IN lawmakers to re-instate mandatory cursive

[Thejebusfire]

I can wright in cursive, but I can't make the letters small enough to fit on lined paper.

I'm better with Calligraphy an tattoo lettering.

[DeadpanDoubter]

Dec 5, 2011 16:53:43 GMT -5 MaybeNever said:

Dec 5, 2011 14:36:52 GMT -5 Old Viking said:

Print is fine. Especially if it's in crayon or magic marker.

For best results, the crayon should be held in the fist rather than the more common tripod grip.

And used upon comically huge paper to send a letter to an uncaring, distant father.

You people make this too easy for me.

[Dragon Zachski]

How is this decision good?

Learning to write cursive doesn't mean you'll learn how to read it, especially considering there's as many cursive styles out there as there are people.

Not to mention that there are several people who, like me, have a disability when it comes to handwriting. It's part and parcel of my Tourrette's. No amount of practice will make it easier.

Cursive is outdated. Printing does everything cursive can better, it's also easier to write, and even if you have bad handwriting, it's still legible!

[Old Viking]

The kids need to be encouraged to write how they personally feel.

If there had been less emphasis on this sort of doo-doo over the past 50 or 60 years, today's schools wouldn't be breeding grounds of semi-literacy and ignorance.

In my entire career as a student, from first grade through graduate school, not a single teacher or professor ever asked me how I personally felt. Mostly because it contributes nothing to the imparting of knowledge, and because it doesn't happen out in the real world.

We've performed this touchy-feely, ego-enhancement nonsense for 50 or 60 years now. All it has gained us is students who fall behind their foreign counterparts from Lower Bumcrack in academic testing.

[starseeker]

I learned a rather odd variant of cursive at school that confuses people, not completing the loops on b and p and z looks like a mutant j. Sole thing I got out of it was a strong preference for fountain pens, because my school didn't care as long as handwriting was legible and not a horrible ugly mess but it had to be done in blue ink fountain pen, no biros or anything.

[RavynousHunter]

@old Viking: On other things like math and language and stuff, I agree. But, handwriting is...kinda trivial, really. Just teach them to write legibly.

[Mlle Antéchrist]

My handwriting (or "cursive", for you Americans) is decent, but I tend to use my own personal combination of printing and handwriting when writing things out, and prefer printing for anything that needs to be very neat and legible.

[Admiral Lithp]

Viking, did your professors ever ask you to think critically?

Okay.

Now how does "write this way because I told you to" help with that?

[N. De Plume]

Back when I was in elementary school, after the second grade we had no real handwriting classes, but we received grades on our handwriting nonetheless. They simply graded the handwriting based on what was displayed in our other assignments. The quality of said handwriting did not affect the grades of the assignments themselves. The handwriting grade only ever showed up on the report card. No boring drills. No over-the-top obsession with maintained quality. Just a quarterly assessment.

On the whole, I think that’s pretty much how it should be, but you have to actually learn how to write it first. Hence the actual classes in second grade.

[The_L]

My random thoughts on the subject (warning: highly disjointed post):

Dec 5, 2011 9:04:32 GMT -5 shykid said:

But is it that ugly blocky stuff that people call “cursive” today?

(My mom has excellent penmanship, and she taught me cursive. I was homeschooled when kids learnt it, so my style is basically identical to the second one. I get compliments on it and told I write “old-fashioned.”)

I refuse to consider that last thing cursive. There is more to it than just "herp, I joined the letters. Derp." It is a distinctive style, and ought to look distinct. I learned #2 in the early 90's.

Dec 5, 2011 12:48:50 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

It's pretty obvious I'm biased here, but it really just strikes me as very pointless to MAKE kids write in a certain way rather than letting them develop a handwriting that suits them best (mine looks like it's halfway between print and script, with some letter combinations joining together and others unconnected, but I was absolutely flat-out FORBIDDEN to write like this until I was in college).

My mother writes like that.


The things that bothered me about learning cursive were:

- We spent a whole two weeks on e's and l's before moving on to anything else. This rankled me for the same reason that not learning any recognizable songs the first 2 weeks of piano lessons irritated me. I wanted to be able to show off my progress, and a pagefull of e's and l's is as worthless for this as sitting there playing C-D-C-D-C all day.

- Cursive Q's and Z's are weird-looking and impossible to remember. I usually write in cursive, but I still print my capital Q's and Z's.

- My penmanship teacher (yes, we had one of those) docked me points for writing some capitals (B, P, and R, I think) in a slightly different style that was easier for me without being any less legible. The purpose of a penmanship class (in those rare places where they still exist) is to encourage legible handwriting. If my handwriting is neat and legible, the fact that I'm using my own personal style shouldn't be an issue.

Cursive is the only form of handwriting that I can do anywhere near as quickly as I can type. Print, I can write maybe 20 wpm, cursive, around 40-50, typing around 60. If I print, it's going to have wrong letters in weird places because my brain is going so much faster than my hands. I only print when I'm writing things on the board, to force myself to slow down for the students' sake.

[Shane for Wax]

I learned what was in the middle.

[Caitshidhe]

Honestly, I don't think forcing kids to do something in school is a way to get them to enjoy and appreciate learning. When something is forced on you, it becomes a chore and there's no enjoyment of it even when it could be a rather enjoyable activity. Think of people who don't like reading--how many of them were put off by being forced to read books in which they had no interest, turning reading into a chore rather than letting them find and read books they would like? I'm quite a voracious reader now but I wasn't when I was little--when I was made to sit for hours and read those asinine teach-kids-to-read books, it became a chore and I resented it just because it was something I was strong-armed into doing. Eventually I did find some books that I enjoyed reading (the 'American Girl' books) and discovered reading could be good fun, but lots of kids are just totally put off of it. Even so, I never really liked being TOLD what to read, like my own choices were somehow inferior. Naturally I had to do summer reading every year but the curriculum changed from year to year. Sometimes we were given a long list of books and told to pick two or three off the list, sometimes we were given a much smaller list, and sometimes were were told we HAD to read books X, Y, and Z. The years I enjoyed summer reading were the years when I could choose what I wanted to read, not the ones I was ordered to read specific books.

Just saying. Making people do something is a good way to make sure they'll NEVER want to do it voluntarily.

[lexikon]

Dec 5, 2011 9:35:24 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

Finally, some good news. I'm practically the only person I know who writes in cursive. It's a dying art.

I don't care if it dies or not. In fact, I think cursive is a horrible way of writing.

I agree that penmanship is important... in print, and schools should have mandatory writing classes. If someone needs to learn cursive to look in a diary of people long ago for historical reference, then they can to that by themselves.

Cursive doesn't need to be taught in schools. Just like the United States customary units

Dec 5, 2011 20:24:48 GMT -5 The_L said:

- Cursive Q's and Z's are weird-looking and impossible to remember. I usually write in cursive, but I still print my capital Q's and Z's.

Can't say I do that more than other letters when writing in curprint, but the s, r, and b, are also really weird...

[Caitshidhe]

Even on the rare occasions I write script, I do all but a few upper-case letters in print because the upper case cursive letters were way too weird and complicated for me to duplicate. (Or I just thought they were ugly--a silly reason, I know, but I never said I made sense.) I could never figure out S, G, Q, or Z. Which is a bit unfortunate since my last name starts with an S.

I feel like I should post a sample of my handwriting or something to prove I don't have chicken scratch. It's actually quite nice.

[Wykked Wytch]

In Washington state, I learned cursive in 3rd grade. They said you had to use it throughout the rest of your school career, but they quickly dropped it because most kids' cursive sucked and was illegible to teachers anyway.