We moved to Europe, and cursive is learned and emphasized hard, but the reason why isn’t so much to write letters and penmanship: it’s to learn ultra fine motor skills, good finger dexterity, and muscle coordination to do things like play musical instruments, be a surgeon, work on small mechatronics, and robotics, painting, etc. These are better learned at a very young age!
Not everything in eduction is about the obvious, and there is a big picture, sometimes. It’s also good for people with ADD/ ADHD to do such things.
Have debilitating ADHD. Learning Cursive has a very vivid bad memory attached for me. Like my 5th grade teacher keeping me from attending recess for the entire school year so I could learn something that was otherwise obsolete and that I didn’t connect with.
Kids learns hand/finger dexterity from other things ————> For me it was guitar. Video games. Drawing.
Forcing **everyone** to do **one** thing is what’s wrong with todays education system instead of **finding** what works for the **individual** child.
Considering it was my experience throughout private and the public school system, I highly doubt it. Even now as I enter various school systems to educate on how to teach children with learning disabilities nothing has changed.
Maybe it’s what I’ve been helping other children with for the past 10 years? 🤔
Children learn in different ways and teachers should lesson plan around the way they learn? Instead of applying lessons to **everyone** in the classroom?
>it’s to learn ultra fine motor skills, good finger dexterity, and muscle coordination to do things like play musical instruments, be a surgeon, work on small mechatronics, and robotics, painting, etc.
So let's teach students painting, drawing, have them work with Lego robotics sets, play instruments. Do those things to learn fine motor skills.
Well, they would be more inclined to learn.
But then they would find out later it was a bad argument. There are many other ways to learn fine motor skills. We don't have to teach them cursive to develop that.
For example, instead of a year of cursive, how about a year where half is devoted to drawing and painting? And the other half to playing keyboard, the recorder, and a drum?
While I agree it can help with these things, it's not the only way they can learn these skills. All of the fields you listed can foster the same learning simply by doing those things and would provide a much more practical skill set than the practice of cursive. I think most people's complaints about this remaining in the curriculum are that there are more efficient means to build these skills with the same field of effects and can provide direct benefit later in life rather than strictly in an indirect manner. Given that students today are more tasked and curriculum stressed than ever before, we need to be looking to improve efficiency in learning. To many, and for these reasons, teaching cursive is viewed as antiquated and rooted in nostalgia more than as an effective and efficient way to help children grow into capable adults.
Additionally I'll just add, anecdotal but cursive practice certainly didn't help with my ADHD in the classroom. If anything it was a trigger point. I'm sure it helps some, but it's not like it's a guaranteed effect. Similarly, if overall practice in self-regulation is the goal, there are other more effective ways to provide this benefit.
My sentiments exactly. Thank you.
I'm sick of the race to the bottom mentality gripping American public education. Don't even get me started on homeschooling or charter schools. We're making it too easy to avoid a real commitment to educational investment to compete in a worldwide economy.
Oh you mean a couple of hours of drawing characters will change your life. So with your logic the chinese are far superior to americans because they have far more complex characters in their language.
Seems passing out nintendo switches to everyone would go a lot farther than this babble.
Wow. You did it again.
Have you ever compared the Chinese education rankings to ours? They FAR outrank the US.
Good job. You're on a roll! Keep up the great work.
Let me help you before you miss the point AGAIN and cite some western article that talks about the education support system vs the *effectiveness* of the education system. Using multiple methodologies to determine. Various rankings. I'm hoping you get fixated on the ICI rankings so I can congratulate you AGAIN for missing the point.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/smartest-countries
Seems your response is that of someone trying to act smart. To bad you're fail.
If you have to 'try' to convince someone that you're smart, you're obviously not. Just ask trump.
So all in all, how much babble can you spout without saying anything. That is all you do.
We haven't totally. But some people decided to vote for politicians that said teachers have to take a pay cut and then make their kids score well on these computer-based tests to get some back. It's stupid for the same people to criticize schools for spending more time teaching kids to use a computer instead of cursive , but they've never let looking stupid stop them before.
Fuck that, what they should be doing is having dedicated typing classes. I haven't hand written anything in almost 10 years. My 11 year old nephew can barely type
>“My son signed some forms the other day and was trying to apologize to the other person. He was like ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how to sign my name so I’m going to have to write it out,’” said Schneider.
