The most important issue of our day!

[pendell]

I refer , of course, to the fight to keep cursive as a writing system (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/14/the-latest-common-core-fight-cursive-and-common-core-is-losing-in-some-states/) .

Put me on the other side from the author of the article. So far as I'm concerned, cursive writing can die in a fire. It took me forever to learn it compared to printing, and it's messy. One printable alphabet should be enough for everyone, I think. And when taking shorthand I can write out printing faster than cursive and more legibly too.

So as far as I'm concerned, cursive is a bad idea that has long overstayed its welcome, and I would be happy if it was shot into the sun on a rocket.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I hate cursive too. So many people write signatures in it, but I have to focus so much on just writing in cursive that I write mine in print, so that I can get a little something called my actual handwriting.

Why are they comparing cursive to typing anyway? They should obviously be comparing it to print. If they want us to undergo more difficult challenges to improve our brain, then we may as well memorize books and then burn them so we'll have better memory. Who cares what the constitution is written in? It was written in whatever was commonly used at the time. What if it was written in 12th century English?

[BWR]

I disliked learning it, but am very glad I can do it now. Sure, my handwriting is **** either way, but with cursive it's quick and easy **** rather than having to write individual letters slowly one by one.

Exactly two of my acquaintences do not use cursive. One just writes all caps and does so amazingly fast, the other is dyslexic.

[The_Snark]

When I was young and learning cursive, I was told that cursive writing would be an extremely important life skill. I was lied to. (Well, that's a little unfair; computers weren't nearly as widespread back then, and I don't think the implications had quite sunk in.)

I can see how cursive served a useful role before computers became widespread: it's slightly faster, so it helped people whose jobs involved a lot of writing to be more efficient. If I were writing a novel by hand, or transcribing interviews in a notebook all day, I'd probably want to know cursive! But these days, most of those jobs are going to be done on a computer. You don't need to learn cursive to send letters in the mail, keep a grocery list, take notes in class, or do other everyday things. The slight increase in speed just isn't worth the extra time needed to learn a second writing system unless you do a lot of writing, and if you do that much writing you're probably better off typing.

I haven't written in cursive since the age of... 10? 12? Something like that. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how, though I can still read it with a bit of effort. My print handwriting is legible and reasonably fast; cursive serves no useful purpose in my life.


Who cares what the constitution is written in? It was written in whatever was commonly used at the time. What if it was written in 12th century English?

Yeah, at that point in the article I was thinking that the original Magna Carta isn't legible to modern Brits either. Language drift is a thing that happens.

[Aedilred]

Depending what you mean by cursive - I'm going to assume we mean "joined-up writing" - then I consider being able to write it the second-most valuable skill I possess, after reading. I was astonished when I spent a semester at a US school that people were impressed I could do it and that most of them were still printing. I don't recall actually being taught to write in "printed" form; I guess I was at some point but at a very early stage of my writing tuition, probably before I went to school. If I try to write in printed form myself - which I don't often do - I find it desperately slow, and if I encounter it I find it looks rather childish.

Typing is also a valuable skill, obviously, and time should be devoted to teaching that too. But there are all sorts of reasons that I won't go into here that I don't think it's enough.

[Mauve Shirt]

Yeah, I use cursive when I sign things, though I now sign so many things that the cursive is bastardized. My chicken scratch is good enough for me to read, and no one else reads notes I hand-write.

[Elemental]

In my opinion, cursive is a valuable tool in the development of each person's own unique handwriting.
I could go on about how printing lacks grace and elegance, qualities so overlooked in these times, but that's highly subjective. But what I will say is; both methods should be taught so a person can have a wide variety of available ways of writing things to suit the purpose at hand, and in time, develop their own hand.
That is how art is taught, and handwriting is an art in its own right. Cursive offers an added opportunity to find the way you like best.

[Haruki-kun]

I think it's not entirely important to teach children cursive, but honestly, I don't see the educational system being so pressed for time to teach people stuff that something really needs to be dropped right this instant. Let's compromise: Drop cursive from the main part of school and turn it into an art-related subject. Kids take art and music already, both classes are unlikely to be "useful" for most of them in a professional career (art majors aside).


Sure, my handwriting is **** either way, but with cursive it's quick and easy **** rather than having to write individual letters slowly one by one.

Exactly two of my acquaintences do not use cursive. One just writes all caps and does so amazingly fast, the other is dyslexic.

Same here. My hand gets less tired when writing cursive and it goes faster. But that's likely because I learned cursive first. And I hated print, because I switched schools to a school that didn't teach children cursive first and was forced to learn to write in print (I knew how to read it just fine, but it's not the same as getting used to writing it).

And guess what? If you're writing it, there's absolutely no advantage to print. The only reason we use print is because, well, we print stuff now. So really... I think leave cursive in. It's cultural and artistic education.

Oh, and "kids hate it" is not a good argument, or else we'll have to discuss dropping math.

[Starwulf]

I'm on the keep it side. It has it's purposes in modern day life still. Plus, it's so much quicker then printing. If people start printing their names every time they use their credit cards, lines in Wal-Mart are going to get horrendously longer.

As a quick test, I just Signed, and then printed my name. Timing myself with my computer clock

Signed: 5 1/2 seconds(just as I was putting pen down it clicked to the next sec)
Printed: 8 1/2 seconds.

That's a fairly large difference, and that was me signing my name normally, but printing my name as fast as possible...hmm, let me see how long it takes doing the opposite.

Signed: 4 1/2 seconds
Printed: 10 seconds.

Interesting results. So normal speeds were 5 1/2 and 10, fastest were 4 1/2 and 8 1/2. A 4 second difference, so 15 people for one full minute wasted. According to Wal-mart company statistics, they serve 100m people a week, or 14mil people a day. So if 14mil people all print their name instead of sign it, approximately(by my speed, obviously it varies), 56mil seconds are wasted every day, or a grand total of 93,333 hours a day wasted. That is a LOT of wasted hours spread out over JUST ONE COMPANY, if Cursive were to be eliminated and everyone started printing their names. I don't know about you, but the lines are long enough at Big Box Stores, I don't want to be standing in line that much longer just to get my items.

[TheThan]

In my opinion, cursive is a valuable tool in the development of each person's own unique handwriting.
I could go on about how printing lacks grace and elegance, qualities so overlooked in these times, but that's highly subjective. But what I will say is; both methods should be taught so a person can have a wide variety of available ways of writing things to suit the purpose at hand, and in time, develop their own hand.
That is how art is taught, and handwriting is an art in its own right. Cursive offers an added opportunity to find the way you like best.

I agree and disagree with this.

On one hand, learning how to write (aka communicate) in multiple ways is a very important skill. I also agree that handwriting can be a form of art.
However I think that cursive is a holdover from an older time before people had the capacity to communicate electronically. Now most people communicate electronically and verbally.

I mean, just compare how many letters do you hand write throughout the year, compared to how may Email, tweet, instant message, or social media page updates you make throughout the year. Most people write letters or sign greeting cards only during the holidays or for someone’s birthday. While they Email, tweet, instant message or update their social media page(s) pretty much daily (some people, constantly).

Therefore I think that cursive should be taught as an art form in elementary and high school.

