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Stupid! And the excuse is "well kids use computers now so there is no need for it".
Why not stop teaching math and science too since kids can use the computer to do it and look up information.
I live outside of DC and try to visit all the wonderful treasures we have to enjoy, like the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Smithsonian to name but a few. I remember the hours of penmanship in which we learned how to properly write letters in cursive and eventually, write entire pages in it. I honestly didn't believe that it could be such a big deal to take it out of curriculum because electronic signatures are very popular and becoming increasingly so. Sometimes we have to evolve with the times and I accepted that. However, I witnessed things during my last trip that honestly made me sad.
I am all for children and adults being well versed in computers, and although I am not a fan of texting or anything similar to that, I never realized that there were consequences with choosing to stray from the basics many of us grew up learning in school. However, when touring the Archives and visiting and reading through the copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights that there were far too many kids that kept commenting that they couldn't read them. Yes, there are some parts of these documents in which they were treated poorly for so long that the legibility has suffered, so it can be a bit difficult. But...they weren't referring to that, rather to the fact that they didn't know how to read cursive.
Our country was founded by people who painstakingly and admirably wrote out each and every word that we continue to live by yet they cannot read or appreciate them? Do we let go of the very foundation of our country by eliminating the education that allows us to appreciate it like it should be? It wasn't until this visit that I started to think about it and how I want my daughter to be educated. I want her to look at those documents as not just another attraction, place to see tourists, or where fieldtrips go. I know that these documents are typed out as well, but there is just something about being able to read the actual words that the founders put to paper that makes me appreciate it more.
Maybe it is time to go back to basics?
Please. Have you ever tried actually reading 18th century script??? I think not. They formed their letters differently and they spelled many words very differently than we do, primarily because there was no standards for spelling. It's the reader's ability to understand meaning of the words, not his/her ability to translate the words into something comprehensive that's important.
Furthermore, if you're an historian studying the 18th century, you'll learn 18th century script by translating documents a few hundred times or more. You don't have to write it in order to read it. Being able to read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address from the back of the envelop it was written on doesn't make Lincoln's message more powerful, and if it's that important to you to do so, then you'll learn how to do it.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
I understand American History, thank you. I do not understand this fascination with hand writing, however.
Also, please skip the patriotic lecture. Handwriting has absolutely nothing to do with allegiance to our country, however.
Should men now don white powdered wigs and women ankle length dresses to show that we are patriotic?
Well said.
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Originally Posted by lkb0714
Why are the schools responsible for EVERYTHING?
If you want your kid to learn cursive, take ten minutes a day at home and teach them. Its not different than piano lessons, or ballet classes, or whatever.
Case closed.
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Originally Posted by budgetlord
Oddly enough, for some reason many engineers can't spell very well and they go on to have careers just fine.
I don't have much more to say on the subject. I'm actually a big fan of creativity and think that too much technology isn't good. I agree with these points, but we can't keep teaching the way we have using the Industrial Revolution model. Things are changing. I read in the paper the other day about the school district where I live that they are adding more technology to the curriculum.
I do want to address the signature portion as it's been brought up numerous times in this thread. I spent a lot of time developing my signature over the years, and I mean a lot of time. If I was writing notes, I was usually practicing my signature somewhere in the notebook as well. At least in my experience, my signature's origin is completely divorced from anything having to do with cursive, so I don't understand that correlation at all. EDIT: I haven't had to think of it in awhile actually. Perhaps my signature started out as basic cursive, but that was always too plain for me. Most people will just see a scribble when they look at my signature. They won't see the years of development or have any appreciation for the big loop that I added, and that I like. But I have received compliments on my signature before as well.
Don't we have a problem now with educated people who aren't prepared enough for the real world? That's all I'm saying. How will cursive get them there? It's just an open question.
We -- US organizations -- are moving to digital/electronic signatures very rapidly. Authentication software and protocols are being developed all over the web so that people can prove who they are and that they do, in fact, "sign" this agreement even though they are 5,000 miles apart. When all the legal entities get around to accepting digital/electronic signatures, the need for signing your name in cursive will be totally unnecessary. Just for an example, how do you authenticate that it's you using your debit card at the supermarket checkout?