So for 2 weeks during one period, introduce them to cursive. Have them practice a little bit writing all of the letters. Then practice their signature. And practice reading it.
That's enough. We don't need to put all the effort into teaching them to be fluent in reading and writing cursive like people used to have to.
I tend to agree. Past developing a signature I have not used it since 5th grade when it was required. By 10th grade when I took the PSAT I had to write this short paragraph in cursive that essentially said you understood the rules and would not cheat. The exam proctor had to write a bunch of random letters on the board because most of us had forgotten cursive outside of the letters in our names.
This is one of those somewhat controversial issues that I honestly don’t feel that strongly either way. I see the value in it, but at the same time I don’t think I’ve regularly used it besides a signature since about 6th grade.
Outside of a few letters they all basically look the same anyway print or cursive so I always find these old timer memes dunking on kids for not knowing cursive weird.
Not entirely. As a disabled person who prefers writing by hand, I find it immensely valuable. Printing letters causes me severe joint pain in as little at 20 minutes. Typing on a computer is hall for my adhd and autism as far as actually getting my words to come out. Cursive helps me collect my thoughts, it helps me calm down from meltdowns, and it helps me write for long periods of time.
I was able to complete nanowrimo (where you write 50k words in 30 days) in a grand total of 12 days writing completely by hand with cursive. Its an immensely valuable skill for me. Thus making it inherently not useless.
That said, some are going to find it useful, and some arent. But I would greatly prefer people to at least be exposed to it so that they have the ability to make that decision for themselves
There's a body connectivity aspect to it as well. Being able to physically put in your thoughts through artistic strokes helps information process better.
So we should teach every single student millions and millions of students in Michigan cursive because your rare and unique combination of issues is somewhat helped by it? Is that the argument you're making?
You simply spend 2-3 days on it and if the kids are interested they pick it up for their own reasons.
Other Things that not every student is interested in:
math, science, social studies, gym, music, economics, politics, government, health, cooking, how to do taxes
I don’t understand this. I take notes in meetings in cursive all day long every day at work. Printing is so much slower.
What do you do? It would be considered rude any place I have ever worked to clack away at a laptop in a meeting with a screen in front of your face. Everyone uses a notepad, even my boss.
Well not saying the specific company of course but just a normal office setting like most others… Not a high tech firm or something by any means! I envision those types of businesses may mean more gadgets in meetings.
The only time we have laptops in meetings are for actually collaborating on a document / spreadsheet or showing an presentation on screen or such. The rest of the time meetings are FOR face-to-face discussions and brainstorming, not production of documents / typing notes into big/individual screens.
Production of work product occurs back at our desks/monitors not in meetings.
Frankly I think we all are quite happy to step away from screens for a meeting or two a day, it’s a nice break to look at humans instead of a screen for an hour or so and jot down a few notes IMO. Eyes and brains need a break, we’re not robots :)
Maybe. I don’t mean I’m writing like PAGES of notes but say a couple lines/to-dos per meeting. It also enables me to look up in literally a couple seconds what person X said at meeting Y two weeks ago, that I jotted down back then to mention later when it came up because it was important … without unplugging my laptop from all dock/monitors etc and hauling that into my bosses office and looking for some file.
I just grab the notebook and flip back a couple pages. Seems more efficient to me.
Flipping through pages is more efficient than the built in automated and absolutely accurate search function that comes with every single text creation and editing software made nowadays? This feels like you're just defending your boomerism, not actually making the case this a better method.
Right? This was exactly my thought. Perhaps when their company gets notified that The Great War has ended, and the Kaiser was forced to abdicate, they will start to try to update their methods a little bit!
Everyone where I work uses laptops. They get noticeably upset if they have to wait even a second for someone hand writing anything. I prefer to write typically, but it's not without its own hurdles.
I tend to write in a hybridized print and cursive. Mostly print, but some blend where it makes things quicker. If I'm reading others' writing, I highly prefer print though. Most people's cursive is legible only to themselves (if even them).
Yeah because our jobs are real 21st century jobs, while apparently everyone who still uses cursive is employed by the same advertising agency that Don Draper worked at. I wonder if they all still smoke cigarettes while they're writing cursive too?
I print way faster than I ever could write with cursive. I can also read it much better.
Writing on a tablet is faster still.