[Knaight]

I'd consider it nearly useless, but then, I can write very quickly in print. With that said, sticking cursive in an art class makes sense to me, treating it as calligraphy useful for signatures and similar. In the context of the educational system as a whole though, it eats up valuable time. For example, I didn't even get to Algebra until 6th grade, and Calculus until 11th*, despite being ahead of my classmates in math - precisely because what could have been valuable math time was wasted on cursive and its ilk.

Regarding the article itself: I find some humor in Bateman going on at length about how cursive is good for intelligence, then citing the incredibly vague "modern research" to back him up. While it's a step above "studies have shown", it's still all sorts of sloppy.

Then there's the matter of the arguments used. Yes, there are important historical documents in cursive. There are also plenty in Greek, Latin, and French, even when you stick to the extremely conventional U.S. list. Add in diplomacy, and suddenly there are a whole bunch of other languages. The thing about historical documents is that they frequently take special training to use properly, and a very old text drifting into that hardly seems worth making a fuss over.

*I'd consider 5th and 9th fairly reasonable, but for a lot of people it's 8th and not-at-all, which is absurd.

[The_Snark]

Interesting results. So normal speeds were 5 1/2 and 10, fastest were 4 1/2 and 8 1/2. A 4 second difference, so 15 people for one full minute wasted. According to Wal-mart company statistics, they serve 100m people a week, or 14mil people a day. So if 14mil people all print their name instead of sign it, approximately(by my speed, obviously it varies), 56mil seconds are wasted every day, or a grand total of 93,333 hours a day wasted. That is a LOT of wasted hours spread out over JUST ONE COMPANY, if Cursive were to be eliminated and everyone started printing their names. I don't know about you, but the lines are long enough at Big Box Stores, I don't want to be standing in line that much longer just to get my items.

Is that a fair test, though? Because the thing is, you're used to writing cursive (or so I assume); had you spent your entire life relying on print instead, you'd be more practiced. You'd also have a few dozen hours of your childhood back - I haven't run the numbers, but forcing every kid to learn two different ways of writing will add up to a lot of hours.

That said -


Same here. My hand gets less tired when writing cursive and it goes faster. But that's likely because I learned cursive first. And I hated print, because I switched schools to a school that didn't teach children cursive first and was forced to learn to write in print (I knew how to read it just fine, but it's not the same as getting used to writing it).

And guess what? If you're writing it, there's absolutely no advantage to print. The only reason we use print is because, well, we print stuff now. So really... I think leave cursive in. It's cultural and artistic education.

- my real objection is that requiring everyone to learn 2 different writing systems feels like a waste of time. I'd never heard of schools teaching cursive handwriting before print, but it raises an interesting question - should cursive be the default instead? I don't think so, because it tends to be more difficult to read (there's a reason books and computers default to simple print letters), and I think most kids learn to read by looking at non-cursive writing... but it's interesting to think about.

The aesthetics are a matter of taste. I don't much care for cursive myself, because it's harder to read, but I can see how it would appeal in the same way that, say, calligraphy does.

[SiuiS]

Cursive is a valuable foundational skill, but cursive is not itself that great. It's like learning boring rote math so when you get to physics you start popping out algebra like it ain't no thang. Cursive teaches you many valuable lessons, including "the truly lazy person does it right the first time so they don't have to repeat it". It's also the modern foundation of the Decipher Script skill, and I would never be able to communicate with my grandmother otherwise.

Cursive knowledge has improve my basic grasp of caligraphy, my basic writing and drawing skill, and my understanding of aesthetics. Whether cursive itself benefits from these isn't quite relevant.

Should it be taught in school? I don't know. I'll definitely teach my child cursive personally though, along with non-rote math and a love of reading and the ability to read without scanning, because these are skills I think will he eternally useful.

[zlefin]

cursive = bad; well, not truly bad, but not worthwhile.
On average, cursive writing is far less legible than printed; which means unless you're keeping notes entirely for yourself, it has serious communication problems. and most signatures are useless; I hate them, people make some scrawl, and it may be consistent, but it's not possible to tell what they actually wrote, it's just a scribble.


It's just not worth the cost is the main thing; there's far more valuable things to be teaching in school; like math, or typing, or gym. Just the exercise in gym is far more needed than cursive.

the whole citing studies thing is pretty laughably poor arguing. so much flawed logic people toss around. Teaching people how to think and use logic correctly would be far more valuable.

also, if you're taking notes for yourself; teaching people scaffolding techniques would be more useful than cursive.

[Brother Oni]

Most writing I do at work, where it's a legal requirement (and hence company requirement) for all work to be clear and legible.

If any entry is illegible or ambiguous, then you have to correct it so that it's now clear what it was supposed to say - doing this for an entire notes page written in cursive (if your cursive is poor) is not really an option.

That said even though I almost exclusively print, I still know how to write joined up (copperplate to be precise) as I feel it's a good measure of a refinement and education.
It's not as if cursive is anywhere near as difficult as ink brush calligraphy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlLXlp_GHF4), which apparently was so involved, one could discern a swordsman's style by their brush strokes.

[Elemental]

On one hand, learning how to write (aka communicate) in multiple ways is a very important skill. I also agree that handwriting can be a form of art.
However I think that cursive is a holdover from an older time before people had the capacity to communicate electronically. Now most people communicate electronically and verbally.

I mean, just compare how many letters do you hand write throughout the year, compared to how may Email, tweet, instant message, or social media page updates you make throughout the year. Most people write letters or sign greeting cards only during the holidays or for someone’s birthday. While they Email, tweet, instant message or update their social media page(s) pretty much daily (some people, constantly).

Therefore I think that cursive should be taught as an art form in elementary and high school.

But on the other hand, if one communicated through the written word so rarely these days, it almost calls for more effort to be placed into doing so.
I should probably clarify that when I'm talking about cursive, I mean the basic casual style, not any formal method. I see no reason for anyone to learn formal handwriting as part of a general education in these times as a basic cursive style takes no longer to learn than printing, whereas the full thing would detract from time better spent on geography, history and science.

And I totally agree that it should be made available to people who want to learn it. Probably as an extra-curricular activity.



cursive = bad; well, not truly bad, but not worthwhile.
On average, cursive writing is far less legible than printed; which means unless you're keeping notes entirely for yourself, it has serious communication problems. and most signatures are useless; I hate them, people make some scrawl, and it may be consistent, but it's not possible to tell what they actually wrote, it's just a scribble.

The point of a signature is not to be legible, though that certainly helps, but to be unique to the person in question. Printing is more easily forged than more elaborate handwriting, particularly if said elaborate handwriting is almost illegible.


Now I feel that I should scan examples of my handwriting because I don't think I'm clear that when I mean cursive I mean plain joined handwriting...

[Killer Angel]

When you had to write by hand, cursive is still the best (and fast) method.


On average, cursive writing is far less legible than printed; which means unless you're keeping notes entirely for yourself, it has serious communication problems.

it happens more frequently that you can think of. For example, I don't see too many shopping lists not written in cursive.

[noparlpf]

I think cursive is a bit pointless. Back in the day it was how fancy people wrote to show off. Now, half the people who write in cursive write just as illegibly as the rest of us, and it doesn't even look good. I think it would be better if we focussed more on teaching kids to write legibly in any form.

