt, Stephanie Howard, Kevin Isgett, Kay Larch, Dabney Mahanes, Cecile L.K. Martin, Linda W. McCune, David McCurry, Glen Miller, Mark Mulfinger, Kendon Ryan Oates, JJ Ohlinger, Stan Pawelczyk, Adam C. Schrimmer, Patricia L. Sink, Larry Seymour, John Urban and Barbara Van Gelderen.
"Philip Gott: Explorations in Color" features the art of architect Philip Gott. He had very little exposure to fine art until he began his architectural studies in Paris. Although his professional career as an architect provided most of his creative expression, Gott painted whenever he could.

- See more at: http://greenvillejournal.com/life-culture/1855-putting-pen-to-paper.html#sthash.2aEBFruU.dpuf

[flatline]

Creative people like creating things and making markings on paper is an act of semi-permanent creation with a lower barrier of entry than any other that I can think of, so as long as there are creative people, there will always be people who find pleasure in it even if writing (cursive or otherwise) is a skill largely ignored by the masses.

 

Society has always progressed via the creative efforts of the minority, so I doubt that the (probably accurate) observation that most people have nothing interesting to say is any more relevant now than it was 100, 400, or 1000 years ago. I think that things are less dire now than ever before since even if creative people make up a smaller portion of the total population, the fact that the total population is so much larger than ever before means that there are probably more creative people than ever before. And it's so much easier now than ever before to share ideas, so a little bit of creativity now can go further than ever before.

 

(please excuse my overuse of the phrase "than ever before" in the previous paragraph)

 

It's a good time to be alive.

 

--flatline

Edited October 5, 2013 by flatline

[Edwaroth]

Yes...and I did!

[MartDL]

I recently listened to a BBC Radio arts programme, and the subject of writing came up in discussion with two commissioning book editors. They said that whenever they were sent a manuscript of a book, with the author's hope of publication, that they could tell, straight away, if the book had been written straight onto a computer, or had been hand written first, as a first draft, and only then very thoroughly edited as it was being transferred to the computer. Their view seemed to be that word processed documents tended to be staid and have predictable spelling, grammar, and had a tendency to lose much of the personal character to them, as the computer discourages bad grammar, and the like, when "bad" grammar has made for some of the English language's greatest works of fiction. I doubt Ulysses could have been written on a computer.

 

Apart from novels written straight onto a computer having a greater tendency (just a tendency) towards a predictable style, they also took the view that if the first drafts of books were hand written it would allow for two important aspects of the creative process. One was the ability to scribble, draw arrows, pictures, maps, cartoons or whatever else you might find either necessary or encouraging. The second was that in the process of transferring a written document to the computer, the first draft was more likely very thoroughly edited. They felt that editing a first draft that had been written directly to the computer, lead to a completely different type of editing. In particular, a less rigorous one.

 

I'd fully understand if people disagreed with them on some, or all of their views. But, the bottom line was that they could spot a book that had the first, and subsequent drafts done entirely on a computer, a mile off, and they were not pushing any romantic notions about cursive or fancy writing. It was about someone who wrote the book entirely in their own style.

 

I know that may successful authors type their first draft straight onto a computer, but that doesn't make their views irrelevant. After all, they're the ones who will decide if they'll take on your masterpiece, or just chuck it in the bin, with all the other very many "also rans".

[FLZapped]

I'm with Waski_the_Squirrel on this one.

 

What we write is more important than how we write it.

 

 

I couldn't disagree more. The art of writing something down on paper, as opposed to using a word processor, for example, forces one to organize their thoughts. A word processor allows you to just throw anything up and then do endless edits without fully knowing where you are going in advance. I know form personal experience, the word processor has ruined my ability to sit down and write a coherent letter in a single pass.

 

-Bruce

[GabrielleDuVent]

How about this:

 

Only 6 percent of women and 4 percent of men still write love letters, but 96 percent of women and 92 percent of men will send romantic emails. Ninety-seven percent of women and 89 percent of men will profess their love via text message, while 43 percent of women and 39 percent of men will tweet their love.

But 57 percent of women and 42 percent of men have kept old love letters, even when they've moved on to another relationship, Hockwalt said.

 

 

And here's someone who just couldn't move on because of love letters.

 

I still get them. Don't I feel lucky.

 

I've received romantic e-mails, Twitter, and texts, and I felt absolutely no qualms deleting them, for one reason or another. But letters... ripping up a love letter? Not quite the same as hitting delete on the text saying "I luv u".

 

Handwritten "I love you" in cursive has far, far more gravitas than a text "I luv u". It's like Grace Kelly; sure, she still might be pretty in a dirty and over-sized Fruit of the Loom, but it's more likely you'd see her as more beautiful and worth more respect if she wore a white gown.

