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The person who can write by hand, especially "cursive" and is exposed to another person who values the same and is in a higher position will see that writer in a better light than the one who can barely write their name.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that a prospective employer will be more much more concerned with your ability to use MS Office effectively.
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Those who don't see the point in many things often wonder why others do and then complain when those points get points.
Maybe you should write that in cursive...
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Ask anyone who can actually write by hand how many letters or reports they've sent or submitted and then wished they'd never done so. Then ask someone who can barely write their name by hand how many emails or electronic documents they've sent or submitted that they'd pay good money to have back.
I can do both. As long as you proof read what you write, the format is irrelevant. You can write dumb things with pen and paper just as easily. The only difference is that, once the message is sent, the electronic format's response and accompanying lesson is generally much swifter. Meanwhile, the pompous, I-only-write-in-ink types are deluding themselves into believing that the content of their correspondence is somehow heightened due to the fact that they cling to outdated methods.
I love to look at old letters and postcards that usually show beautiful cursive handwriting. As a child, during one summer vacation I used examples from our Encyclopedia Britannica to teach myself an older and prettier form of cursive handwriting that wasn't taught in my school.
I do consider handwriting to be an art form, and I would hate to see cursive writing becoming extinct.
Handwritten reports in some situations are invaluable. Especially in law enforcement, often the reports are hand written and then the final is generated via word processing or other means. The handwritten report though, isn't something easily altered and when the nitty gets really gritty, someone always asks for the handwritten report.
Take two documents, one hand written and one generated via software on a computer or other device. Guess which one has the highest rating for confidence if the authenticity of the report is questioned?
Yes, there are all kinds of digital signatures and certificates that can be used to verify a document but you'd be surprised to find how little such systems are used. Many large government organizations do not use a document management system to track revisions to the original document. Strange but true. Handwritten documents are always a trump card over electronic documents.
With hand written documents you can analyse the document for a variety of factors and ascertain a lot of information from it besides the text. With electronic documents, there is only the text and very little else. Almost all of the meta data contained within electronic documents can be manipulated.
I am not saying that electronic means of writing reports has no place, far from it and this post proves that in some way. I am saying that handwriting still has a place and that those who also see the value in it often give some preference to them and therefore, it is a skill that has value as well.
Notice also that the original handwritten documents can become very valuable and studied since they were created. It is doubtful that any email will gain a similar status. First, there is no original email, everyone of them are just duplicates creates after the first typed out document and even that doesn't exist anywhere.
While I find nicely-written cursive handwriting pleasant to look at, and think that people should probably learn to read cursive, there's no reason to force all children to learn to produce it.
Cursive writing was designed with the presupposition that everyone was right-handed. If you're a lefty, you're giong to struggle (perhaps unconsciously) because the strokes were optimized for people using the wrong hand. Today we strive to make sure that the majority does not dominate the views and interests of minorities in every subject; why should we allow it with handwriting?
I find it strange that the US would abandon cursive joined up writing, indeed in countries such as the UK State Schools are increasingly putting Latin and Greek on timetables for those aged seven upwards.
Okay, so the one point that no one has mentioned yet is that learning cursive takes almost NO TIME. I homeschool my boys and literally 5 minutes a day is how long it takes. I imagine 15 minutes in public school. So everyone is arguing over 15 minutes a day (tops).
I remember spending 30 minutes or more a day (plus homework) in 2cnd or 3rd grade. Those are prime learning years. I could have learned basic Spanish in the same amount of time, which would be vastly more useful in my field, as I wouldn't have had to spend 2 years in HS and 1 year in college on a foreign language. Kids soak up a second language like a sponge at that age.
So perhaps the best answer here is to continue go teach a pared down version of cursive. We use an excellent and easy workbook. Once we are through that, we write a quote of the day. Now we have started a new book, after a six month break after the last workbook ended. When this one ends, we will go back to quotes.
However, just taking out cursive doesn't mean we can just insert a foreign language. You need to hire a specific teacher for that, have a designated room, a lot more (and expensive) curriculum, etc., and a lot of districts can't swing it. I agree, we should be teaching a second language at least in first grade and make it part of every day/every year studies (not once a week like I've seen), but the obstacles to that a much, much larger than cursive.
When it comes to forcing children in schools to learn or produce something, look at all the other things that are done and then to say that handwriting shouldn't be part of that doesn't make too much sense.
We already have a generation of kids that grew up that can't make change without some electronic cash register doing it for them and now a generation of kids growing up that can't communicate without others unless it is done via text message, email or by exposing everything about their lives on Facebook or recounting every second via Twitter.
I thought in all countries which use latin alphabet the cursive writing would be part of the writing class regardless it is a English speaking country or not. I went to school in Turkey and we were taught cursive writing and expected to complete all reports in cursive. Interestingly, my 8 year old is obsessed with cursive writing. They are not learning in the 2nd grade (yet?) but he already made me teach him so he can write his name in cursive on all his homework assignments. I do think, it probably helps with spelling because it makes an imprint in the brain. Same reason why I never took notes on a computer when I was in college. I always retained more information when I was hand writing.
The computer keyboarding is killing my cursive abilities--and I used to have such nice "penmanship." I can hardly write my signature anymore. Makes me sad.
Of course, I rarely use the trig, Latin, or algebra I learned either.
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