[Frozen_Feet]

I was taught cursive back at 2nd grade. I used it throughout elementary school, for 8 years in total. I have innumerable A4s worth of essays, stories and notebooks filled with it.

Frankly, I don't know how my teachers put up with mel, since I can barely make sense of my own handwriting anymore.

The reason is that when I moved to vocational institute, I was taught technical drawing. And such drawings demands standardized print-type writing. I remember the feeling - it was like going back to 1st grade again, painstakingly learning how to write rows and rows of identical letters.

That was another 8 years ago. These days, I write more than perhaps ever before in my life, but it's all typing on a computer. If I need to note down something by hand, I use print. My handwriting still looks awful, but at least my print is legible to people who are not certified Finnish teachers. I only use cursive for my signature.

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what purpose learning two different ways of handwriting served in the first place.

[valadil]

I learned it in elementary school. I don't think I ever used it except when required. Can't say I've ever really missed cursive. I guess I feel left out when I see other people using it and I know it's a skill I used to posess.

[Mono Vertigo]

I think cursive is a bit pointless. Back in the day it was how fancy people wrote to show off. Now, half the people who write in cursive write just as illegibly as the rest of us, and it doesn't even look good. I think it would be better if we focussed more on teaching kids to write legibly in any form.
This is why I'm giving up on cursive. My writing is not very pretty either way, but at least printing is perfectly legible, and that's the most important.

[Elemental]

I think cursive is a bit pointless. Back in the day it was how fancy people wrote to show off. Now, half the people who write in cursive write just as illegibly as the rest of us, and it doesn't even look good. I think it would be better if we focussed more on teaching kids to write legibly in any form.

Actually, back in the day, people who were fancy and wanted to show off would use calligraphy. Totally different thing from what was considered a standard script.



I was taught cursive back at 2nd grade. I used it throughout elementary school, for 8 years in total. I have innumerable A4s worth of essays, stories and notebooks filled with it.

Frankly, I don't know how my teachers put up with mel, since I can barely make sense of my own handwriting anymore.

The reason is that when I moved to vocational institute, I was taught technical drawing. And such drawings demands standardized print-type writing. I remember the feeling - it was like going back to 1st grade again, painstakingly learning how to write rows and rows of identical letters.

That was another 8 years ago. These days, I write more than perhaps ever before in my life, but it's all typing on a computer. If I need to note down something by hand, I use print. My handwriting still looks awful, but at least my print is legible to people who are not certified Finnish teachers. I only use cursive for my signature.

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what purpose learning two different ways of handwriting served in the first place.

Same. I learnt cursive early on and have used a corrupted form ever since. As for writing cursive neatly, it's no different from doing anything neatly, one either practices or slows down. Of course, that never stopped me from writing quickly with little care, which I can assure everyone reading this that cursive flows better when going fast than printing. At least in my experience.

As for writing for technical drawings... I learnt that, and have since forgotten entirely except for that fact that I now write the numeral three in a specific way. But that is likely a result on my only having done a semester of it.

For likely the same reason some languages have different ways of speaking in different settings. And now that I've thought more on the topic, I feel it would be a shame for written English to lose that dimension...

[Aidan305]

Over here we learn to write in cursive as a matter of course. Writing in print is something that we pick up over time.

[tomandtish]

I agree and disagree with this.

On one hand, learning how to write (aka communicate) in multiple ways is a very important skill. I also agree that handwriting can be a form of art.
However I think that cursive is a holdover from an older time before people had the capacity to communicate electronically. Now most people communicate electronically and verbally.

I mean, just compare how many letters do you hand write throughout the year, compared to how may Email, tweet, instant message, or social media page updates you make throughout the year. Most people write letters or sign greeting cards only during the holidays or for someone’s birthday. While they Email, tweet, instant message or update their social media page(s) pretty much daily (some people, constantly).

Therefore I think that cursive should be taught as an art form in elementary and high school.

This quote (and a few other below) hit on the main point. For better or worse, most persons raised in a technology based society will probably spend much more time typing (in whatever form) than writing. While cursive writing is faster than print writing, typing is faster and clearer than both. The time spent on learning cursive writing would probably be better spent on typing.

[Remmirath]

I believe that it can be a useful and valuable skill, but is not necessarily for everyone. I suppose that I would fall on the side of thinking it should not be required, then; perhaps optional.

It is true that most people will likely type most of the things that they write these days, but it is also true that it does not take long at all to learn how to type, and it is not difficult. If you do it often, you will learn it. I don't see how it needs to be taught.

I wish that I had ever learned to write cursive, and some day I would still like to. Reading it, however, I find very easy.

[the_druid_droid]

I think it's important to point out that the article in question is mainly complaining about dropping cursive because it's related to the Common Core (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative) educational standards, which are politically controversial for reasons I cannot quite fathom. My impression on reading that article is that it's fairly disingenuous, since their real objection is to some perceived evil of standardized educational expectations across state lines.

EDIT: Here's a Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html) expressing the dissatisfaction more clearly. I disagree with pretty much all their points and their logic, but there it is for the curious.

[Knaight]

It's not as if cursive is anywhere near as difficult as ink brush calligraphy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlLXlp_GHF4), which apparently was so involved, one could discern a swordsman's style by their brush strokes.

I suspect that's based far more in legend than history, but the point stands.

[Traab]

Blargh, cursive. I hate it so much. I learned to sign my own name and thats it. In my case it was due to bad luck. I switched schools halfway through the year. My first school had just started teaching it, my new school had just finished teaching it. Noone wanted to take the time to teach it to me, so they let me just use print for everything. I was taught to sign my name and thats it. The rest might as well be swahili for all I can understand it.

[Ebon_Drake]

I'm on the keep it side. It has it's purposes in modern day life still. Plus, it's so much quicker then printing. If people start printing their names every time they use their credit cards, lines in Wal-Mart are going to get horrendously longer.


Chip-and-PIN? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN) I haven't needed to sign a shop receipt in about 10 years, so was honestly stunned to find out that some people still have to. It looks like it hasn't caught on in the USA for whatever reason, but I expect it'll get introduced soon enough.

[pendell]

Pah. If we need 'em for signatures let's go back to seal rings, I say. Those were classy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mewtarthio]

I'm on the keep it side. It has it's purposes in modern day life still. Plus, it's so much quicker then printing. If people start printing their names every time they use their credit cards, lines in Wal-Mart are going to get horrendously longer.

I was taught that your signature was just supposed to be an abbreviated version of your name. My own signature is an illegible scribble. I believe the important thing is that the signatures on your receipt matches the one on the back of the card (not that I've ever seen anyone compare them).

[warty goblin]

The last time I used proper cursive was when I took the GREs, which for reasons arcane and unknowable, requires its unlucky victims to copy out an entire paragraph exhaustively detailing that they will never ever under pain of death reveal so much as a shred of one meaningless test question they're paying $300 to be subjected to. This had to be in cursive. Since I hadn't used cursive in years, had never really learned cursive all that well, I found it a challenge. Much harder than most of the test, and even more useless.

Occasionally my class notes veer towards cursive territory if I don't have time to recover the pen between characters, but that's fairly unusual. Much of my notes are complicated mathematics, which require clear printing in the first place. I'll also do letters in something resembling caligraphy, but only if I'm working on nice paper and using a fountain pen. Otherwise there's no point.

