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Why the Education Establishment Hates Cursive
American Thinker ^ | December 23, 2016 | Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted on 12/23/2016 5:03:55 AM PST by Kaslin

Modern educators are dismissive of cursive. Indeed, many are hostile to such a degree that you should immediately suspect that they are up to something.

Here is an education journalist providing the Party Line: "Cursive writing is an anachronism. Spending any classroom time on it is comparable to teaching how to use an abacus: it's interesting as a history lesson, and probably offers some side benefits, but it is not at all practical as a day-to-day skill in the modern, connected world."

A professor of education argues: "Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades." (You can depend on education professors to confuse "decades" with "centuries.")

When you read such swaggering attacks on cursive, you might assume that the question is settled. The old geezer is dead, so take him off life support. You rarely see thoughtful praise of cursive. Even people who are sentimentally inclined to support cursive can't think of many reasons to do so.

I propose a higher truth: the Education Establishment is always a reliable guide to what is good. If our socialist professors rail against X, you know that X is educational gold. Here are eight reasons why cursive is valuable and we should fight to keep it in the classroom:

1) LEARN TO READ FASTER. The main thing is that learning cursive accelerates learning to read. If it did nothing else, this alone would still make it a huge asset. Cursive obviously makes a child more aware of letter forms and how words are spelled. Don Potter, the phonics guru, states: "Any attempt to educate American children that neglects the direct development of fluent handwriting is doomed to fail. The little dribble of handwriting done with the typical phonics programs is FAR below optimal."

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: cursive; horseandbuggy; idioticrant; idiotprofessor; leftismoncampus; obsolescence; silliness
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To: sparklite2

“Cursive isn’t the only way to write things down.
Printing is usually more legible, anyway.

Very true.

But I really was referring to writing something down as opposed to using a keyboard.


141 posted on 12/23/2016 11:06:09 AM PST by Paulie (America without Christ is like a Chemistry book without the periodic table.)
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To: Neidermeyer
... the gift list was right there on the refrigerator IN SHORTHAND...

I can imagine your frustration

142 posted on 12/23/2016 11:18:30 AM PST by tomkat
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To: Kaslin
Honestly, I think it would be rather sad to have a nation of adults who can only print their names, or letters they might write. Learning cursive is a step toward being a mature adult.

My POV on the subject is that the union members that call themselves "teachers" actually don't want to take the time to teach this particular skill.

I sent my daughters to Catholic school, 1-12. When my eldest was in 3rd grade (I think) they were going to be instructed in cursive. My eldest brother, a teacher, snarkily said that Mrs Rhodes (my eldest daughter's teacher) was going to be disappointed. I guess he didn't realize that Mrs. Rhodes, an Irish immigrant, had been teaching this level of student for many years, including teaching them cursive.

I believe I read something (its been a while) that said that adult education classes for learning cursive writing were very popular.

143 posted on 12/23/2016 11:47:22 AM PST by LibertarianLiz
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To: Kaslin
forging a name is now child's play
144 posted on 12/23/2016 4:14:18 PM PST by Chode (You Owe Them Nothing - Not Respect, Not Loyalty, Not Obedience, NOTHING! ich bin ein Deplorable...)
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To: Kaslin
I stopped writing in cursive in the 1970s because my handwriting was so unattractive I couldn't bare to look at it.

I've been printing everything I write for almost 40 years.

Curiously, one of my brothers, who has artistic talent, also prints everything.

And my Dad, who took several mechanical drawing classes in school, had cursive handwriting that looked like type set printing with lines that attached each letter to the letters around it.

145 posted on 12/23/2016 5:00:18 PM PST by zeestephen
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To: Always A Marine
The reason we are even able to DISCUSS the relative 'value' of cursive vs block letters is due to the invention of printing and individual characters instead of woodcuts.

The ability to quickly reuse the type over and over again sped the flow of information much like the web has.


Even though we've had no problems with cursive up until now, when we DID have a firm grasp on it most every store sign was written in block letters.

Every newspaper published is in block letters - every book.

Typewriters took over the; shall I say; arduous task placing the boss' words onto paper.