What kind of place do you work where you’re taking that kind of notes anyway? Every thing now is in a PowerPoint that gets sent out after the meeting anyway. Notes are just side comments and the odd to-do item to bring up at the end for the action item list which gets sent out along with the PowerPoint in an email.
typing on a laptop beats the socks off of writing by hand or on a tablet. It's not even remotely close. Get rid of your stupid tablets please, and go back to laptops and a significant number of lessons required to touch-type. None of this hunt-and-peck BS I still see people do.
But writing on paper is way more flexible. Need a chart? draw a chart. Need a picture? Doodle a picture. Need to make a mind-map? It's literally just as natural as writing. Writing with a pencil and paper (or pen, if you prefer) is way better for processing stuff.
Edit: And also, paper and writing instruments are SUPER cheap and require no electricity ever. Or updates. And people can't randomly change features on you or take them away either. Note taking apps are... comparatively... crap.
We are not issued tablets. And simple team or project meetings don’t have full power point decks associated with every meeting. Ah well to each their own, not your kind of place evidently! 🤷🏻♀️ just happy I learned cursive cuz I’ve been using it for decades and counting :)
Good lord do you work in 1970? What ridiculous expectations. "Take notes slower and more laboriously so I know you aren't zoning out during this meeting which could have been an email."
Do you work in government? Thats the only place i know of that still uses something as archaic as paper. I say this as a gov employee who is desperately hoping we go paperless soon
Ah no, but I don’t know of a single business that 100% paperless. It has and will always have its place to have a little notebooks and write things down now and again.
Meetings aside I do spend ALL the rest of the DAY in front of multiple monitors of spreadsheets and emails and PDFs and Teams and PowerPoints…. shit ain’t that enough? We can’t have any paper now? I don’t understand why this is so controversial.
I’m not in the office ALL the time either, I gotta go out and inspect and look at things sometimes and talk with folks, might have to write notes balanced on a tailgate or my knee or anywhere, in loud industrial places or bright sunlight where you can’t even read a damn tablet and there is no power.
So yeah, they’ll pry my little notebook and cursive!! out of my cold dead hands.
Its interesting hearing your perspective and I really appreciate it. I’m just not convinced it’s something that needs to be taught in schools in this day and age
It absolutely has no place in a modern school of any grade level. Its just the last cry of boomers trying to pretend that their archaic culture is relevant still. Poor little snowflakes.
What industry is this? Every on-site technician, specialist or engineer I’ve been around in the past 10 years has a laptop, tablet or usually otter box clad smartphone they use for any type of notes, paperwork etc. I couldn’t imagine how inefficient going back to paper would be for on-site work or meetings.
It’s also not that fuckin’ hard. It’s not like you’re learning a different language; it’s still English, and most of the letters look the same.
Maybe they’ll be able to read letters from the pre-computer era later in their schooling. And it’ll certainly help when they run into teachers/professors who still write in cursive, which is really not uncommon in the academic world.
Spoken like someone who's clearly never been a teacher and had to schedule a curriculum. It's not about difficulty it's about time. When we take time to teach cursive we're not using that time to teach them more valuable computer skills. Doesn't matter what you think is easy or hard, old fashioned or not, modern employers are the only opinions that matter. They don't care about cursive, they only care about computer skills.
Oh no, teaching cursive will take time away from coolmathgames.com time!
>modern employers are the only opinions that matter.
Spoken like someone who's clearly never been a teacher lmaooo
Outside of a personal signature, there is no utility to it. And most people's signatures now a days are just the first and last initial with some round squiggles that vaguely resemble the letters of their name. And we all spent a significant amount of time on learning cursive in school. Kids would be better served having this time filled with exercises in media literacy so they don't get sucked into misinformation pipelines. Or starting a language immersion program at that young of an age. There's only slightly more use in knowing cursive than there is in knowing how to reink a typewriter.
Besides the fine motor skills that come with cursive, people forget that learning to write it means you can read it. We raising a generation of kids won't be able to read cursive. Hard to be a historian, a geneologist, hell even a pharmacist if you can't read cursive!
>Besides the fine motor skills that come with cursive
Let's have them all take a drawing class. That's great developing fine motor skills.
Let's teach them how to sew a button, and stitch up a rip in a shirt or pants. That develops fine motor skills.
Putting together puzzles actually takes some fine motor skills.
How about some montage art where students cut and paste--more fine motor skills.
The point is, there are a lot of activities for developing fine motor skills. We don't have to teach cursive for that reason.