[Elemental]

Pah. If we need 'em for signatures let's go back to seal rings, I say. Those were classy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yes. They are classy. But that would require a unique seal to be designed and made for each and every person, a task akin to having a special coin minted for everyone.
Of course, I know you're being sarcastic here, but I couldn't resist.

[SarahV]

The last time I used proper cursive was when I took the GREs, which for reasons arcane and unknowable, requires its unlucky victims to copy out an entire paragraph exhaustively detailing that they will never ever under pain of death reveal so much as a shred of one meaningless test question they're paying $300 to be subjected to. This had to be in cursive.

Had the same thing with the last standardized test I took (back in the 90s) and the proctor couldn't believe how long it took some of us to finish it... we were all so out of practice writing in cursive. "OK, now that--" "WAIT, still writing." "Uh... OK. *pause* Moving on, we--" "STILL WORKING, PLEASE" "Really??"


Yes. They are classy. But that would require a unique seal to be designed and made for each and every person, a task akin to having a special coin minted for everyone.
Of course, I know you're being sarcastic here, but I couldn't resist.
QR codes and some 3D printers... no problem. :smallsmile: Of course that also means they'd be easy to duplicate... but it's not like my signature ever looks the same way twice, it's all a bit silly.

[warty goblin]

QR codes and some 3D printers... no problem. :smallsmile: Of course that also means they'd be easy to duplicate... but it's not like my signature ever looks the same way twice, it's all a bit silly.
The variation in a person's signature actually provides a bit of security, since it means an exact copy is by necessity a forgery.

[noparlpf]

Pah. If we need 'em for signatures let's go back to seal rings, I say. Those were classy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Cylinder seals!

[Hylleddin]

Pah. If we need 'em for signatures let's go back to seal rings, I say. Those were classy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Indeed.

Japan and China use seals for a lot of official things. Usually on sticks rather than rings.

[Crow]

Cursive, if you're good at it, makes those adoring love letters look awesome. I've impressed many a classy, intelligent woman, with a well-written letter that was pleasing to the eye.

Of course, I'm old. So YMMV.

[ArlEammon]

This is a part of our heritage. No. Let cursive stay.

[5a Violista]

I love cursive. It should definitely stay.

I write in my journal in cursive. I write my class notes in cursive. I write random notes to my future self in cursive. Really, the only time I use print is when I'm on a computer, because computers don't exactly have a "cursive" setting, and when I'm filling out a form that specifically says "Write in Print." It's unfortunate, really, that none of the Giantitp fonts are even remotely cursive. A pity.

[thubby]

cursive lost most of its practical purpose with the invention of the ballpoint pen.

when lifting the writing implement no longer threatened the clarity of the writing or quality of the page and writing instrument (quils broke or blotted), it ceased to be faster.

signatures have no actual demand that signatures be in cursive. as fraud experts and handwriting analysts have stated repeatedly, it actually behooves you to have a less legible signature as they're less replicable.

heck, there's no requirement that a signature even be the writer's name. would the world really be worse off if documents were signed with tiny doodles?


This is a part of our heritage. No. Let cursive stay.

keeping something because we already have it is silly and in fact counter productive to societal progress. we should have articulable reasons for doing things.
cursive is pretty, i don't think anyone would argue otherwise, but that makes it an art. you can't force someone to do art or sanely grade them on artistic ability that they make no claim to having. make it part of an elective under the arts.

[Killer Angel]

keeping something because we already have it is silly and in fact counter productive to societal progress.

Generally, I agree with this, but I don't think that cursive is a so big burden for the progress of society... :smallamused:

[Elemental]

keeping something because we already have it is silly and in fact counter productive to societal progress. we should have articulable reasons for doing things.

People keep things that we already have for no other reason than we already have them. That is indeed the whole point of teaching the arts. We still play musical instruments even though there are electronic methods that duplicate the sound and we still paint even though we can use a computer to produce comparable works.
And frankly, in my mind, only teaching print leaves less room for people to play around with their own hand.

From my own experience, teaching basic cursive takes no longer than learning print. Any six or seven year old can do it.

[Aedilred]

It seems to me, albeit as a small sample size, that the people commenting on this thread who want to get rid of it tend to be those who find cursive difficult and frustrating, and those who have facility with it tend to think it should stay.

Taking into account similar discussions I've seen about subjects including maths, foreign languages, basic grammar, science, history, and indeed pretty much anything you would have thought an education should include, it seems to me the logical solution is not "stop teaching it" but rather "teach it better".

I do also wonder, as a foreigner to this debate who learned it as a matter of course (like Aidan305) and only learned relatively late in life that there were places that didn't do that, whether in the American system (forgive me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be an American issue) cursive is a system introduced into the classroom after children have already spent extensive time printing, and therefore whether too much time is being spent in US education on printing and moving on to cursive sooner would help obviate a lot of the difficulties people have with it. But that's entirely speculative.

[Emmerask]

I am quite shocked that some people actually cant do it ? (in the us/eu culture)

Its more or less the first thing we learn here together with 1+1 etc ^^
And I actually know not a single person (who received at least some very basic education ie mandatory school time) who has not mastered it.

[noparlpf]

I am quite shocked that some people actually cant do it ? (in the us/eu culture)

Its more or less the first thing we learn here together with 1+1 etc ^^
And I actually know not a single person (who received at least some very basic education ie mandatory school time) who has not mastered it.

Wow. Where are you? In my high school in Connecticut, we spent a good half an hour before the SAT while people asked the proctor how to write their names in script for the signature. :smallsigh:

[Emmerask]

Germany, Berlin to be precise

[Worira]

It seems to me, albeit as a small sample size, that the people commenting on this thread who want to get rid of it tend to be those who find cursive difficult and frustrating, and those who have facility with it tend to think it should stay.

Taking into account similar discussions I've seen about subjects including maths, foreign languages, basic grammar, science, history, and indeed pretty much anything you would have thought an education should include, it seems to me the logical solution is not "stop teaching it" but rather "teach it better".

I do also wonder, as a foreigner to this debate who learned it as a matter of course (like Aidan305) and only learned relatively late in life that there were places that didn't do that, whether in the American system (forgive me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be an American issue) cursive is a system introduced into the classroom after children have already spent extensive time printing, and therefore whether too much time is being spent in US education on printing and moving on to cursive sooner would help obviate a lot of the difficulties people have with it. But that's entirely speculative.

You can swap "cursive" for "printing" and vice versa throughout this entire post without changing anything. Well, and "British" for "American".

[Emmerask]

not really, as far as i know no one I know that learned cursive first had any problem writing print, but the other way seems to be a problem :smallwink:

[Worira]

not really, as far as i know no one I know that learned cursive first had any problem writing print, but the other way seems to be a problem :smallwink:


I don't recall actually being taught to write in "printed" form; I guess I was at some point but at a very early stage of my writing tuition, probably before I went to school. If I try to write in printed form myself - which I don't often do - I find it desperately slow, and if I encounter it I find it looks rather childish.


Too much time being spent on cursive makes you bad at print.