Accurate information transmission needs a consistency about it that cursive just cannot provide.


Cursive...

Learn it?
Yes.

An end-all and be-all?
No.

146 posted on 12/23/2016 8:10:38 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: oh8eleven
With no knowledge of cursive, the past would remain hidden forever.

This can be said about ancient Egyptian; too.

Or Mayan.


In the future, Cursive will be no more important than Helvetica, or Times New Roman

147 posted on 12/23/2016 8:15:04 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MayflowerMadam
...then future generations won’t be able to read the founding documents.

Is it REALLY that necessary to do that instead of being able to read the EXACT SAME THING printed in New Courier?

148 posted on 12/23/2016 8:17:21 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Well, as long as you don’t want to read your parents letters to each other or notes on the back of photos or your grandmother’s recipes or old census forms or court records or that hand written will the old guy down the street made that left everything to you, yes, cursive is dead.


149 posted on 12/23/2016 8:18:58 PM PST by Duchess47 ("One day I will leave this world and dream myself to Reality" Crazy Horse)
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To: DuncanWaring

Things SNAP together for speed of AUTOMATIC assembly!


150 posted on 12/23/2016 8:19:21 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: tomkat
Back in the day there was a concensus amongst most all us carpenters that architectural students' mandatory first year should be spent working on a construction crew.

Likewise; all electronic engineers should be required to actually REPAIR stuff before being allowed to DESIGN stuff!


There was great value in the apprentice programs of the day!

151 posted on 12/23/2016 8:21:59 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: zeugma
I sometimes want to slap folkd who don’t uncover in church.

Ain't tradition fun!!


 1 Cor 11
 
 Note the following verses...

11:5-- “but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head--it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved.”

11:6-- “For if a woman will not cover herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should keep it covered.

11:7-- “ A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.

11:10-- “For this reason a woman ought to have [a symbol of] authority on her head”

11:13-- “Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?”

11:15-- “but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory.  For long hair is given to her as a covering.

152 posted on 12/23/2016 8:28:55 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Mariner

What’s a tube?

What is an All American Five?


153 posted on 12/23/2016 8:30:37 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Charles H. (The_r0nin)
Only the foolish would discount this difference without understanding what else it may affect.

such as...?

154 posted on 12/23/2016 8:31:48 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Nifster

Can’t sing?

There’s always https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune


155 posted on 12/23/2016 8:35:41 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: zeestephen
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
 
 
 
Surely SOMEONE is now happy!

156 posted on 12/23/2016 8:44:02 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Duchess47
I'm quite sure that I printed any letter to my daughter's mother that I may have written to her. I sure didn't record on tape any CALLS that I made to her.

We put Tags on 'photos' these days and Gramma baked a cake from a box.

The executor can do all the interpreting I need in that will.

157 posted on 12/23/2016 8:49:26 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

You’re lucky, my parents wrote to each other, my grandmother wrote her recipes out, my father wrote notes on the pictures he took in Europe in WWII.


158 posted on 12/23/2016 8:57:16 PM PST by Duchess47 ("One day I will leave this world and dream myself to Reality" Crazy Horse)
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To: Elsie
Much has been said about the efficiency of the Volksempfänger as a propaganda tool. Most famously, Hitler's architect and Minister for Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer, said in his final speech at the Nuremberg trials:
Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship [...] which made the complete use of all technical means for domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.[5]

However, despite Speer's claim, both Mussolini's Italy and Stalin's Russia had used radio as a tool to influence the masses long before Hitler's rise to power.[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempf%C3%A4nger

 

 

Now we have 'fake' news from the MSM and social media arena!!

159 posted on 12/23/2016 9:10:33 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Kaslin

I actually end up with a hybrid between cursive and print. And not just some words in a sentence being one or the other but individual words might be both.


I do that with other things. Like when counting to ten in French, I always switch to Spanish at some point. I also switch between different accents and dialects when I talk. I don’t intend to do it but it happens all the time.


160 posted on 12/23/2016 11:01:05 PM PST by CARDINALRULES (Tough times never last -Tough people do. DK57 --RIP 6-22-02)
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