Posted on 07/07/2011 7:52:05 AM PDT by newzjunkey
...[Indiana] State officials sent school leaders a memo April 25 telling them that instead of cursive writing, students will be expected to become proficient in keyboard use.
The Times of Munster reports the memo says schools may continue to teach cursive as a local standard, or they may decide to stop teaching cursive altogether...
...'The skill of handwriting is a dying art,' [East Allen County Schools Superintendent Karyle Green] said. 'Everything isn’t handwritten anymore.'...
Winning: The key board wins as students will no longer be assessed on the handwriting style in third and fourth grade
From now on, second-graders will be taught cursive. But students will no longer be assessed on the handwriting style in third and fourth grade.
'We think it’s still important for kids to be able to read cursive,' Hissong said.
'But after that, it begins to become obsolete.'
Andree Anderson of the Indiana University Northwest Urban Teacher Education Program says teachers haven't had the time to teach cursive writing for some time because it's not a top priority...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Since I use an older phonetic alphabet, I would say, "Mike Uncle 7 Yoke 7 2 Willie Victor."
I don’t think cursive was ever actually useful. The best you could ever really hope to get out of your cursive is that your cursive would be so pretty that someone would be impressed and if they were superficial enough would like you because of your pretty hand writing. It’s not faster than printing, it’s not easier than printing, for most people it’s not more legible than printing, it really has always been only useful as a simple substitute for calligraphy.
Thought control will never happen. People are too scatter brained. They’d be there thinking their dictation and then a hot chick shows up on TV then all of a sudden “holy crap are those real” winds up in their contract.
you have to learn print first. Print matches what you see in the real world, the first thing you’re going to learn to write has to be the first thing you’re going to learn to read.
There’s no reason to make a transition to cursive. It was always pointless, it never actually accomplished anything, it was just there to look pretty. It’s the sorority girl of communication methods. You could write something in print just as well to aid memorization, actually it would aid it more because then what you wrote actually looks like the original version of the word you’re trying to memorize.
The only reason it’s “learn this or that” is because the “that” in question is completely and utterly useless and probably should never have been taught in the first place. The only place cursive could ever belong is an art class, because the only point it has ever had was being pretty. Pretty is fine for art class, pretty is without point in the rest of school.
In the modern age of fonts calligraphy is a completely useless skill. I can pop any calligraphy you can do into a font and replicate it in Word in seconds.
Forms say “please print” and the post office asks you to print addresses because those items are read by machine.
> “He feels that his professors appreciated getting exams that were more easily graded.”
Even at its most legible, though, handwriting isn’t as easily graded as printing. Also, if your assistant couldn’t write legibly, she should have printed or typed the message (signed it, and added the office phone number for confirmation).
> “After that I would always have a potential employee writing something in cursive. Poor handwriting was a reason for me not to hire them....It [legible handwriting] is an indication of refinement and education.”
Hardly. You can probably assume that the person has made it through elementary school — or far enough to cover handwriting anyway :-) — and has some manual dexterity, but not much beyond that.
The reason cursive has deteriorated in our population is that children learn to print now, and use printing for several years before cursive is introduced. Then they need to reverse the strokes on many letters. Of course, by then it is **impossible**! They should teach printing with the same essential strokes that will later be used in cursive. If they would do that most children could quickly and **easily** learn cursive.
I would bet, that an examination of letters sent home during WWII and WWI would show near universal mastery of cursive. In two generations the DNA in the U.S. didn't change that much that so many lack the “dexterity”. However, teaching methods have dramatically changed!
The reason people use ( used) cursive is for speed. There is less need to take the pen or pencil off the paper which slows the process. When children use the same strokes for printing that will later be used for cursive, the transition is seamless, very quick, and easy. Children struggle with cursive because they are taught to **print** incorrectly, thus making the transition impossible.
As for calligraphy: It is quick to learn, and useful sometimes, in certain situations, especially when I am not carrying a portable printer around in purse.
Let me think?...Is is better to have more skills that are “pretty” or less? Is ugly better than pretty? Gee! Hard to decide./s
Using a calligraphy font in Word isn’t the same as developing the skill yourself to actually write in calligraphy with your own two hands and using it.
Technology is fine,however it is not the only apex of personal accomplishment.
Reading through your posts here on this subject,I’m wondering if you think the English language should be changed to that Lovecraftian nonsense in your tagline.