[Traab]

Wow. Where are you? In my high school in Connecticut, we spent a good half an hour before the SAT while people asked the proctor how to write their names in script for the signature. :smallsigh:

HAH! I went to high school in Ct. At least I was able to learn to write my name in cursive, but anything else? Hell no. But once again I am an unusual case since I happened to move part way through learning it to a school that had already finished it and noone wanted to teach me.

[Aedilred]

You can swap "cursive" for "printing" and vice versa throughout this entire post without changing anything. Well, and "British" for "American".
Yeah, but then here it's not actually an issue at all. I'm sure there are some people here who'd like to get rid of writing tuition in schools, but then there are people who want to introduce phonetic spelling, people who think the world is flat, and probably people who want to abandon written language altogether and communicate exclusively by punching each other in the face. There's nothing in the mainstream of public educational discourse on the subject, at least that I'm remotely aware of.

And when it comes to printing, I can print perfectly adequately when I choose to (and the letters are probably better formed than when I join them), although I do so rarely. It's just that, as with all things, you become quicker at doing things you're more practised in, and I've spent the vast majority of my life writing with joined letters, so of course it'll be quicker. It's not that I spent too much time learning cursive to be able to print, it's that since I learned I've almost exclusively written one so am much faster with it (inasmuch as it's not faster anyway; see earlier discussion).

As for the childish point, that's not so much my writing (although I'd think much the same if I saw it blind I'm sure) but that when I see it my instinctive reaction is something along the lines of "wow, they must have struggled at school, they can't even do joined-up writing. Either that or they're four years old."

[SarahV]

I am quite shocked that some people actually cant do it ? (in the us/eu culture)

Its more or less the first thing we learn here together with 1+1 etc ^^
And I actually know not a single person (who received at least some very basic education ie mandatory school time) who has not mastered it.

I think the point is that nowadays people learn it as a child and then never use it again because everything is typed on a computer. I haven't written in cursive (aside from my signature) in at least 20 years. You do forget things after a while. :smallsmile: Although I think I could still remember, that's because I'm old enough that I didn't have a computer until I was in my teens and used cursive for ~8 years before that. People who are ten years younger than me wouldn't have those years of experience and could easily forget it all.

[TheThan]

Another thing I would like to point out, is that I’m left handed.

When a left handed person writes, they move their hand across the page left to right, following the text they are writing. That means there is a huge tendency to smear the text, particularly with ink. I’ve actually been marked down in elementary school for that.

So left handed people tend to adapt… awkward and somewhat questionable grips on their writing tool when writing to help avoid that. So they move from a grip that’s natural and comfortable to something that works.

When a right handed person writes, the script they writing follows the hand, so there is no smearing. So they don’t need to adapt their natural and comfortable grip form something comfortable to something that works.

This is why most left handed people (at least in my experience) have atrocious handwriting. Cursive just increases the problem. Now the south paw has to contend with a difficult and awkward hand posture, the potential for smearing and a script that’s not easy to read.

[Hiro Protagonest]

That's a thing, I'm left-handed.

[Aedilred]

Another thing I would like to point out, is that I’m left handed.
Aye, that is a problem. Having said that, I believe that in old-school handwriting tuition (which hasn't been widely taught since the 1950s) the hand is raised from the page rather than resting on it, which would remove the smudging issue. The older system is preferable in a number of ways - it relies on writing from the elbow and shoulder rather than the wrist, which utilises stronger muscles with better endurance, so meaning you can write for longer and there isn't such a problem with cramps and the like. It does however take rather longer to learn (and if not learned properly it's functionally illegible; my ex was taught to write that way and had some of the worst handwriting I've ever seen) so in an era where people aren't required to write as much as previously it's probably not worth the effort. But it might help to solve the issue for left-handers.

[toasty]

For me the entire issue that I have with cursive is that the vast majority of the script encountered today will not look like cursive. Its literally another script, and its increasingly become an arcane thing only used by grandmas who send me birthday cards.

Furthermore, there are a variety of people who struggle with traditional handwriting. TheThan mentioned left-handed people, and I want to point out that I have dysgraphia, effectively makes handwriting difficult for me. Its not even a problem, because I have access to a computer, but it prevented me from ever learning how to write cursive, I can sorta read it.

I just don't see why cursive is necessary. In theory, you can handwrite faster with it, assuming you master cursive, but a sizeable majority of humans will have trouble mastering cursive. No one actually prints in cursive for official documents, newspapers, etc use a more standard typeset. I haven't encountered a large swath of cursive in years. I can't remember the last time I was required to read or write something in cursive.

Sure, maybe the task of learning how to write cursive is challenging to the brain, but so is much of what we learn in school. I don't see why we need to have learn cursive writing as a requirement in school. I didn't, and it seems that it didn't matter at all.

[Emmerask]

Does anyone know since when in the us school system printed letters became the standard? is it something recent?

[TuggyNE]

To my mind, cursive is like shorthand: it's great if you feel like learning it, but it has no practical value for most people, because there's better, easier ways of accomplishing the same basic goal.

My cursive is not great; I mostly learned enough to make a good signature and read most cursive. :smalltongue:

On the other hand, I do have a soft spot for impractical and outmoded technologies: I know how to use a slide rule and have basic competence with an abacus. :smallwink:

[Crow]

No one actually prints in cursive for official documents, newspapers, etc use a more standard typeset.


I actually write my reports in cursive when I know it won't be used in a criminal case. Someone else types them up whether I write in print or cursive anyways. I believe we should all try to add a little beauty in unexpected places in our lives.

[Gavran]

I actually write my reports in cursive when I know it won't be used in a criminal case. Someone else types them up whether I write in print or cursive anyways. I believe we should all try to add a little beauty in unexpected places in our lives. As a person who has been paid to type up things people wrote before, I think your unexpected beauty is a quite-expected waste of my time. :P Not to be rude, I just think it's pretty clear this is a subjective matter.

My last experience writing cursive was for the essay portion of a standardized test in high school that I scored decidedly lower than I ought to have scored because being required to write it in cursive (which I hadn't used in about a decade at that point, and never really spent much time on in the first place) kept me from finishing it. To this day I have a hard time reading it and am annoyed that I had to learn something so irrelevant to me it wouldn't stick at all rather than something that actually facilitates communication, like another language.

If I had children I wouldn't want them to learn it in school, but it would be one of the very smallest of my long list of concerns about getting them a good education.

[thubby]

People keep things that we already have for no other reason than we already have them. That is indeed the whole point of teaching the arts. We still play musical instruments even though there are electronic methods that duplicate the sound and we still paint even though we can use a computer to produce comparable works.
And frankly, in my mind, only teaching print leaves less room for people to play around with their own hand.


the arts are pleasing to the senses, we keep them because they make us happy.
and no, there is no analog art that is transferable to digital. some things are very good facsimiles, and there are even wholely digital arts, but technolgy has not yet made the 2 seamless.

though, even if it could, they are fundamentally different tools. the same artist that can work miracles with oil paint may not have the same aptitude with a machine.
the unique nature of works and their artists preserves the medium in which they are given shape.



From my own experience, teaching basic cursive takes no longer than learning print. Any six or seven year old can do it.
my 3 year old nieces can create legible print. why double the time it takes to teach writing?
this is doubly silly since script is generally only hand written. if 1 set of characters (print) can be used by both machines and people, why have another one that is less common.