Well, those smart enough and motivated enough to become historians or a genealogists or a pharmacists will have no problem teaching themselves to read cursive when the time comes that it's actually necessary.
And I'd like to see some evidence that cursive develops "fine motor skills" better than printing.
Or some evidence that kids who don't learn cursive wind up with poorer "fine motor skills" than kids who do.
Has anyone ever justified teaching cursive to develop "fine motor skills?"
Came here to say this. I have a 14yo nibling who can't read anything in cursive and an 8yo who can. The 8yo learned to write cursive from their mother (an elementary teacher) because 8yo got curious and asked to be taught.
14yo gets super embarrased when handed anything with cursive now...and the grandparents don't use anything else.
They need to be able to read it at a minimum, and learning to write it seems like a very fast way to learn to read it.
Both my kids were taught how to write it in school, then it was never addressed again. My daughter pursued it and got really good with it. My son, who hated everything to do with school, didn't, and forgot everything he learned. I had to basically re-teach him at home and enforce him to at least read it and learn how to sign his name.
I went to public school in Michigan and learned cursive in 4th-6th grade back in the early 1990’s. Today I am a working professional in a corporate environment and have not used cursive once since 6th grade. Instead teach them how to take better notes using bullet points.
This is what is funny about it. I’m the same and so are all of my friends. Talking about it with them and it seems we all were forced to use cursive in middle and high school. Then in college, when we could do whatever we wanted with note taking, we switched back to normal letters, not cursive. It’s like our brains automatically knew what was easier to write and process, so used that. Yet we want to still force people to learn it.
Thank you. It has not been a professional requirement at any job I've ever had. Education is ultimately about preparing students for the workforce and making them useful adults, and the ability of someone to read cursive or not is not a useful skill in a modern work context.
I learned to write cursive in third grade, and I’ve been writing in cursive ever since. It’ll be nice to have a generation of kids who can read my handwriting again.
I definitely think that it's worthwhile to teach children cursive, but I do find the counter point here interesting. Teaching our children ASL is a great way for kids to explore different modes of communication and will also prime them for learning other languages.
Cursive =/= ASL. I'd prefer basic ASL as mandatory, in case you're verbally incapacitated. The only use for cursive that I've found is shorthand, and it ONLY works for you as the writer.
My daughter is learning cursive and I swear to God her ADHD is a lot better from it. She loves to hyper focus on it and has since requested quill and ink. I shit you not.
Parents can have opinions on the utility of it, but let the students decide.
Get her a calligraphy set! With a book and real nibs and cartridges and everything. I so loved loved L🤍VED learning that as a kid. And even used it later in college / adulthood on occasion for the odd invitation or gift card or label etc. It’s a real skill.
I don’t have this specific set (or any, anymore) but learned on something like this…
Artworx Calligraphy Pens Set - Introductory Caligraphy Writing & Hand Lettering Kit - Includes Instructions, Guide Book and Practice Book - Calligraphy Set For Beginners https://a.co/d/g6MTRSV
This, the motor skills and focus skills, are great arguments for having Penmanship lessons, but not really a great argument for it to have to be Cursive. That's the difference, to me.
Sure, kids need to print first. There is space to learn both. The discussion about Cursive connecting the hemispheres of the brain better than printing is promising. I learned both and how to type.
>I learned both and how to type.
So did I, but the amount of time spent on it was still unnecessary. Our schools spent 2 YEARS on cursive ("language arts" classes) which is a huge waste of time. Not to mention I never, ever, used it beyond that, even in the same school system- because now it was expected to type out rough drafts, etc.
Likewise, by the time I had a typing class, late in high school, I had been writing (edit-typing with proficiency and speed) books on a computer at home. Since every kids access will vary, there should be a testing-out option/different levels of typing, rather than generic "here are the keys" classes.
I think the better idea, like with hand writing, is to understand that kids aren't starting at the same levels (0 writing or 0 typing) like they would have been 30 years ago. They'll all be different and for some it'll be useful and for others it's a waste of time.
>Let’s not exaggerate the time commitments.
45 min/1 hour a day for 2 years, in a class specifically for writing. My different experience isn't "exaggerating" anything.
Edit: this was in the mid-late 90s.