I graduated HS in 04. I don’t recall anyone using cursive in HS. Once you got to middle school, it stopped being requirement and maybe the occasional assignment that the teacher wanted in cursive. No one used cursive in college, or in real life that I know of. If it is important it eventually ends up typed, possibly based off some printed notes.
The only item I regulatory use cursive is to sign my name, and even then it is a hybrid of printing, cursive and a squiggly line.
Schools should be focused on skills needed today and in the future, proper typing and grammar.
We will certainly need a “ta ta” filter on the output.
You need to stop making assumptions, especially when they’re basically just thinly masked insults. The need for ad hominems shows you know your position can’t stand on its own logic.
I learned cursive fine, and used it quite extensively for the rest of my schooling. but the minute it was no longer called up by school I stopped because I also learned that it was completely useless. Most letters are more pen strokes than print so it’s slower NOT faster, most writers aren’t as clear when they’re writing it so it’s also slower to read. It has no purpose at all.
As for calligraphy it is never useful, ever, in any situations, ever. Period. Because a calligraphy set is really no easier to carry around than something you printed before you left the house.
Ahh but it is the same for everything that matters, that you now have the document done in this “nice” font. If you want to do it for the sake of art fine, but understand art is art and innately NOT useful. She was claiming calligraphy is actually useful, not that it was art. It’s not useful. Period.
You obviously didn’t read my posts or you’d have seen where I pointed out that the language from the era of Lovecraft is grossly overwrought and inefficient. Actually it was Lovecraft’s dense pages largely lacking white space I specifically had in mind when I said “We no longer use an entire paragraph to say somebody ran away in fear.”
I have no problem with letting students use calculators, but they should first be required to master the basics.
I also use paper to calculate as often as possible just to keep my old brain sharp. Math has given me fits all of my life; my brain is geared more toward language and the visually aesthetic.
You’re 100% correct. I had a friend that was constantly pushing some 19th century high school test as some sort of proof that they were so much more educated in that century. I did rather poorly, but only because 2/3 of the test centered around agrarian units of measure that I’ve never had any reason to learn. He just didn’t get that the test didn’t actually represent a higher level of knowledge, just outdated knowledge.
This would not be an issue except that we have socialist-funded, compulsory, and collectivist managed government schools. If all schooling were private, handwriting would be decided privately between the directors of the private school and the parents. The best practices would win in the private market place.
Personally, I tried to get my children to use the **KEYBOARD** in a proper manner as soon as they were able. Kindergarten is not too early to start. It is very hard for children to unlearn bad typing habits and the easy way is to prevent bad habits by teaching them good typing skills from the very beginning. EARLY! Age 3 or 4 isn’t too young!
Personally, in my own homeschool I taught a method of **PRINTING** that would lead seamlessly into cursive. I tried to prevent bad habits from forming in the PRINTING stages. My 3 homeschoolers had no trouble moving into cursive. THE DO NOT USE IT EXCLUSIVELY, NOR DO I!!! Most of the time I PRINT. It is indeed more easily read. But...Being able to use cursive is a very nice skill to have and my children and I do have reason to use it occasionally.
Cursive **when properly taught** is faster than printing because the pen is rarely lifted from the surface of the paper. But...For you, I believe you when you say that cursive is useless for you and slower. Yes, I agree that illegible cursive is harder to read than printing.
I still maintain that if **printing** is properly taught, ( using the correct stroking) then moving to cursive is a seamless step, and easily learned. If I were selecting a private school, I would be pleased if they taught cursives but it would be low on my list of “must haves” in a school.
Calligraphy is more than using a “calligraphy set”. It is completely possible to use calligraphy principles with an ordinary pen or #2 pencil. I agree with you that it is completely possible to survive life with out it. I do maintain that is a nice skill and refinement for an educated person to possess, and basic calligraphy is easily and quickly mastered by people of normal intelligence and manual dexterity.
Again...Is it better to go through life with more refinement or not? Is it better to have more skills or not?
As I posted previously, my son, who will soon have a masters in accounting, thanked me for teaching him penmanship, both printing and cursive. Not everything that he does is by computer, and he feels that legible and attractive handwriting has been an asset. ( Not a critical asset or an essential asset, but one that is better to have than not.)
I owned and ran a health clinic. We did NOT run to the computer to make labels for every product that was used in the office. We whipped out a pen and labeled it, or dated it, on the spot.
So?....Is is nicer to have clear, neat, easily read, and **beautiful** printing on a label, ( using calligraphy principles) or not? Well...Beautiful is a nice thing to come across once in awhile, especially since beautiful didn't take one nanosecond longer than ugly. It is in this context that I use the word “useful”.