Generally, I agree with this, but I don't think that cursive is a so big burden for the progress of society... :smallamused:
it is when you have to pay teachers across the country 10's of thousands of dollars a year each to teach it.


Taking into account similar discussions I've seen about subjects including maths, foreign languages, basic grammar, science, history, and indeed pretty much anything you would have thought an education should include, it seems to me the logical solution is not "stop teaching it" but rather "teach it better".


this is an argument in poor taste, I think it actually has a name though i can't recall it.
what you've done is throw out something that is impossible to argue against. not for any truth it may possess, but because doing so would require herculean time and energy on top of derailing the thread. or to negate it in premise like so:

the fact that people make those arguments does not suggest the validity of any of them or yours. nor does it make your comparison of this issue to those valid. it doesn't even hold that your initial assumption that all such debates are the same at some level.

[Crow]

As a person who has been paid to type up things people wrote before, I think your unexpected beauty is a quite-expected waste of my time. :P Not to be rude, I just think it's pretty clear this is a subjective matter.

I'd be lying if I said a small part of it wasn't to give those people a hard time. But it's okay, we go both ways as far as giving a hard time is concerned.

Though I will add that my cursive is very legible. The 'hard time' comes because the requirement is to write the reports in block print. The cursive is just a little way of flipping the bird to the rules when I'm being held after my shift to complete reports that will never be used for anything.

[Killer Angel]

it is when you have to pay teachers across the country 10's of thousands of dollars a year each to teach it.


You're paying those theachers anyway. Instead of having children fill one page of cursive vocals and one page of print vocals, you'll have two print pages.

[Aedilred]

this is an argument in poor taste, I think it actually has a name though i can't recall it.
what you've done is throw out something that is impossible to argue against. not for any truth it may possess, but because doing so would require herculean time and energy on top of derailing the thread. or to negate it in premise like so:

the fact that people make those arguments does not suggest the validity of any of them or yours. nor does it make your comparison of this issue to those valid. it doesn't even hold that your initial assumption that all such debates are the same at some level.
Well, I'll change the focus of that line of argument and see if you find it in better taste.

The principal argument I've seen against learning cursive in this thread is that it's difficult (for the individual advancing the argument; not everyone seems to find it so) and not very useful. Here are a few randomly-selected things I find less useful in day-to-day life than being able to write cursive:
- Quadratic equations
- The history of the unification of Germany
- Any foreign language I've ever learned
- How ox-bow lakes are formed
- Chemistry

And with the exception perhaps of the history, I didn't find any of those particularly easy to learn. But I don't think that my difficulty in learning those items nor the fact that they are not skills or knowledge required on a daily basis should necessarily form the decisive factor in whether or not they remain on the curriculum.

[Topus]

Cursive writing is an application of calligraphy, from greek kallos-graphè, that is beautiful writings. So it is as useless as a beautiful ornament or a beautiful painting. I don't see anything wrong to teach children to write in an elegant and beautiful way, because it adds beauty to the world. And a beautiful world it's a better world, in my opinion ;)

[pendell]

That's a thing, I'm left-handed.

As am I. My handwriting is terrible and awkward. It takes great pains to make it readable. That is why I prefer to print even when I write with a pen.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Killer Angel]

Well, I'll change the focus of that line of argument and see if you find it in better taste.

Here are a few randomly-selected things I find less useful in day-to-day life than being able to write cursive:
- Quadratic equations


eheheh...
Yeah, why should I bother to learn math? leaving aside the most basic operations (elementary school amply covers it), for the rest there are calculators.

[Elemental]

the arts are pleasing to the senses, we keep them because they make us happy.
and no, there is no analog art that is transferable to digital. some things are very good facsimiles, and there are even wholely digital arts, but technolgy has not yet made the 2 seamless.

though, even if it could, they are fundamentally different tools. the same artist that can work miracles with oil paint may not have the same aptitude with a machine.
the unique nature of works and their artists preserves the medium in which they are given shape.

my 3 year old nieces can create legible print. why double the time it takes to teach writing?
this is doubly silly since script is generally only hand written. if 1 set of characters (print) can be used by both machines and people, why have another one that is less common.

Yes, but it is hardly beneficial to force an arts education on students who really don't want to do it. Yet I see no arguments for the removing of compulsory music and art from schools. Cursive is the same kind of thing, something that is taught because of tradition and its own inherent beauty rather than any practical concern.
People are more than free to abandon later in life. But if they never have the option to even gain a basic grasp of it, then they're unlikely to ever be able to, even if they want it.
Naturally. As is the case with writing. Technology cannot properly replace the benefit of having a hand developed over years of experience at a young age.

I never said they could. As with all media, mastery of one implies no mastery with another. That's how it's always been and computers just add a new medium. But then, new ways of producing art have been introduced throughout history, and it's a shame to abandon one because another is quicker.

Well, I will admit that I have no experience with the writing capabilities of three year olds as I cannot personally remember my own experiences from that age. However, I can recall writing before beginning school, something which I do believe was expected of most everyone. After all, an ability to print is the first step of learning cursive.
Actually, print has been around for centuries ever since the printing press was invented. And then there was the typewriter which has also been around for a while. And even before the invention of the typewriter, the script for handwriting books was different from the script used for general note-taking, and again different from that engraved on stone monuments and metal plaques. It's hardly anything new.

[pendell]

eheheh...
Yeah, why should I bother to learn math? leaving aside the most basic operations (elementary school amply covers it), for the rest there are calculators.

I would encourage learning math at all levels and in fact I still brush up on my skills at Khan Academy when time allows.

Math is first and foremost, to my mind, about logic, about reason. About being able to abstractly reason through a proposition to a conclusion. I'm not talking about simple arithmetic, and algebra. And you can't do those things if you don't understand the basics also.

Cursive handwriting, by contrast, is an art form. The value of writing is being able to communicate your ideas clearly to others, and to allow them to do the same to you. This is a task already captured well enough by printing, and we do not need to do cursive as well.

Therefore I believe mathematics is an important life skill which should be mandatory at all levels, at the lower levels for such elementary tasks as balancing a checkbook, and at the higher levels as an aid to logic and reason. The Brian P who came out of calc 1 with a passing grade is a very different person from the Brian P who failed it twice. The before-Brian was able to read, memorize, and repeat what he saw, did very well in History and english classes. The Brian P who came out could *reason through what he read*.

Why learn elementary math when there are calculators? Because you can mis-key a calculator. An elementary math background will make it more likely you do a doubletake at erroneous figures and say "that's funny" -- making it easier to catch if you've entered a quantity of 36.6 rather than 35.6, which is the amount actually supposed to be entered.

So for me , as a computer scientist, mathematics is essential and cursive doesn't even register. Those few times I need to write with a pen I print, and print more legibly and quickly than I did when writing cursive.

So if I had my druthers mathematics would be central to curricula while cursive would be relegated to Fine Arts alongside music, painting, and sculpture. All of these things add beauty, and every person of education should have a passing acquaintance with them, but unless you really are going to major in them they should be optional, worthy of at most 3 credits of general ed. The ability to type is far more critical.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[noparlpf]

eheheh...
Yeah, why should I bother to learn math? leaving aside the most basic operations (elementary school amply covers it), for the rest there are calculators.

