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Cursive writing must be taught in the early years of a child's life, before they are of the age to think about electives.
Like language, cursive writing is best learned young. It is an art form that connects the hand, eye, and brain. It is to the eye what note-music is to the ear. By that I mean there are rules, repetitions, and understanding associated with the written word, analogous to the those of written music. Printing is the bare minimum, sort of like someone who can read music but can't carry a tune.
Of course that is true of the 'standard' brain. Some people, for example those who are dyslexic, may find cursive enormously difficult. If that is the case, then they can skip learning to write cursively.
After reading this thread..I am now officially depressed ! IF cursive writings become obsolete..I fear true expression will be lost. Cursive writing entails not just making a statement..It's expression of feelings, passion amongst so many other things!! The style of written word translates to those who read it..Typed words, or checklists do not convey the whole picture nor meaning of a text or email..no way can reader of it can sense the feelings behind the typed word..written word YES....Verbal is above that..BUT it appears that most tend to tweet..send emails instead of actually talking nowadays!!
Communication is important..so IF it gets downloaded to 110 characters..or to email or typed messaging..I fear Civilized world is doomed..especially when trying to express some true sentiment to someone else..letters, books, diaries and so on!! I truly hope Cursive writings and communicating does NOT Stop EVER!!
ETA~~ Ohh yeah...Personal penned notes/letters possess character..writing style of letters and so on..I still have notes and letters my mom wrote and she died over 25 years ago..I look at her script writing and smile..It's personal..NOT digital!! Just thought I would add that.
The last time I had to read/write cursive was in the third grade (~1987). I think the time spent teaching cursive would be better utilized teaching general problem solving skills in a group setting.
Cursive, and writing in general, is a more intimate thing than typing. And you don't need to carry around an electronic, just a small pencil/pen. So it is useful, and you can get more creative.
Writing things out by hand not only improves hand-eye coordination, fine-motor skills and so on, but it forces you to organize your thoughts differently. hitting keys on a keyboard with the option to cut, paste, delete, etc. just isn't the same. You have to think ahead more to avoid having to start over, AND you have to make it legible at the same time.
For God's sake, from this thread you'd think western civilization rises and falls based on cursive writing...
It's just a skill, that's all. And it's a skill of decreasing utility. One could make the same grandiose claims about calligraphy being a grand unifying force of all things learned. But that wouldn't change the fact of its limited utility. Times change. Half the population no longer needs to know how to milk a cow. Can't use a slide-rule? Doesn't matter one iota. Don't know how to take a reading with a sextant? That doesn't matter, either.
This would all be fine if school days were filled with spare time just looking for some skill, any skill, to fill empty hours, but they're not. There's never enough time to learn even the valuable skills. Learning skills of marginal talents just because the previous generation waxes nostalgic over them simply is not a wise allocation of limited time resources.
Can only provide first hand experience in this case but here it is:
I compose text at work all day. Both brief and detailed. Some keyed into the computer, or hand printed on sticky pads or in script(cursive) for my daily log book. I can always recall in detail what I wrote in my log book because of the concentration involved in composing script.
I notice similar at University that hand written notes in script where easier to recollect details than text keyed into a computer. Writing in print is too slow compared to script.
NB: I believe I read above that long division is no longer taught as well. I am surprised as I still use it.
"We with this ancient knowledge are called Scarabs, the rest are just manure beetles". (Adapted from Pelevin)
In seriousness, I think a study was done that indicated that taking notes by hand (to be fast enough to be practical almost requires cursive) led to better learning during lectures than keyboarding in notes.
Most of my elementary and high school teachers were not very skilled or gifted, was not taught cursive very well, but I did learn it after a fashion. Certainly, I could do some self-study and improve my penmanship, but hard to find the time to do that, when I get free time I always seem to have a higher priority task.
As to trading the time in for say a foreign language - I would prefer the foreign language if it could be had for the same amount of time from the same already-available teacher - but in reality this trade off is not zero sum.
This thread inspired me to write my first cursive sentence in many years on my little notepad here. Looks horrible. I couldn't even remember what a capital 'E' looks like.
When I was in school, if I remember correctly, cursive was first taught around 2nd grade and required by all of my teachers through 8th grade. It seems to have been high school where the teachers no longer demanded it, and thus I suppose I got lazy and sort of lost it. Kinda sad...my grade school and JH teachers always complimented my penmanship.
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(Adapted from Pelevin)