 

As much as I'd like to deny it, I'm superficial like that. Handwritten notes far outweigh texts.

[Buzz_130]

Like many, I was taught to print and then write in cursive in school. By the time I hit college, I found that the speed of the lectures and the pace of my notes couldn't keep up with my cursive writing or record anything that I could go back and read. I switched back to printing to keep them legible. In the pace of advanced degrees, I kept the standard which had made me successful. Printing my notes with a pen, writing an outline, and then sitting at a computer for final draft. I never used a fountain pen.

 

I irregularly wrote a journal while hunting for the "right" pen. Ball points, felt tips, gel, etc. I even switched to an electronic journal because I can type so much faster than I can write. I wish I hadn't because I should have recorded a great deal more of my thoughts and experiences during the end of the war in Iraq.

 

For just under the past year, I've discovered the joy and fun of using fountain pens. I write in cursive again, and my notes from meetings, briefings, and to do lists are all crafted with fountain pens. I've filled several journals as I wander through my pens, inks, and paper manufacturers.

 

Writing is an incredible part of the experience of communication. Writing takes discipline, logic, organization, and thought. When you write something down, there's a sense of permanence in those thoughts from that moment in your life. Few historians will care what we wrote, but there's a sense of leaving a mark on the world.

 

Just like practicing blacksmiths, horseback riders, hunting with black powder, and a host of other "antiquated" skills, writing in cursive or some other script will carry on by those that see the advantage of the medium of communication.

 

For the record, my children have always had poor handwriting. The instruction they received was far too quick and inadequate. The funny part is everything changed when we bought them their first fountain pens and could pick from (or buy/request their own color) the inks for their own style and character. In the past few months, teachers have made comments on their focus and skills. It works, and I'm glad to be a part of this awakening.

 

Buzz

[GClef]

TECH TROUBLE LA students crack security on school-issued iPads

 

Oct 06, 2013 4:27 AM EDT

 

Education officials in the nation's second-largest school district are working to reboot a $1 billion plan to put an iPad in the hands of each of their 650,000 students after an embarrassing glitch emerged when the first round of tablets went out.

 

Instead of solving math problems or doing English homework, as administrators envisioned, more than 300 Los Angeles Unified School District students promptly cracked the security settings and started tweeting, posting to Facebook and playing video games.

 

"'Temple Run.' 'Subway Surfing.' Oh, and some car racing game I can't remember the name of," said freshman Stephany Romero, laughing as she described the games she saw fellow Roosevelt High School students playing in class last week.

 

That incident, and related problems, had both critics and supporters questioning this week whether LAUSD officials were being hasty or overreaching in their attempt to distribute an iPad to every student and teacher at the district's more than 1,000 campuses by next year.

 

"It doesn't seem like there was much planning that went into this strategy," said Renee Hobbs, director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island. "That's where the debacle began."

 

It's crucial, she said, to spend extensive time drawing students into a discussion on using iPads responsibly before handing them out. And, of course, installing a firewall that can't be easily breached.

 

At Roosevelt High, it was the unanimous opinion of more than a dozen students that the school district's security setup was so weak that even the most tech-challenged parent could have gotten past it.

 

"It was so easy!" said freshman Carlos Espinoza.

 

He explained that all one needed to do was access the tablet's settings, delete the profile established by the school district and set up an Internet connection. He did it, he said, because he wanted to go on Facebook.

 

"They kind of should have known this would happen," said Espinoza's friend Maria Aguilera.

 

"We're high school students after all. I mean, come on," she added.

 

As word spread, with the speed of a microprocessor, that anyone could crack the firewall, officials quickly confiscated the devices and put a freeze on using them off campus. In the meantime, they promised to improve the security settings.

 

When they started distributing the iPads at 47 district schools in August, administrators touted the move as a means of leveling the academic playing field in a public school system where 80 percent of the students come from low-income families.

 

Now, they said, everyone would have equal access to the most cutting-edge educational software programs, not just the children of parents with deep pockets.

 

But after the first shot in that digital revolution led to a flood of tweets, other concerns arose.

 

Among them: -- Who pays if a kid drops one of these $678 gadgets into a toilet or leaves it on a bus? -- Is it realistic to tell a student she can use it to do her homework, then not allow the device to connect to the Internet from home? (Schools will be wired.) -- And since the tablet without Web access is only as good as the educational software placed on it, how good is that software?

 

A parent, Scott Folsom, said he heard from one source that families would have to pay for broken iPads and from another that the school would.

 

District officials have said there was confusion over that issue but that it's been decided schools will cover the cost of an iPad accidentally broken, lost or stolen, while families are on the hook for one negligently damaged.