Math lets you do things you couldn't do without math. Cursive doesn't let you do anything you couldn't do in print.

[pendell]

Math lets you do things you couldn't do without math. Cursive doesn't let you do anything you couldn't do in print.

My point exactly and 10% of the length. Have a cookie.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Emmerask]

Cursive writing is an application of calligraphy, from greek kallos-graphè, that is beautiful writings. So it is as useless as a beautiful ornament or a beautiful painting. I don't see anything wrong to teach children to write in an elegant and beautiful way, because it adds beauty to the world. And a beautiful world it's a better world, in my opinion ;)

There are countless (newer) neuroscientific studies that art helps immensely in thinking skills especially for young minds, so teaching cursive might very well help kids to learn better later on :smallsmile:

[Killer Angel]

I would encourage learning math at all levels and in fact I still brush up on my skills at Khan Academy when time allows. (snip)

I totally agree on the importance of math, i was making a provocation.
People need better reasons to cancel cursive, other than "you can use print", 'cause it's really an oversimplification (as mine, about math and calculators).
Plus, it doesn't take years to learn cursive, you usually need only one year at elementary school, while doing something else in the meantime...

[pendell]

Plus, it doesn't take years to learn cursive, you usually need only one year at elementary school, while doing something else in the meantime...

My memory may be faulty, since it happened years ago, but *my* recollection of cursive was about 3 years (4th grade - 6th grade) of endlessly filling out forms -- first with upper case cursive A, then lower case, then B, then C...

It wasn't the only thing we did, but IIRC it was multiple years and a significant part of the classroom instruction. It's almost as if that was what the teacher would pull out when s/he had nothing else to do. I found it tedious and uninteresting drudgery.

...

Although, to be fair, I found *most* elementary school work -- endless columns or arithmetic, arts and craft where we had to cut things out and paste them onto paper -- to be boring, uninteresting, and tedious. I preferred to get through the assignments as quickly as possible, then head to the library of books in the back and start reading.

I don't know how typical this was for American students in California educational schools in the 1977-1982, but I learned to detest formal classroom instruction. So I read a bunch of books at the local library instead. It must have worked, because I later challenged history based mostly on my extracurricular reading, and got university credit for it via the AP program while still in high school.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Cuthalion]

Being homeschooled, I learned cursive.

1. Faster.
2. Prettier.
3. If nobody learns it now, who'll be able to read old letters and such?

[Castaras]

I got taught joined up handwriting at primary school. Then they stopped teaching you it at secondary. Didn't really care, just focussed on racing to do the exercises with the people at my table. :smallbiggrin:

edit: My handwriting nowadays is a weird combination of printing when it's quicker and joined up when it's quicker. I generally prefer typing due to the speed I can type at being better than handwriting - even if I handwrite without care for presentation.

It's a useful thing to teach people how to handwrite neatly. Whether it should be cursive? Maybe. It should be something that's neat and legible. And I find proper cursive to be much less legible than printing or half-n-half bastardisation.

[FinnLassie]

My memory may be faulty, since it happened years ago, but *my* recollection of cursive was about 3 years (4th grade - 6th grade) of endlessly filling out forms -- first with upper case cursive A, then lower case, then B, then C...

That I would say is a fault in the form of education rather than in the skill of cursive handwriting itself. In Finland we got taught cursive for one year, and after that we were simply encouraged to improve as we already had the basic skills.



I personally love cursive. It's beautiful and for me it's a much faster way of writing than forming print - I only do it for teaching purposes. Not saying that my cursive handwriting is the prettiest thing though, no way, but it's just super convenient. If I'm writing REALLY fast I do understand if people don't get my scribbles the first time (hell, sometimes even I wouldn't unless there wasn't a much clearer word or heading to give context), but so far no adult has had difficulties understanding me. Now that I think of it, amongst my friend group we tend to understand "messy" cursive far better than messy print type writing.


As someone who is studying to become a primary level teacher, I am a bit shocked by some of the comments, especially when it comes to measuring what part of education is the more important. From my perspective, everything is important. The teacher just has to do their best to incorporate children's interest into specific learning experiences.

Teachers who claim there's lack of time for certain curricular areas can suck it. Then you just integrate different areas of the curriculum.

[Worira]

Being homeschooled, I learned cursive.

1. Faster.
2. Prettier.
3. If nobody learns it now, who'll be able to read old letters and such?

1. Nope.
2. Subjective.
3. I take it you're in favour of mandatory Latin instruction as well?


I got taught joined up handwriting at primary school. Then they stopped teaching you it at secondary. Didn't really care, just focussed on racing to do the exercises with the people at my table. :smallbiggrin:

edit: My handwriting nowadays is a weird combination of printing when it's quicker and joined up when it's quicker. I generally prefer typing due to the speed I can type at being better than handwriting - even if I handwrite without care for presentation.

It's a useful thing to teach people how to handwrite neatly. Whether it should be cursive? Maybe. It should be something that's neat and legible. And I find proper cursive to be much less legible than printing or half-n-half bastardisation.

Yeah, that's the actually quicker way. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27542168?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102969442073)

[noparlpf]

My handwriting is basically print, but half the letters look the same and a lot of them tend to be connected. It's also fairly illegible. I find this much faster than writing careful, legible print or cursive letters.

[Killer Angel]

My memory may be faulty, since it happened years ago, but *my* recollection of cursive was about 3 years (4th grade - 6th grade) of endlessly filling out forms -- first with upper case cursive A, then lower case, then B, then C...

I suppose it can differ from countries and from schools.
Actually, I'm following my daughter, and that part ended in one year, then they proceeded to dictations and other things.

[Crow]

We didn't even spend a whole year on it at my school, and it was taught in a way similar to how they taught art. They never made any pretense of it being some crucial life skill or anything like that.

[Knaight]

The principal argument I've seen against learning cursive in this thread is that it's difficult (for the individual advancing the argument; not everyone seems to find it so) and not very useful. Here are a few randomly-selected things I find less useful in day-to-day life than being able to write cursive:
- Quadratic equations
- The history of the unification of Germany
- Any foreign language I've ever learned
- How ox-bow lakes are formed
- Chemistry

And with the exception perhaps of the history, I didn't find any of those particularly easy to learn. But I don't think that my difficulty in learning those items nor the fact that they are not skills or knowledge required on a daily basis should necessarily form the decisive factor in whether or not they remain on the curriculum.

However, those are required on a daily basis for some people, whereas cursive has become essentially obsolete for everyone. Quadratic equations are part of general math understanding, which is necessary for anyone in science or engineering. History tells us a lot about how people operate, and is really useful for understanding societies - making it useful for everyone who isn't a hermit. Given that we think in languages, picking up foreign languages is somewhat useful even if you never use them, as it does open up avenues for thought. Lake formation is important for a number of sciences. Then we have Chemistry, which is an extremely major modern science, with a whole host of practical applications, in which there are continual new discoveries.

Basically, your list is of knowledge that our species and society uses to better understand the world, and which underlies a whole bunch of technology. Cursive is an outdated writing system. It's somewhat useful for historians of particular eras, as are dead scripts and dead languages, but that doesn't mean it makes the cut for general education.