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Originally Posted by davebarnes
Every child should learn how to load and shoot a musket.
Skills needed for hunting and defending the homestead against the English.
I think learning to tack up a horse, mount, and ride off at a gallop would also be useful. Where would we be without Paul Revere's Midnight Ride?
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Originally Posted by nana053
Doesn't anyone take notes in shorthand or speedwriting anymore?
I learned a form of speed writing in high school. I used it a little bit in college but found it was just easier to scribble my notes. Sometimes I wrote cursive, sometimes I printed. I still do that on those occasions when I actually don't type something.
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Originally Posted by Dreadnought
This is probably a personal problem, but I can't read most people's cursive writing. Or sometimes I'll be able to make out parts of it, but there will be parts I can't read which throws off the meaning. I don't remember ever having this problem with print writing though. Also cursive writing is much slower for me to write, but again I am sure this is a personal problem. I would still teach it though. I honestly don't remember spending an excessive amount of time on it to learn when I was in school.
It's NOT. It's very difficult to read other people's cursive handwriting because cursive lends itself to individuality, so what's perfectly legible to the writer may be indecipherable to somebody else -- and that's not taking into account when somebody is writing in a hurry and just scribbles. When I taught school 30 years ago, I saw every kind of bad penmanship imaginable from students who allegedly learned cursive in the lower grades. In self defense, I let kids print if they wanted to because I was teaching ideas and concepts NOT penmanship.
As an historian and an amateur genealogist, don't even get me started on the lousy penmanship and bad spelling of previous generations of Americans. The demise of cursive is no great loss for the general public. If you're an historian or genealogist who needs to learn it, you'll learn it.
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Originally Posted by lvoc
I am sure that I am of the last generation of engineers that was proficient with a slide rule including the more advanced scales. It was a neat skill...but no longer useful. I also can do reasonably advanced celestial navigation...another skill no longer useful.
Cursive will probably do better than those two skills. It has an art piece to it that will let it survive at least in that domain. There is no prettiness to a celestial plot.
LOL. I used to know how to use a slide-rule! I used to be able to do square roots manually, too. It's much more important to know the purpose and use of functions than how to do the functions manually. The same with cursive. It's much more important to know the ideas conveyed by words than to read the individual words in their original form.
For the little mail I send I write it out in cursive.
Today I had to go to the post office and I actually asked the PO lady if reading cursive addresses was a problem.
That will teach me won't it ???
I not only heard about them not being able to read cursive but how many people come into the post office and don't even know how to address an envelope and what goes where on the envelope.
And yes, the younger members of the PO cannot read cursive and they make a pile and the older employees come sort it during the day.
I better start writing my envelopes in block letters from now on.
LOL. I used to know how to use a slide-rule! I used to be able to do square roots manually, too. It's much more important to know the purpose and use of functions than how to do the functions manually. The same with cursive. It's much more important to know the ideas conveyed by words than to read the individual words in their original form.
Actually 40 years ago I could program the recursive routines to do the interesting mathematical functions. These are wonderful things intellectually...you keep calling the same function from inside itself and if you do it right they unwrap to the correct answer.
I doubt many people today know how to do that...I am quite sure I could not without days of hard work.
So one need not go back centuries to be obsolete...
Sorry, but I'm NEVER going to be good at advanced mathematics. Never, ever, ever. It's simply not in my DNA. Even if I understood it, I'll never be good enough at it to do it for a living. Some people cannot write books, they don't have a natural gift for that, but I can.
My algebra classes were a total waste of time. They caused no end of frustration, too. Who the heck cares what x and y are? Numbers and letters have no business being mixed together, anyway. I've never, ever needed it. I've never understood it, either.
That being said, I know that it has to be taught. But that doesn't mean that people are going to use it in their jobs.
Why should everyone do the same jobs? That is a very narrow-minded mindset. There are plenty of engineers who can't get jobs now. Just go check out the Work and Employment Forum.
