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Old 07-28-2016, 11:06 AM
 
Location: Kentucky Bluegrass
28,850 posts, read 30,106,770 times
Reputation: 19029

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Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent View Post
Definitely not today, although as a bit of personal trivia, my grandmother attended a business college in the early '40s in which handwriting was a major part of the curriculum. She landed a job at the hospital as an assistant to the adminstrator, largely because her handwriting was exquisite. She worked her way up to head of HR. I still have every birthday card she ever sent me, and even into her nineties, she wrote perfect Palmer method script.


and that's the way I came up and very proud of it....
and not only can I sign my own name, I can write the whole Constitution of the U.S. and speak Spanish and Italian...after I waited tables, worked in a clothing mill...a bakery, and construction...

mock away....
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:09 AM
 
Location: The analog world
17,077 posts, read 13,276,799 times
Reputation: 22904
Quote:
Originally Posted by cremebrulee View Post
recite trivia on command? I believe your taking it to a whole other level of "Exaggeration" just for arguments sake, but that's typical...isn't it...and learn Spanish, instead of Latin...huh...so, you no longer have a choice...and writing cursive...hmmmm, wonder who is going to sign their mortgage papers, or their marriage papers, or whatever....let alone, that job "cursive writers needed". Gosh...
They teach just enough that students can read original sources written in script, plus basic handwriting, but keyboarding has taken over the time allotted in past years for cursive practice. My children have adopted a connected print that, interestingly, looks very much like what my husband learned during his primary years in England. Even as someone who was officially taught proper cursive in elementary school, my handwriting has evolved into the same type of connected print the rest of my family uses. It's perfectly acceptable for legal documents, if that's even required. In an era of PDFs, an electronic signature, consisting of your type-written name, often suffices.

As an aside, my kids took Latin.
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:11 AM
 
Location: Pacific Beach/San Diego
4,750 posts, read 3,547,810 times
Reputation: 4614
Quote:
Originally Posted by cremebrulee View Post
I can write the whole Constitution of the U.S.
Education shouldn't be teaching rote memorization. The days of being able to recite the Gettysburg Address is over, and it should be.

What students should be taught is how to distinguish a fact from an opinion. Ninety percent of the people on this board should go back to school to learn that as well.
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:12 AM
 
Location: Kentucky Bluegrass
28,850 posts, read 30,106,770 times
Reputation: 19029
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent View Post
They teach just enough that students can read original sources written in script, plus basic handwriting, but keyboarding has taken over the time allotted in past years for cursive practice. My children have adopted a connected print that, interestingly, looks very much like what my husband learned during his primary years in England. Even as someone who was officially taught proper cursive in elementary school, my handwriting has evolved into the same type of connected print the rest of my family uses. It's perfectly acceptable for legal documents, if that's even required. In an era of PDFs, an electronic signature, consisting of your type-written name, often suffices.

As an aside, my kids took Latin.
wonderful!!!

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Old 07-28-2016, 11:15 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,151,378 times
Reputation: 13779
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent View Post
Definitely not today, although as a bit of personal trivia, my grandmother attended a business college in the early '40s in which handwriting was a major part of the curriculum. She landed a job at the hospital as an assistant to the adminstrator, largely because her handwriting was exquisite. She worked her way up to head of HR. I still have every birthday card she ever sent me, and even into her nineties, she wrote perfect Palmer method script.
I was a school teacher for several years back in the 1970s and early 1980s, and I can still write a decent cursive script except that I just don't bother. I type almost everything except for the few checks I write every month. When I do hand write something, I print. My guess is that within a decade, even signing your name will largely be replaced with some kind of electronic signature that depends upon facial recognition or other id software. Cursive is going the way of cunieform.
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:25 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,151,378 times
Reputation: 13779
Quote:
Originally Posted by cremebrulee View Post


and that's the way I came up and very proud of it....
and not only can I sign my own name, I can write the whole Constitution of the U.S. and speak Spanish and Italian...after I waited tables, worked in a clothing mill...a bakery, and construction...

mock away....
Memorization of the words of the US Constitution isn't the point. Understand the meaning and spirit of those words, especially those in the Bill of Rights, is what important, like the Fifth and Eighth Amendments which require due process and prohibit cruel and unusual punishments.
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:29 AM
 
