Cursive Writing?

[ExFlyBoy5]

I was flipping through the TV today and stopped on the local news to marvel at the Monday AM traffic (well, marvel in the fact that I am not it it! ) and after the traffic report, they told us of a law that just went into effect in Alabama. Apparently, it is now mandated that public schools teach cursive writing. I am not sure what to think of this requirement but I am inclined to think this is a silly law. Is the skill of cursive writing even really relevant today? I thought about creating a poll...but it seems like folks around here don't like them...so I will just ask...

Cursive writing: Should it be required curriculum?

 

[Big_Hitter]

I was flipping through the TV today and stopped on the local news to marvel at the Monday AM traffic (well, marvel in the fact that I am not it it! ) and after the traffic report, they told us of a law that just went into effect in Alabama. Apparently, it is now mandated that public schools teach cursive writing. I am not sure what to think of this requirement but I am inclined to think this is a silly law. Is the skill of cursive writing even really relevant today? I thought about creating a poll...but it seems like folks around here don't like them...so I will just ask...

Cursive writing: Should it be required curriculum?

they have way bigger problems in that state, but yes, I think students should learn to read and write the English language, in cursive

 

[euro]

I was flipping through the TV today and stopped on the local news to marvel at the Monday AM traffic (well, marvel in the fact that I am not it it! ) and after the traffic report, they told us of a law that just went into effect in Alabama. Apparently, it is now mandated that public schools teach cursive writing. I am not sure what to think of this requirement but I am inclined to think this is a silly law. Is the skill of cursive writing even really relevant today? I thought about creating a poll...but it seems like folks around here don't like them...so I will just ask...

Cursive writing: Should it be required curriculum?

It's a waste of time, in my opinion. The vast majority of post baby-boomers do not use handwriting anymore at all (even quick notes are typed into the phone instead), and if they do, they certainly don't use cursive. Many more important subjects to spend class time on.

 

[Big_Hitter]

It's a waste of time, in my opinion. The vast majority of post baby-boomers do not use handwriting anymore at all (even quick notes are typed into the phone instead), and if they do, they certainly don't use cursive. Many more important subjects to spend class time on.

you've obviously never graded written actuarial exams

 

[eytonxav]

I'd rather see them focus on math and science.

 

[Midpack]

It's a waste of time, in my opinion. The vast majority of post baby-boomers do not use handwriting anymore at all (even quick notes are typed into the phone instead), and if they do, they certainly don't use cursive. Many more important subjects to spend class time on.

+1. Aside from signatures (I guess), cursive is obsolete, and often much harder to read than print. I haven't used cursive for 40 years, even though "penmanship" was required when I went to school. I'd rather see schools focus on math, tech literacy, programming, personal finance, even civics before cursive...

For those who think cursive should be taught, or even required, I am curious why?

 

[Tadpole]

Perhaps they need to demonstrate at least a cursive form of their own signature just in case a mortgage or something needs it.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Perhaps they need to demonstrate at least a cursive form of their own signature just in case a mortgage or something needs it.

or writing checks....or filling out contracts....or

 

[Big_Hitter]

For those who think cursive should be taught, or even required, I am curious why?

signing your name properly is part of being literate

 

[candrew]

Cursive Writing

DW has her grad degree in Early Childhood Development. In posing the same question about the need to teach cursive handwriting - especially in the early elementary grades - her response is that learning cursive writing helps accelerate the development of small motor skills along with improving brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory.

Granted, cursive writing is not a "testable" skill in terms of Common Core, NCLB, etc., however, not all skills of value are measurable.

 

[HFWR]

Cursing is a useful skill...

 

[MRG]

or writing checks....or filling out contracts....or

Why? I've not written anything in cursive, including checks contracts signatures, for almost 50 years. Ain't stopped me.

 

[scrabbler1]

My cursive was horrible so when my grade school teachers stopped requiring us to use it (not sure when, maybe HS), I switched to printing only, not that that was much more legible. This was back in the mid-late 1970s when word processing via PC was non-existent and typewriters were clumsy to use.


Other than my signature, I haven't used cursive since the early 1980s when during one summer as a day camp counselor I wrote out the kids' names in large cursive for their arts-&-crafts projects.


Just teach the kids to be able to sign their names although for women they'll have to remember how to use cursive for the rest of the alphabet should they get married and change their names.

 

[timo2]

Isn't cursive writing currently used primarily for graffiti?

