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Regarding the ' Thank God we have computer's ' crowd, do you believe we should stop teaching math and history also? My computer covers those subjects better than any teacher could. Maybe reading itself is becoming obsolete. Almost any document can be read by the computer or a mobile device. Why bother to learn to use the keyboard? My Google Home responds faster to my verbal queries than most anyone could input manually.
Just because technology makes our lives easier, we should not let it make us lazy and ignorant. To the teachers who applaud the demise of cursive, be careful what you wish for. Many people are now getting online education. Soon you may be as antiquated as handwriting.
I'm not sure if it has any benefit. I have very nice handwriting, both cursive and print. If I am trying to write quickly, my hand just automatically goes into script. I guess if you have to hurriedly take notes all of the time cursive might be of a benefit but otherwise that NYT article isn't very convincing.
I did learn some calligraphy before but that was actually part of art class in JHS. I enjoyed it but no way would I want to have to write things down like that everyday!
With more and more students diagnosed with dyslexia, cursive can be a real plus for them (as well as the rest of us, even if some of us don't like it because it's haaaarrrrdddd and, after all, we have keyboards now and should be totally dependent on something that's totally dependent on electricity).
I have pretty darn nice cursive - my entire high school career we were required to use fountain pens. In fact I still use fountain pens at work as I choose to write on pads instead of type.
However, given the limited instruction time in classrooms, and the need for computer skills - certainly typing, I cannot see any reason for a school to be teaching it in 2017. Its fine as a hobby.
I handwrite faster than most people can write cursive. And the link does not say taking notes by cursive, just by writing by hand. Again, why does it need to be cursive?
Handwrite is really the generic term. You can handwrite using cursive or handwrite using printing. Some people handwrite using a combo - with just a few letters but not all joined.
Because writing is a useful skill. Aside from it being a social skill like writing personal Thank You notes, many jobs require writing field reports, writing instructions, writing prescriptions, writing comments, etc. You can't haul your little printer everywhere you go.
How exactly does that require cursive?
Btw, no pharmacist wants a script written in cursive.
When I was a child, I wrote in cursive because my teachers told me to - since there was nothing for me to 'sign', there was literally other reason.
As a young adult I entered into my undergrad life as an architecture student. Because it was so important that my printing be highly legible, I practiced until my writing was almost machine like - it was rare that the characters I printed were not extremely regimented and uniform. At that time, the only cursive I used was in writing love letters to my girlfriend; but after a while even they were being printed because I was so good at it and I felt it was much clearer. Signing my name became the only use of cursive.
When I switched over to Information Technology I printed even more as I coded - first on paper, and then in the punch machine - as computer time was very expensive and could not be wasted on designing code. A punch machine that was not occupied by another programmer was a rare find and you were better off designing, writing out and testing your programs on paper. My cursive because less legible because I was so busy printing everything; and no, no one wrote out their programs using cursive. My instructors were always highly impressed though at how neat and orderly my written code looked.
As time passed I stopped using cursive writing altogether as it served no real purpose and even my signature became less cursive and more squiggly lines. My writing style was not evolving away from cursive - as some here suggest because I was lazy - it was because I was busy. To write well using cursive or block printing take practice - lots of it and between school and two or sometimes three jobs, I did not have time for the indulgence of cursive print.
During the 34 years of typing to create programs, typing to document programs, typing to create reports and memos and typing for just about everything else, I found that my handwriting - even my printing went south. I found along the way that if I needed to use ink and paper, I'd best to take my time to concentrate with a good pen that flowed well and fit my big fist to print a good letter. If I needed a lettering style that looked "classy," all I needed to do was select an appropriate font. Cursive was officially dead.
Now that I am retired, I can never find any reason for cursive. The only reason I have for printing is to take quick notes from someone while I am on the phone or to write into my "inventor's logbook."
This argument about the "need for cursive" reminds me of the arguments for the need for coal. They are both unnecessary for the most part and only desired by people for the sake of nostalgia or some sense of personal superiority.
In the future as we transition from keyboards to some kind of telemetry and move from a generation of 7 finger typists the people who are now being forced to study in this "revival of cursive" will curse those who made them study something that will be even less useful.
Technology and progress rarely has good reason to move backwards.
Last edited by blktoptrvl; 03-13-2017 at 12:13 PM..
Maybe typewriters and 8-tracks can make comebacks, too.
And those who like typewriters and 8-tracks can cheer, and try to come up with some objective reason that that is a good thing - rather than just admitting that they like those things and so want them foisted on everyone, because that wound sound every bit as ridiculously self-absorbed as it is. I'm sure it'll start by explaining that society goes to hell in a handbasket and western civilization falls when typewriters and 8-tracks - you know, like cursive - are discarded lost.
From a very practical perspective, I like Cursive. I am almost 30, and I write/take notes almost exclusively in cursive.
From first grade through fifth grade, I was pulled out of class or made to stay in at recess to work on handwriting.
It is probably a lack of fine motor skills.
But these problems began to solve themselves when we started using cursive. It allowed me to write more quickly and legibly at the same time.
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