Location: The analog world
17,077 posts, read 13,276,799 times
Reputation: 22904
If I really concentrate, I can do a passable formal script, but, like you, I rarely bother. I certainly don't consider it an attribute of an outstanding education. My grandmother may have had gorgeous handwriting and been a lovely, motivated, and hard-working woman, but I do not recall her being particularly knowledgeable about history and/or politics. She probably would not have remembered John Hinckley's name either.
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Old 07-28-2016, 11:42 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,753,718 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent View Post
Unless one is a history major in college, it's not a significant part of a student's course of study. Universities may require a history class or two as part of Gen Ed requirements, but otherwise, that's about it. I took two classes prior to entering my degree-specific coursework: European history and state history. Of them, I found the state history course more enjoyable, and I definitely retained more information from it. I still have the textbooks and refer to them frequently in my family history research. Nothing will firm up your knowledge of history more than studying your family's genealogy.
ITA with this and especially the bold. I have always been a history nerd since I read Frederick Douglass' narrative when I was 9 years old. I got into genealogical research when I was about 15-16 years old and since I have gotten REALLY into it, I've learned a TON about our country's history. It is interesting to see how ordinary people in our families connect with extraordinary times and events.

I recently discovered that one of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution and via studying my local area and my great grandparents generation, I found out a LOT about the history of our local area in regards to discrimination faced by many ethnic Europeans and black Americans in the area which dictated where they could live and what types of employment positions they could hold, many of which were surprising to me being that I am from "the north" (Ohio) and I never thought that my great grandparents (who were black) had so many discriminatory policies and ordinances in particular that dictated where they could live and work from the 1920s through the 1960s. When you think of discrimination, people mention "the south" and fail to acknowledge that this sort of thing was widespread. Many Polish immigrants and their children/grandchildren even changed their last names in order to be able to get jobs because of the discrimination they faced. Germans in our area used to speak German in their places of worship, at home, and even in public schools but after WW1 speaking German was seen as "unAmerican" and especially by WW2 people of German heritage lost their language and many parts of their culture as a result.

History is a very fascinating subject and no one can learn everything about it IMO.
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Old 07-28-2016, 04:49 PM
 
Location: Camberville
15,798 posts, read 21,318,694 times
Reputation: 28025
Quote:
Originally Posted by cremebrulee View Post


and that's the way I came up and very proud of it....
and not only can I sign my own name, I can write the whole Constitution of the U.S. and speak Spanish and Italian...after I waited tables, worked in a clothing mill...a bakery, and construction...

mock away....
Why would anyone mock? That's great! But the world is different now. I'm 28 and have never once been asked to write cursive aside from signing my name, but you damn well better be able to code in basic HTML and know how to create a macro or pivot table in Excel for even entry level employment.

Our education system has moved away from rote memorization, which is wonderful. Even as a kid, it bothered me that my teachers were more concerned that I could recite the Pledge than that I knew what a pledge even was. I could never memorize lines of text, but I could tell you all about the symbolism, allusions, and historical significance of things which is much more important for critical thinking. It's one of the great ways our education system has evolved! Competition domestically and internationally has never been higher and while memorization has its place, it doesn't cut it anymore.

Maybe this is the division in this discussion. For you, memorizing facts and figures and text was heavily promoted and valuable. For most of us under 30, and especially under 20, that type of way of learning is less valuable and is much less of a focus in the school system. It doesn't make you any less intelligent, just like not knowing the name of a fairly minor character in history doesn't make kids today any less intelligent. Personally, I'm much more proud that I can analyze a poem than if I could recite it. Different values.


And I speak Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and enough Icelandic and Hebrew to get by. A point of interest on my resume ("tell me about ICELAND!" is almost always my first interview question, and I like it that way), but only Spanish has ever mattered.
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Old 07-28-2016, 05:00 PM
 
Location: Sonoran Desert
38,983 posts, read 50,940,042 times
Reputation: 28171
Why would/should they know anything about Hinckley? Things that happen before you are born are ancient history to which you simply don't relate. Do you old geezers know anything of substance about Hoover?
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