Posted on 03/26/2016 1:26:32 PM PDT by SandRat
PHOENIX — Insisting it's good from everything from civics to brain development, state lawmakers want to require students to know how to read and write in cursive.
Legislation on the desk of Gov. Doug Ducey would mandate that schools include cursive reading and writing in their curriculum. Specifically, students would have to show by the end of fifth grade they are "able to create readable documents through legible cursive handwriting.''
But, unlike a requirement that students know how to read by the end of the third grade, there is nothing in the law that says students who can't display that skill don't get to go on to sixth grade.
(Excerpt) Read more at svherald.com ...
When did schools stop teaching cursive writing? I remember 4th grade with a dip fountain pen and a bottle of Shaeffer blue ink. Where have I been? My middle school age granddaughter is teaching herself cursive. And doing OK I might add. Just sent her a pack of disposable fountain pens. She loves them. One person, one fountain pen at a time.
Sadly, they don’t know how to fill them out either.
Studies have proven just what you stated. Typing does not result in retention scores as high as writing notes.
From my research, your comment regarding evolving from quill/fountain pen to ball point is spot on. Writing changed as a result. I’m a mix breed. I use fountain pens for just about everything and I print.
By this logic we should resume teaching Latin in school. Would certainly benefit the students’ minds, but do we really want to mandate curriculum through the legislature?
Yes.
Yes we do.
Learn cursive or be called a Commie.
Handwriting was revised by an educational commission in the 1920s and the more elaborate loops and curls were eliminated. This may be apparent in your old documents, for example, in the small letter “r.”
When I was in school..a million years ago...learning cursive was a sign of growing up. A second grader was proud of that accomplishment.
I guess I understand that it might be a sign of the past with the advent of the internet.
Sort of like spelling. I regret that loss for our young people. But, that being said, I have a hard time with “text talk”. So I guess we are all even.
And the monk/priest that influenced him, recently died.
He never used a computer.
There far more things to know, or skills to master, than could fit into any school curriculum — even if grade school lasted for 30 years. Cursive writing may be important for some — but, it’s fast becoming unnecessary for most people.
So, as I was saying, if it’s important to you — learn it. However, many other students might find it more useful to (say) learn to read and write Urdu. As you say, there’s not enough time in life to stop and learn — and there’s not enough time in school to learn *everything*. The opportunity cost for learning cursive is the loss of time to learn something else — something that might be more useful to you to know.
The calligraphy course that Steve Jobs took, like most such courses, is a very different thing from cursive. It’s a beautiful form of writing called “Italic” which uses few joins and which forms its letters in streamlined but print-like ways. When I show Italic to supporters of cursive, they do not regard it as cursive — therefore, its use by Steve Jobs or anyone does not support cursive.
Your “quote from Socrates” isn’t his. It is nowhere in his surviving words or works.
I knew that “monk/priest” — an abbot, actually: Father Robert Palladino, who taught calligraphy at Reed College (Oregon) the year that Steve Jobs took the course. Father Robert had a web-site and e-mail: so much for your guess that he “never used a computer.”
I learned that 50 years ago in college. How interesting.
Thanks for the information.
Someone else (an aid/assistant) may have done the site and email for him. I don’t know, I only mentioned it because a news segment mentioned it.
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