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Well, as to the argument that you have to "sign" your name in cursive...well, that's false. You merely need to make a "mark" My Dad's penmanship is pretty much unreadable and he doesn't want to sign documents. When I tell him that he can just put an X or whatever mark he wishes, he scoffs; I think this is one of the old wive's tales that just keeps on going.

I also did a quick search as to what states where cursive is required. I came up with Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, North Carolina and California. I would note that many of these states don't do a great job educating kids...so perhaps the time spent teaching cursive could be better spent teaching STEM subjects or even VoTech type subjects (which has fallen out of favor in many districts, unfortunately).

 

[Nemo2]

Cursing is a useful skill...

*##!!** right it is!

 

[Big_Hitter]

people need to be able to read cursive

if you can't read or write cursive then you are illiterate, imo

 

[Sojourner]

I'd rather see them focus on math and science.

+1

Considering some of the mind-boggling articles I've read concerning various laws or proposals coming out of the state of Alabama, I would say they need a LOT more focus on basic science and math. Teaching cursive these days would be akin to teaching kids how to use a slide rule. AL is consistently ranked in the bottom 10% of states when it comes to K-12 education. You'd think they would focus on teaching stuff that would actually improve kids' chances of getting into good colleges and going on to have successful careers.

 

[mpeirce]

It's not like it's a choice between learning cursive and learning calculus and physics, this is a skill learned by little kids. A few minutes each day to teach and practice this when they are in, I don't know, second grade?

It's part of being a literate person.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

people need to be able to read cursive

if you can't read or write cursive then you are illiterate, imo

I don't think this is the case. If you *actually* write cursive the "correct" way, it looks an awful lot like print letters. If your cursive writing looks more like hieroglyphics then I would guess few people can read it.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

... Teaching cursive these days would be akin to teaching kids how to use a slide rule. ...

Reminds me of a story. Back when I was learning to be a flight engineer, we had a lot of math that had to be done; nothing really hard mind you, just a lot of it and sometimes fairly large numbers. One of the "weed out" courses included a block of instruction that required many of these large math problems to be worked out by hand (stupid problems like 312,992,328,382 divided by 32,224,743)...even though a cheap calculator could be bought for 99 cents at the BX. The "logic" was that you never knew when your calculator might fail and then of course, the plane would run out of fuel (or meet some other demise because of a flawed calculation) and you would die. This logic lived on until the early 2000's, even after the airplane had its own laptop and most of the crew members had their own laptops and calculators. It was quite ridiculous.

 

[Badger]

+1. Aside from signatures (I guess), cursive is obsolete, and often much harder to read than print. I haven't used cursive for 40 years, even though "penmanship" was required when I went to school. I'd rather see schools focus on math, tech literacy, programming, personal finance, even civics before cursive...

For those who think cursive should be taught, or even required, I am curious why?

Teaching cursive is something that has always been taught in the latter primary grades. It generally doesn't take time away from things like personal finance and civics which are typically taught in some high schools.

There are many documents in cursive as well as people who communicate with written notes etc that would require others to be able to read that format. It is also a motor skill involving hand/eye coordination.

Cheers!

 

[MichaelB]

Let's not forget about the Luddites, who eschew (when possible) many modern things, such as digital communications, and rely on cursive to communicate.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Teaching cursive is something that has always been taught in the latter primary grades. It generally doesn't take time away from things like personal finance and civics which are typically taught in some high schools.

There are many documents in cursive as well as people who communicate with written notes etc that would require others to be able to read that format. It is also a motor skill involving hand/eye coordination.

Cheers!

What decade are you living in? As many as 40% of teachers have reported that cursive is no longer part of the curriculum. And Civics? This hasn't *really* been taught in a very long time. Sure, there is "social studies", but basic civics isn't covered very well, in my opinion.

I think most of the kids figure out hand/eye coordination with video games and tablet use. I know you want to laugh at that, but I can tell you that coming from the flying world (and substantial amount of time developingthe training for said flying skills), today's kids come into the AF with hand/eye coordination skills that are FAR superior than when I went in.

 

[Nemo2]

As Mark Knopfler sings: "I don't do it no more but I used to could".

Nowadays, for the increasingly infrequent times, (Birthday Cards for grandkids, etc), I'm obliged to communicate via pen, (ballpoint...can't remember the last time I used a nib), I utilize the old 'printing with a ruler underneath' trick.