 

Of more serious concern to Folsom is the software. He sampled one of the new iPads, he said, and found no program to adequately support English-as-a-second-language students. That would seemingly be crucial for a district whose students are 73 percent Hispanic and where only 14 percent of English learners can speak the language fluently, according to a 2011 Department of Education study.

 

As a parent representative to the district's bond oversight committee, Folsom voted to recommend spending $30 million last June to buy the first batch of iPads. He says he still supports the program but worries that maybe educators are trying to implement it too quickly.

 

"This is the future," he said. "But whether LAUSD is stepping too quickly into the future -- based on the fact that it's so big, and we seem to be in such a hurry -- those are questions to consider."

[amberleadavis]

TECH TROUBLE LA students crack security on school-issued iPads

 

Oct 06, 2013 4:27 AM EDT

 

Education officials in the nation's second-largest school district are working to reboot a $1 billion plan to put an iPad in the hands of each of their 650,000 students after an embarrassing glitch emerged when the first round of tablets went out.

 

Instead of solving math problems or doing English homework, as administrators envisioned, more than 300 Los Angeles Unified School District students promptly cracked the security settings and started tweeting, posting to Facebook and playing video games.

 

"'Temple Run.' 'Subway Surfing.' Oh, and some car racing game I can't remember the name of," said freshman Stephany Romero, laughing as she described the games she saw fellow Roosevelt High School students playing in class last week.

 

That incident, and related problems, had both critics and supporters questioning this week whether LAUSD officials were being hasty or overreaching in their attempt to distribute an iPad to every student and teacher at the district's more than 1,000 campuses by next year.

 

"It doesn't seem like there was much planning that went into this strategy," said Renee Hobbs, director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island. "That's where the debacle began."

 

It's crucial, she said, to spend extensive time drawing students into a discussion on using iPads responsibly before handing them out. And, of course, installing a firewall that can't be easily breached.

 

At Roosevelt High, it was the unanimous opinion of more than a dozen students that the school district's security setup was so weak that even the most tech-challenged parent could have gotten past it.

 

"It was so easy!" said freshman Carlos Espinoza.

 

He explained that all one needed to do was access the tablet's settings, delete the profile established by the school district and set up an Internet connection. He did it, he said, because he wanted to go on Facebook.

 

"They kind of should have known this would happen," said Espinoza's friend Maria Aguilera.

 

"We're high school students after all. I mean, come on," she added.

 

As word spread, with the speed of a microprocessor, that anyone could crack the firewall, officials quickly confiscated the devices and put a freeze on using them off campus. In the meantime, they promised to improve the security settings.

 

When they started distributing the iPads at 47 district schools in August, administrators touted the move as a means of leveling the academic playing field in a public school system where 80 percent of the students come from low-income families.

 

Now, they said, everyone would have equal access to the most cutting-edge educational software programs, not just the children of parents with deep pockets.

 

But after the first shot in that digital revolution led to a flood of tweets, other concerns arose.

 

Among them: -- Who pays if a kid drops one of these $678 gadgets into a toilet or leaves it on a bus? -- Is it realistic to tell a student she can use it to do her homework, then not allow the device to connect to the Internet from home? (Schools will be wired.) -- And since the tablet without Web access is only as good as the educational software placed on it, how good is that software?

 

A parent, Scott Folsom, said he heard from one source that families would have to pay for broken iPads and from another that the school would.

 

District officials have said there was confusion over that issue but that it's been decided schools will cover the cost of an iPad accidentally broken, lost or stolen, while families are on the hook for one negligently damaged.

 

Of more serious concern to Folsom is the software. He sampled one of the new iPads, he said, and found no program to adequately support English-as-a-second-language students. That would seemingly be crucial for a district whose students are 73 percent Hispanic and where only 14 percent of English learners can speak the language fluently, according to a 2011 Department of Education study.

 

As a parent representative to the district's bond oversight committee, Folsom voted to recommend spending $30 million last June to buy the first batch of iPads. He says he still supports the program but worries that maybe educators are trying to implement it too quickly.

 

"This is the future," he said. "But whether LAUSD is stepping too quickly into the future -- based on the fact that it's so big, and we seem to be in such a hurry -- those are questions to consider."

 

 

Who (here) didn't see this happening?

[Juicyjones]

It's going to be pretty lame in 100 years when only fountain pen collectors know how to write and everyone else is scrawling block letters when their keyboard breaks down.

 

Oh and G-Clef, iPads are great learning tools for any language. It turns out it doesn't need to be in your native language for you to utilize it to the fullest. There was a study where they gave iPads to African children with a variety of native languages and within a month they were all fluently using it and even getting it to do things forbidden by the software. It's good that students hack them, it means they're understanding them!