I don't really care that much about the cursive writing part, but it is ESSENTIAL for a well-educated, well-rounded person to have knowledge of math, science, literature, geography, languages, art, etc. I was an English major/Journalism minor at my university, but I took classes in math (Venn Diagrams, probability, statistics, etc), science, foreign languages, anthropology, sociology, history of film, world geography, speech, etc. Yes, even a math person needs to have knowledge about other subjects!
A person works about 8 hours a day. Even if I spent my days in a math-centric job (which would be a disaster of epic proportions, it's just not ever going to happen, the company would be destroyed and I'd have to kill myself), what would I do with the remaining 8 hours not devoted to sleep? Work algebraic equations? I think not.
Most Americans never read a book. How much they miss! Perhaps I feel that way because I'm a first generation American and my family had a European mindset. My whole family in America -- we are all avid readers! None of us majored in math or science.
I have no interest in watching Honey Boo Boo or the Kartrashians. I read books, I study French on Rosetta Stone, I write, I dream. I'm currently writing two books that I plan to publish soon, and I'm pitching editors on magazine article ideas to editors. I know that if I don't get an agent to take me on as a client, that I can self-publish on Kindle. What a freeing feeling! It's a great time to be a writer!
Besides, all of these subjects contribute to critical and creative thinking skills. My husband is a math and science genius and he went to medical school. All he was doing in his free time when I met him was scrolling the internet. He was the type of person who would use algebra to figure out how much chicken he would have to buy for a recipe .
I guess opposites attract. I now have him reading books (if you can spend hours reading on the Internet, you can read books) -- some physical books, some Kindle books. He is starting to really LOVE it. He's starting to realize what he's missed.
And just in case you think I'm technology phobic, I use Word, Excel (for list-making), Access, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc. I study languages on Rosetta Stone, I am starting to use Scrivener for writing, I use Blogger for blogging using HTML I learned from FrontPage, (I'll move to WordPress soon), and am exploring Kindle publishing (I can upload my manuscript from Scrivener directly to Kindle!) I have an iPhone and a Kindle, and I love them. I write book reviews on Amazon (I just got into the top 10,000 reviewers!) and I use Amazon wish lists to keep track of the books I want. I fully embrace technology, but I'll never be able to program a computer.
Besides, American companies aren't hiring Americans for those jobs not because of a lack of skills but because they can hire foreigners at a cheaper rate. These companies don't care about America. At all.
I must have repped you recently because I can't do so now. I really liked this post. I could go on and on about the value of art and the humanities.
I too was surprised to find out my son would not be learning to write in cursive. I took it for granted that it was a skill he needed, but his teachers pointed out how much more prevalent and useful keyboarding skills are. I had to take typing in junior high and learn the ASDF routine (which I don't use). Some women older than I am took stenography and shorthand. Did they even teach that to boys? Anyway, he'll still learn to read in cursive and sign his name, but they don't make the children learn to write it anymore. Whoever compared cursive to calligraphy was apt. It's not any more difficult to learn to read one than the other.
I'll also point out that neither my dad (engineer) nor my husband (programmer) could write in cursive if his life depended on it. They both write in block print.
I too was surprised to find out my son would not be learning to write in cursive. I took it for granted that it was a skill he needed, but his teachers pointed out how much more prevalent and useful keyboarding skills are. I had to take typing in junior high and learn the ASDF routine (which I don't use). Some women older than I am took stenography and shorthand. Did they even teach that to boys? Anyway, he'll still learn to read in cursive and sign his name, but they don't make the children learn to write it anymore. Whoever compared cursive to calligraphy was apt. It's not any more difficult to learn to read one than the other.
To write cursive well (legibly), you have to practice it a lot, and there is simply no benefit from having that ability that justifies using part of the school day for that practice. It makes much more sense to use the class time that would be wasted on learning/practicing cursive writing on learning/practicing keyboarding or other skills.
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Well said.
. 
I now have him reading books (if you can spend hours reading on the Internet, you can read books) -- some physical books, some Kindle books. He is starting to really LOVE it. He's starting to realize what he's missed.