For that matter, as long as chemistry is being brought up: Writing, much like Chemistry, is a valuable skill. However, you'll notice that Chemistry courses typically don't cover (let alone demand knowledge of) the chemical terminology of alchemists. Knowing what Wolfram, or Aqua Regia, or whatever else are used to be an important skill in Chemistry, largely before the actual science was there. Now, Wolfram is just a dead term for Tungsten that nobody uses, and Aqua Regia is a mix of nitric and hydrochloric acid that can dissolve gold, which is really not as special as it used to be. As such, spending lots of class time on this archaic terminology simply doesn't make sense. Why is cursive any different?

[Crow]

Seems a lot of the arguments in this thread come down to "The thing I'm good at is more important than the thing you're good at." As if it was impossible to teach and become good at both.

[Aedilred]

However, those are required on a daily basis for some people, whereas cursive has become essentially obsolete for everyone.For the last couple of years I've been writing by hand on a near-daily basis. I've never found myself doing any of the other things on my list, apart from very occasionally using a foreign language (although that was entirely by choice).

Seems a lot of the arguments in this thread come down to "The thing I'm good at is more important than the thing you're good at." As if it was impossible to teach and become good at both.
Yes.

[warty goblin]

For the last couple of years I've been writing by hand on a near-daily basis. I've never found myself doing any of the other things on my list, apart from very occasionally using a foreign language (although that was entirely by choice).

I have to write by hand on a daily basis, often multiple pages. Moreover I need to write quickly and clearly, so that my notes are both complete and clear. None of which requires cursive.

I also use rather a lot of math on a daily basis. I could not function in my career for half an hour were things like the quadratic formula not both known and readily understandable to me, which is in no small part because I learned them early and thoroughly.

Which is simply my career to be sure. But at the end of the day, society needs people who can do what I do. It also needs engineers, both software and physical, computer scientists, and a raft of other professions that are fundamentally dependent on mathematical ability. Not everybody who learns math in school will go into a mathematically inclined profession, but if math is not taught in school, nobody would be able to. Which is not something a technological society can afford.

I don't think the same argument can be made for variant forms of handwriting.

Now to be clear, I'm not arguing that math is the only thing of value, or that artistic skills shouldn't be taught. Society needs people with those skills as well, and they bring a great deal of joy to people's lives. There are however many artistic skills, most of which are not at a fundamental level both redundant with respect to other basic skills, and essentially obsolete. We don't teach an entire flotilla of craft skills, because they're useless for the overwhelming majority of people who would learn them. What makes cursive any different than blacksmithing or cave painting or weaving on a warp weighted loom? All of those are at least as traditional.

[TuggyNE]

What makes cursive any different than blacksmithing or cave painting or weaving on a warp weighted loom? All of those are at least as traditional.

I'd actually count blacksmithing as the odd one out here, because it's one of the very few skills that is all about making tools for yourself and others. It's the computer programming of the industrial and pre-industrial age: a blacksmith is the one you go to if you need something to pound or shape or cut or split or polish or move or stabilize or fasten or support or butcher or cook something. Blacksmithing is a metacraft.

Cursive, of course, does not enable much else; in the tech tree of life, it leads to Calligraphy, Shorthand, and Signature-Based Security, and that's pretty much it.

[pendell]

Cursive, of course, does not enable much else; in the tech tree of life, it leads to Calligraphy, Shorthand, and Signature-Based Security, and that's pretty much it.


Why did I imagine I'm playing one of the Civ games and had "Your scientists have discovered cursive!"

Tech tree: Enables: ????

I guess it's one of the last ones you get so you can make it to future tech and bring in the bonus points.

WRITING is a fundamental and critical skill in all cultures. But we don't actually *need* two separate systems, especially since, as some said earlier, it is no longer necessary to keep the pen on the paper to prevent spills.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

I'd actually count blacksmithing as the odd one out here, because it's one of the very few skills that is all about making tools for yourself and others. It's the computer programming of the industrial and pre-industrial age: a blacksmith is the one you go to if you need something to pound or shape or cut or split or polish or move or stabilize or fasten or support or butcher or cook something. Blacksmithing is a metacraft.


My point was that these were all skills of at least as much art as cursive that were once quite important, but now essentially obsolete. Which takes nothing from them as an art in terms of enjoyment, technical skill and beauty, but does rather mean they aren't things of which people need a working knowledge to do all but an extremely small number of tasks in modern society.

[thubby]

Seems a lot of the arguments in this thread come down to "The thing I'm good at is more important than the thing you're good at." As if it was impossible to teach and become good at both.

time is a zero sum game. you can certainly teach both, but the time to do some comes out of something else. as the choice in the article is between computer science and script, can anyone seriously argue the ability to use a computer is less useful or having less potential?

as much respect as I have for the arts, teaching them en-masse in a school setting is troublesome. as little as you may use higher level algebra or calculus, they are the basis for an enormous number of fields of study as well as higher education.
being trained in an art only makes you skilled in that art. being an expert script writer won't help you learn piano, or the like.
being trained in math would put you a long way to being an engineer, doctor, or accountant, though.

and lets not kid ourselves. education is good for its own sake but that's not why governments the world over throw staggering sums of money at it.

[Crow]

Well, the most important things I learned as a child when learning cursive were patience and attention to detail. At that stage in my education, cursive was one of the first pieces in the curriculum where those aspects were focused upon.

As for education for its own sake...well there are a lot of people graduating with useless degrees these days. (Probably majored in calligraphy or something!) ;)

[Aedilred]

WRITING is a fundamental and critical skill in all cultures. But we don't actually *need* two separate systems, especially since, as some said earlier, it is no longer necessary to keep the pen on the paper to prevent spills.

Talking about it as a separate writing system does rather exaggerate the differences between it and printing, I think. It's just a slightly different way of forming the same alphabet; it's not like children are being taught hieroglyphics or something.

[Evandar]

I think the more things you teach kids in schools the better (my own primary education was highly lacking, being provided by the Malaysian government), but cursive realistically doesn't rank very highly (to me) in terms of things that need to be protected.

But other people feel the same way about mandatory literature and science (at a very basic level) and that makes my blood pressure shoot up, so I can empathize.

[pendell]

I remember the Cold War and I remember the reason there's such an emphasis on Math and Science these days -- the Russians put this bowling ball in space called Sputnik. There was a panic to get as many mathematicians and scientists trained that we could so that we wouldn't find ourselves at a terrible disadvantage against a technologically superior foe.

By contrast, I'm not exactly sure what a brigade of specialists highly trained in cursive penmanship could do to stop the Russkies and preserve the American Way of Life. I guess the Russians would spend so much time trying to read cursive they wouldn't have time to get to the moon first, or something. :smallamused:

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

as much respect as I have for the arts, teaching them en-masse in a school setting is troublesome. as little as you may use higher level algebra or calculus, they are the basis for an enormous number of fields of study as well as higher education.
being trained in an art only makes you skilled in that art. being an expert script writer won't help you learn piano, or the like.
being trained in math would put you a long way to being an engineer, doctor, or accountant, though.

There's a good amount of portability between handskills. Ditto the visual and musical arts. These are also all things that a reasonable number of people make their living doing, and that add a lot of richness to the lives of others. They make perfect sense to teach in school.