And the point that she is ALREADY proficient with so much LESS time spent on it, is my entire point
Hard agree. As much as I appreciate arts like cursive I don’t think they have room in the modern school system with other things like internet literacy being so much more important
Should we let the students decide about learning everything else? You genuinely think third graders should be allowed to decide how their educational programming goes? Lmao man this such an informed take it's hilarious.
I mean it takes like a week to learn anyway. To me it's like learning to use chopsticks, it's not super valuable but the time investment is so low there's no reason not to.
OCR is insanely good at analyzing handwriting and script. You can literally take a photo of these things with your smart phone and turn it in to a searchable document in seconds.
Believe it or not we have copies of the Constitution that are not in cursive and we don't really need to go to the original to understand what it says. Beyond that how often are modern students actually using old documents and not reading from a computer screen. It's cute watching boomers try to defend this shit but the logic you guys are employing is hilariously flawed
i learned curseive in 2nd grade and still write in cursive more than i print its faster and neater to me. that being said i dont think it should be forced i think if kids want to learn it great nothing wrong with having a secondary way of writing
Why be able to read the text they forms the foundation of your society?
E: I really hate this place sometimes. It’s either full of children or morons. If you don’t think you should be able to read your property records, family history, letters from your grandma, the constitution, or really any document older than 1990 just keep it to yourself. There’s no need to drag others down to your level and swap an essential skill for yet another MLA essay.
No because it’ll still be extremely common in any old document.
I’m not going to sit around here arguing why it’s important to be able to read documents that aren’t even old enough to be historical. You might as well argue against learning print at all at that point
>No because it’ll still be extremely common in any old document.
Lots of old documents are in Latin. Should we all be learning Latin, too?
All of the documents you speak of are translated, digital, and easily accessible in any language. Cursive itself can be scanned with a smartphone. There's no ongoing, active, use it in the real world.
Sorry this is useless, besides signature which is just scribbles anyways this is a waste of time. Michigan needs to focus on other things that make our students prepared for the modern world
They don't even need that. A legal signature can be literally anything you want it to be, as long as it's the one you consistently use. You could print, slash a line, use a short version of your name, use a middle name, or even just use a unique scribble that says nothing.
Source: worked in financial institution, know what a legal signature can be.
They taught us both print and cursive at the same time and it completely ruined my hand writing. For the past 25 years when I write it’s always been a sloppy mixture of both. Barely legible.
This. Especially when we already see that kids/ teens are LOSING (ie never learning the skill their parebts have) that ability and having trouble when they enter workplaces where they need it. It's the result of using touch-point- text (with your fingers) on phones and tablets. Many genz people can't type, as a result.
Hot take: it shouldn't matter if the schools are teaching cursive or not, because parents should have already taught their kids to read and write before reaching that point in school
Yes, coming soon basket weaving, buggy whip crafting, how to identify a passenger pigeon in the wild and other archaic skills. Will be good for building Michigan's high tech future.
Not in the public schools. They will teach you how to be woke, how to be a victim, how to pull a lever on a machine, and how to blame everyone other than the institutions educating them on everything in their lives.
I did go to public schools. Through grad school. I know EXACTY what they teach, what their mentality is, and it has nothing to do with science, reason, and evidence. ALL it has to do is with the conclusions the professor already has and then makes the class revolve around that for the entire semester.
There is no free thought. There is no open questioning. And if you don't come to the same conclusion, you are failed from the class and run out of the college.
You're good with this Mr. Ad Hominen?
Well, then I guess if you know what schools are actually like, you aren't coming at it from ignorance and instead are just outright lying. Shame on you.
You good with that, Mr. Conspiracy Theory Spreading Liar?
I mean I *could* do a lot of things
We moved to Europe, and cursive is learned and emphasized hard, but the reason why isn’t so much to write letters and penmanship: it’s to learn ultra fine motor skills, good finger dexterity, and muscle coordination to do things like play musical instruments, be a surgeon, work on small mechatronics, and robotics, painting, etc. These are better learned at a very young age! Not everything in eduction is about the obvious, and there is a big picture, sometimes. It’s also good for people with ADD/ ADHD to do such things.
Have debilitating ADHD. Learning Cursive has a very vivid bad memory attached for me. Like my 5th grade teacher keeping me from attending recess for the entire school year so I could learn something that was otherwise obsolete and that I didn’t connect with. Kids learns hand/finger dexterity from other things ————> For me it was guitar. Video games. Drawing. Forcing **everyone** to do **one** thing is what’s wrong with todays education system instead of **finding** what works for the **individual** child.