I don't carry a printer in my purse and there are situations when I need to leave someone a handwritten note. Is neat, clear, easily read printing ( using calligraphy principles) or cursive better than ugly? Well...Beautiful and clear is definitely more pleasant to read. It is in this context that I use the word “useful”.
Finally....When I come across someone who has very strong feelings against teaching penmanship to children, these people have been ( without a single exception) those who have terrible handwriting, and struggled in school but failed to learn cursive. This is NOT an ad hominem attack at you. It is my anecdotal observation.
The best practice winds up winning because the kids ignore it. Learning cursive in 1st grade was one of the first times I realized that what they were teaching me in school wasn’t all going to be useful. So I learned it, I did it well enough to pass, I continued to do it as necessary until I got out of school, and I haven’t written that way since because it sucks. That was my internal free market finding the best practice.
So long as you get the right letters out fairly quickly there are no bad typing habits. I had a science teacher in jr high whose self figured out 2 finger typing method had an output almost as fast as the typing instructor. Sometimes people overly obsess on method and forget the point is output. Which is part of the problem with cursive. It’s so obsessed with the “right” strokes it’s forgotten that the point is to put thought to page.
No, cursive cannot be faster than printing, it takes more pen strokes. 50 pen strokes can never be faster than 40. I didn’t say it was for me, cursive is useless PERIOD, for everybody. All it is pseudo calligraphy, it has no useful purpose. All cursive is harder to read because we don’t see it regularly. 99% of the writing we encounter in the world is printed, newspapers, books, signage in stores, billboards, TV, ALL using the same letter set as hand printed; cursive being an outlier alternate letter set thus becomes foreign and requires an additional deciphering step. Add to that the fact that everybody’s cursive is different, even if it’s neat it your cursive doesn’t look exactly like anybody else’s, and not only do reader have to do the normal extra deciphering they have to figure out your customization.
It doesn’t matter if a different method of learning printing makes cursive easier to learn, cursive is still POINTLESS and USELESS and there’s simply no reason to waste a single minute of anybody’s life teaching it to them.
Calligraphy is more than the set. But your sarcastic retort was that it was easier than carrying a portable printer in your purse. So I sarcastically retorted back that printing something with a calligraphy font on a computer before you left was even easier to carry than a calligraphy set. I learned calligraphy. I know all about it. I also know that it’s strictly for art and not actually useful.
Refinement is fine. But that doesn’t make it useful. Penmanship is nice to, but again can be done fine without ever wasting a minute of one’s life on cursive.
It’s a label, the point of a label is to be concise, accurate, and easily read, not to be beautiful. And it most CERTAINLY took you longer to make your labels in calligraphy than it would to just write it in nice plain text. And the advantage if you’d done it on the computer is then it would be permanent, in case you re-arrange things and need to redo all the labels, bam 1 print job.
You keep throwing up this complete silly false choice of beautiful vs ugly. There’s the important middle ground you seem to love to ignore: functional. If you leave me a note for something ALL I care is can I read it. Beautiful is often not clear and not pleasant to read, because it often involves flourishes that distract from the text. Give me the words, make them concise and then we can all move on with our lives.
I never said anything about teaching penmanship. That’s more of you making assumptions. You really like to ass-u-me. I’m against teaching CURSIVE. Good PRINTED handwriting is handy. Cursive, good or bad, is 100% useless.
You are calling me a liar.
If you have the opportunity, if you meet someone who knows basic calligraphy, have them do a demonstration for you. It is just as quick to print something with a ordinary pencil or pen that is clear, easily read, and **attractive**, as it is to do it in ugly manner.
And....Again you are creating strawmen. I **never** stated that **everything** in my office was labeled by hand. Don't be silly! There were times ( such as expiration dates) when it was far faster to merely whip out a pen and use it! Why not do it in a beautiful manner rather than ugly?
Personally, my definition of beautiful penmanship is clear and easily readable.
I’m calling you mistaken. You can’t do calligraphy as fast as plain writing. Again it’s a pen stroke count thing.
BWAHAHAHAHAHHA. That’s funny. YOU, the queen of assumptions that has wrongly stated I didn’t learn cursive until 3rd grade, that I never really learned it at all, that I’m against all penmanship classes, that I have bad handwriting, YOU accusing somebody of erecting strawmen. That’s rich.
And there you go again with that beautiful or ugly junk. The fallacy of the false choice. You’re all logical fallacies all the time. And frankly that’s ugly.
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