Edited October 7, 2013 by Juicyjones

[georges zaslavsky]

Yes, if I had kids, I would teach them cursive and even calligraphy. No way I would teach them printed script

[honza]

Fortunately the schools in this country still do it for me Kids here start to learn cursive in the first year (age 6), using pencil first, and switching to pen within few months. AFAIK they do not learn printing at all (at least we did not). The difference from when I went to school is that nowadays they are allowed to use either a fountain pen or a rollerball (no ballpoints ), instead of just FP. Which in practice means that in my daughter's class she's the only one using FP (and she absolutely loves it), while everybody else is using a Stabilo. Will see what the boys will choose, but will try to steer them in the right direction

 

BTW there is a pilot program of using a newly designed script which is more/very similar to printing: http://www.lencova.eu/cs/gal_ukazky_cs The initial reactions are truly mixed. The current standard has origins in Copperplate/English Round Hand, and I'm glad that my daughter is learning it, and not the modern one. There is even a FPN thread about this: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/162254-czech-schools-are-testing-a-new-style-of-handwriting/

[amberleadavis]

Interesting. I'm using the Getty Dubay style with my son, but we aren't having much progress.

[GabrielleDuVent]

It's going to be pretty lame in 100 years when only fountain pen collectors know how to write and everyone else is scrawling block letters when their keyboard breaks down.

 

Oh and G-Clef, iPads are great learning tools for any language. It turns out it doesn't need to be in your native language for you to utilize it to the fullest. There was a study where they gave iPads to African children with a variety of native languages and within a month they were all fluently using it and even getting it to do things forbidden by the software. It's good that students hack them, it means they're understanding them!

 

One of my friends speaks four languages (albeit them all being European languages) fluently. He did it without the help of iPad just fine.

 

It's really curious, because in history you hear of people who spoke "Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Spanish, German, English, and Italian" fluently. It appears that the courts were mass-populated with them. And their mastery level wasn't the level of "can carry out day-to-day conversations", but rather "can write a philosophical thesis in the language at age twelve". Nowadays, if you can carry out a simple conversation in another language, people are awed.

 

I can just hear Elizabeth I looking at Elizabeth II and saying: "What do you mean, you can't speak five languages? And you call yourself a monarch?!"

[Paddler]

It never ceases to amaze me how few people can remember being a kid and how badly they underrate the intelligence of their own children.

[Runnin_Ute]

 

And here's someone who just couldn't move on because of love letters.

 

I still get them. Don't I feel lucky.

 

I've received romantic e-mails, Twitter, and texts, and I felt absolutely no qualms deleting them, for one reason or another. But letters... ripping up a love letter? Not quite the same as hitting delete on the text saying "I luv u".

 

Handwritten "I love you" in cursive has far, far more gravitas than a text "I luv u". It's like Grace Kelly; sure, she still might be pretty in a dirty and over-sized Fruit of the Loom, but it's more likely you'd see her as more beautiful and worth more respect if she wore a white gown.

 

As much as I'd like to deny it, I'm superficial like that. Handwritten notes far outweigh texts.

Agree 100%

 

Somewhere I have several boxes of letters that I wrote to a then girlfriend over a two year period (from October 1979 to September 1981). I don't recall the how I got them back, but somehow I did. I need to locate them and use them to assist in writing a detailed account of my life story during that time. I was 23 when the last one was written.

 

I never had children, but if I had children or grandchildren even, I would hope that as part of their education they at least learned how to write in cursive - whether they used it regularly or not.

[proton007]

An then there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k49ncf60zN8&feature=player_embedded

 

A robot that can write hand-written notes for you.

 

Whats the point?

[Water Ouzel]

I learned to write cursively during the late 50s, used fountain pens by choice through high school and early college (except where pencils were required, or for maths), and then off and on until my mid-30s. And then none for the better part of 30 years. It's good to be back, within the past year, although rollerballs and pencils still get some use. I was a technical writer for 30+ years, and almost all my work was on keyboards.

 

I'm on the board of a small elementary school in rural central CA, and the upper grades (5-8) use shared laptops for keyboarding (and some online research), iPads for research, math drills, reading, etc etc., and handwriting slips into the cracks where it can, for things like journaling, lesson assignments, etc. All the tools are useful, each better for some things, not as good for others, so we find what works where and use it.

 

Almost all the kids print, a few do something like cursive writing, even if it isn't taught much as it was when I was their age. I do notice that there is a low muttering in the background amongst affiliated schools about bringing back cursive instruction for various reasons, and it might happen. I have already turned on a couple of the staff to fountain pens, for what it might be worth.

 

I'd love to write Spencerian or Copperplate, just for the sheer joy of making beautiful forms; for now, I need to get my day to day handwriting improved to the point that I don't want to hide everything from everyone. Well, my adult daughters are currently being subjected to handwritten letters from dad, but they haven't complained yet.