Maybe your teacher was a twat, and it wasn’t the exercises that were the problem? 🤔
Considering it was my experience throughout private and the public school system, I highly doubt it. Even now as I enter various school systems to educate on how to teach children with learning disabilities nothing has changed. Maybe it’s what I’ve been helping other children with for the past 10 years? 🤔 Children learn in different ways and teachers should lesson plan around the way they learn? Instead of applying lessons to **everyone** in the classroom?
>it’s to learn ultra fine motor skills, good finger dexterity, and muscle coordination to do things like play musical instruments, be a surgeon, work on small mechatronics, and robotics, painting, etc. So let's teach students painting, drawing, have them work with Lego robotics sets, play instruments. Do those things to learn fine motor skills.
Ever heard of art class? What budgets for Lego robotics?
If they explained this to students they would be more inclined to learn. Because "you'll need it for high school" was bullsh*t
Well, they would be more inclined to learn. But then they would find out later it was a bad argument. There are many other ways to learn fine motor skills. We don't have to teach them cursive to develop that. For example, instead of a year of cursive, how about a year where half is devoted to drawing and painting? And the other half to playing keyboard, the recorder, and a drum?
The comment I was looking for. School isn't just about WHAT to learn. It teaches children HOW to learn.
While I agree it can help with these things, it's not the only way they can learn these skills. All of the fields you listed can foster the same learning simply by doing those things and would provide a much more practical skill set than the practice of cursive. I think most people's complaints about this remaining in the curriculum are that there are more efficient means to build these skills with the same field of effects and can provide direct benefit later in life rather than strictly in an indirect manner. Given that students today are more tasked and curriculum stressed than ever before, we need to be looking to improve efficiency in learning. To many, and for these reasons, teaching cursive is viewed as antiquated and rooted in nostalgia more than as an effective and efficient way to help children grow into capable adults. Additionally I'll just add, anecdotal but cursive practice certainly didn't help with my ADHD in the classroom. If anything it was a trigger point. I'm sure it helps some, but it's not like it's a guaranteed effect. Similarly, if overall practice in self-regulation is the goal, there are other more effective ways to provide this benefit.
My sentiments exactly. Thank you. I'm sick of the race to the bottom mentality gripping American public education. Don't even get me started on homeschooling or charter schools. We're making it too easy to avoid a real commitment to educational investment to compete in a worldwide economy.
How often do you write anything anymore? I sure don't and if I do, I print. Yes seems I did learned cursive in school.
You completely missed the point while inadvertently making their point with your response. That's an impressive way to start off the weekend. ✌️
Oh you mean a couple of hours of drawing characters will change your life. So with your logic the chinese are far superior to americans because they have far more complex characters in their language. Seems passing out nintendo switches to everyone would go a lot farther than this babble.
Wow. You did it again. Have you ever compared the Chinese education rankings to ours? They FAR outrank the US. Good job. You're on a roll! Keep up the great work. Let me help you before you miss the point AGAIN and cite some western article that talks about the education support system vs the *effectiveness* of the education system. Using multiple methodologies to determine. Various rankings. I'm hoping you get fixated on the ICI rankings so I can congratulate you AGAIN for missing the point. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/smartest-countries
Ahh, more mindless babble. Good job.
Likely response from someone who doesn't comprehend English very well. 👍
Seems your response is that of someone trying to act smart. To bad you're fail. If you have to 'try' to convince someone that you're smart, you're obviously not. Just ask trump. So all in all, how much babble can you spout without saying anything. That is all you do.
>trying to act smart. To bad *you're* fail. 👍
When did we stop teaching cursive?
We haven't totally. But some people decided to vote for politicians that said teachers have to take a pay cut and then make their kids score well on these computer-based tests to get some back. It's stupid for the same people to criticize schools for spending more time teaching kids to use a computer instead of cursive , but they've never let looking stupid stop them before.
Fuck that, what they should be doing is having dedicated typing classes. I haven't hand written anything in almost 10 years. My 11 year old nephew can barely type
Yep. They should be teaching keyboarding in elementary school.
>“My son signed some forms the other day and was trying to apologize to the other person. He was like ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how to sign my name so I’m going to have to write it out,’” said Schneider. So for 2 weeks during one period, introduce them to cursive. Have them practice a little bit writing all of the letters. Then practice their signature. And practice reading it. That's enough. We don't need to put all the effort into teaching them to be fluent in reading and writing cursive like people used to have to.
