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 isnt 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 its 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 ...
They seem to do that here in Accomack County. One of the application requirements for Governor's school is that all three essays must be in the student's own handwriting. That drove my daughter up the wall, especially considering one of the required essays was about computer skills!
Good grief. Teach both. The kids can handle it, there’s a use for both, and different skills are learned by being taught both. My sixth-grader made an easy transition from printing to cursive, and most of his keyboarding skills were picked up on his own.
Like I said it's just wrong to abuse children with a bad grade for performance in an antiquated practice.
Freemason?.............
What the schools should do, instead of adopting an either-or approach, is push touch typing into the required part of the curriculum.
Printing is next, after the super emp bomb. In the meantime keep your laptop safe with acceptable shielding http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Varus_Torvyn/aluminumprofessor.jpg
Cursive came much later and was not, in my estimation, any sort of improvement.
Nope. Signet rings are what people used to use to sign documents.
Cursive being used as a signature is a relatively recent development and appears that it might be short lived.
Aside from a signature, what use is there in the adult world for cursive these days?
Well, if daily use by the average adult is the new metric for what we teach in schools, we oughta be done with the kids by about the 5th grade.
IIRC, Chinese use some kind of ‘stamp’ that is personal to them in design or style that signifies their witness..............
Here's something I can do ~ if you ever took the mavis beacon typing tutorial, or used it to teach others, it has a random letter generator ~ spits out nonsense words. I can type them as fast as copying anything else, or typing on FR. One of the reasons was that practice typing numbers because that random generator throws numbers into the mix.
My kids were encouraged to type by them watching me BEAT THE MACHINES. They do great. Both can barely print or write.
That's an excellent observation and shows how much more meaning is held in the physically written word compared to bits on a screen.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address written on an envelope. I have my grandmother's cookbooks written longhand in Palmer cursive and written items from my parents.
All he could do was make an X by his name to sign checks and documents. Do you want to go back to those days?...................
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So not teaching cursive inexorably leads to illiteracy?
I always thought that cursive was weird, exepting that it was somewhat faster than printing. If speed was the goal they should have just taught everyone one of the clearer shorthand scripts. Having everyone know shorthand would perhaps be much more useful than everyone knowing cursive.
Freegards
Printing can be nice, but a nice 'hand' is far nicer.
I am working on my guitar playing skills, what little they are, and one of the e-mails that came my way was to a fellow who urges to learn to use cursive with your non-dominant hand, while looking in a mirror! Same idea, the activity rewires the brain. He also bounces a golf ball on the head of a hammer, which takes some strength, and some pretty fine eye/hand coordination.
Anyway, the point being that a fine motor skill has benefits beyond the direct application. Who cares if you can write with your non-dominant hand, while looking in a mirror? Or if you can bounce a golf ball on a hammer?
It was traditional during wars for the authorities to take up collections "to finance the war". These rings were usually melted down. Some managed to get saved from a war late in the 1800s, and after WWII.
I'm slower than molasses when it comes to copy typing - but my fingers just fly across the keyboard when doing my own stuff.
I hated typing class in high school because it was on a manual machine and I had been using an electric at home for about 3 years. I barely passed the class due to lack of speed.
Cursive writing is a INDIVIDUAL trait, be it good or bad. It is a sign of INDIVIDUALISM.
That must be destroyed...........Thus sayeth Obama...................
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