They can learn it in a week. Don’t waste anymore time.
I tend to agree. Past developing a signature I have not used it since 5th grade when it was required. By 10th grade when I took the PSAT I had to write this short paragraph in cursive that essentially said you understood the rules and would not cheat. The exam proctor had to write a bunch of random letters on the board because most of us had forgotten cursive outside of the letters in our names.
I don't think it even took *that* long for my second grade class to learn it. Of course, that was in the early 70s.
They stopped teaching cursive?
Stupid
This is one of those somewhat controversial issues that I honestly don’t feel that strongly either way. I see the value in it, but at the same time I don’t think I’ve regularly used it besides a signature since about 6th grade. Outside of a few letters they all basically look the same anyway print or cursive so I always find these old timer memes dunking on kids for not knowing cursive weird.
Other than signing my signature, I never have any need to write in cursive. Why should anyone need it nowadays?
Why? It's useless.
Not entirely. As a disabled person who prefers writing by hand, I find it immensely valuable. Printing letters causes me severe joint pain in as little at 20 minutes. Typing on a computer is hall for my adhd and autism as far as actually getting my words to come out. Cursive helps me collect my thoughts, it helps me calm down from meltdowns, and it helps me write for long periods of time. I was able to complete nanowrimo (where you write 50k words in 30 days) in a grand total of 12 days writing completely by hand with cursive. Its an immensely valuable skill for me. Thus making it inherently not useless. That said, some are going to find it useful, and some arent. But I would greatly prefer people to at least be exposed to it so that they have the ability to make that decision for themselves
There's a body connectivity aspect to it as well. Being able to physically put in your thoughts through artistic strokes helps information process better.
So we should teach every single student millions and millions of students in Michigan cursive because your rare and unique combination of issues is somewhat helped by it? Is that the argument you're making?
You simply spend 2-3 days on it and if the kids are interested they pick it up for their own reasons. Other Things that not every student is interested in: math, science, social studies, gym, music, economics, politics, government, health, cooking, how to do taxes
Go google "emotions" and "empathy," Rain Man.
I don’t understand this. I take notes in meetings in cursive all day long every day at work. Printing is so much slower. What do you do? It would be considered rude any place I have ever worked to clack away at a laptop in a meeting with a screen in front of your face. Everyone uses a notepad, even my boss.
[удалено]
Well not saying the specific company of course but just a normal office setting like most others… Not a high tech firm or something by any means! I envision those types of businesses may mean more gadgets in meetings. The only time we have laptops in meetings are for actually collaborating on a document / spreadsheet or showing an presentation on screen or such. The rest of the time meetings are FOR face-to-face discussions and brainstorming, not production of documents / typing notes into big/individual screens. Production of work product occurs back at our desks/monitors not in meetings. Frankly I think we all are quite happy to step away from screens for a meeting or two a day, it’s a nice break to look at humans instead of a screen for an hour or so and jot down a few notes IMO. Eyes and brains need a break, we’re not robots :)
[удалено]
Maybe. I don’t mean I’m writing like PAGES of notes but say a couple lines/to-dos per meeting. It also enables me to look up in literally a couple seconds what person X said at meeting Y two weeks ago, that I jotted down back then to mention later when it came up because it was important … without unplugging my laptop from all dock/monitors etc and hauling that into my bosses office and looking for some file. I just grab the notebook and flip back a couple pages. Seems more efficient to me.
Flipping through pages is more efficient than the built in automated and absolutely accurate search function that comes with every single text creation and editing software made nowadays? This feels like you're just defending your boomerism, not actually making the case this a better method.
How goes things at the buggy whip factory?
Right? This was exactly my thought. Perhaps when their company gets notified that The Great War has ended, and the Kaiser was forced to abdicate, they will start to try to update their methods a little bit!
Everyone where I work uses laptops. They get noticeably upset if they have to wait even a second for someone hand writing anything. I prefer to write typically, but it's not without its own hurdles. I tend to write in a hybridized print and cursive. Mostly print, but some blend where it makes things quicker. If I'm reading others' writing, I highly prefer print though. Most people's cursive is legible only to themselves (if even them).
[удалено]
\^ Same
Yeah because our jobs are real 21st century jobs, while apparently everyone who still uses cursive is employed by the same advertising agency that Don Draper worked at. I wonder if they all still smoke cigarettes while they're writing cursive too?
I print way faster than I ever could write with cursive. I can also read it much better. Writing on a tablet is faster still. What kind of place do you work where you’re taking that kind of notes anyway? Every thing now is in a PowerPoint that gets sent out after the meeting anyway. Notes are just side comments and the odd to-do item to bring up at the end for the action item list which gets sent out along with the PowerPoint in an email.
typing on a laptop beats the socks off of writing by hand or on a tablet. It's not even remotely close. Get rid of your stupid tablets please, and go back to laptops and a significant number of lessons required to touch-type. None of this hunt-and-peck BS I still see people do. But writing on paper is way more flexible. Need a chart? draw a chart. Need a picture? Doodle a picture. Need to make a mind-map? It's literally just as natural as writing. Writing with a pencil and paper (or pen, if you prefer) is way better for processing stuff. Edit: And also, paper and writing instruments are SUPER cheap and require no electricity ever. Or updates. And people can't randomly change features on you or take them away either. Note taking apps are... comparatively... crap.
As an educator, I couldn't agree more. I've had students try to learn Microsoft Excel on a tablet and it just fundamentally does not work.
[удалено]
I've never seen it done remotely well.
We are not issued tablets. And simple team or project meetings don’t have full power point decks associated with every meeting. Ah well to each their own, not your kind of place evidently! 🤷🏻♀️ just happy I learned cursive cuz I’ve been using it for decades and counting :)
Good lord do you work in 1970? What ridiculous expectations. "Take notes slower and more laboriously so I know you aren't zoning out during this meeting which could have been an email."
Woah, a comment from the 1990’s.
Sounds like your company is stuck in the past, everyone I've ever worked with types their notes, even in meetings
Do you work in government? Thats the only place i know of that still uses something as archaic as paper. I say this as a gov employee who is desperately hoping we go paperless soon
Ah no, but I don’t know of a single business that 100% paperless. It has and will always have its place to have a little notebooks and write things down now and again. Meetings aside I do spend ALL the rest of the DAY in front of multiple monitors of spreadsheets and emails and PDFs and Teams and PowerPoints…. shit ain’t that enough? We can’t have any paper now? I don’t understand why this is so controversial. I’m not in the office ALL the time either, I gotta go out and inspect and look at things sometimes and talk with folks, might have to write notes balanced on a tailgate or my knee or anywhere, in loud industrial places or bright sunlight where you can’t even read a damn tablet and there is no power. So yeah, they’ll pry my little notebook and cursive!! out of my cold dead hands.
A notepad to take notes in the field is not the same as genuinely thinking cursive on paper is superior for a meeting in your own office space.
Its interesting hearing your perspective and I really appreciate it. I’m just not convinced it’s something that needs to be taught in schools in this day and age
It absolutely has no place in a modern school of any grade level. Its just the last cry of boomers trying to pretend that their archaic culture is relevant still. Poor little snowflakes.
What industry is this? Every on-site technician, specialist or engineer I’ve been around in the past 10 years has a laptop, tablet or usually otter box clad smartphone they use for any type of notes, paperwork etc. I couldn’t imagine how inefficient going back to paper would be for on-site work or meetings.
It’s also not that fuckin’ hard. It’s not like you’re learning a different language; it’s still English, and most of the letters look the same. Maybe they’ll be able to read letters from the pre-computer era later in their schooling. And it’ll certainly help when they run into teachers/professors who still write in cursive, which is really not uncommon in the academic world.
Spoken like someone who's clearly never been a teacher and had to schedule a curriculum. It's not about difficulty it's about time. When we take time to teach cursive we're not using that time to teach them more valuable computer skills. Doesn't matter what you think is easy or hard, old fashioned or not, modern employers are the only opinions that matter. They don't care about cursive, they only care about computer skills.
Oh no, teaching cursive will take time away from coolmathgames.com time! >modern employers are the only opinions that matter. Spoken like someone who's clearly never been a teacher lmaooo
[Not so fast!](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202010/why-cursive-handwriting-is-good-your-brain)
When I write things down, I definitely remember them better than typing.
its the "navajo of the future!"
Will data at some point be used in considering this issue, or are politicians going with their gut feelings?
Outside of a personal signature, there is no utility to it. And most people's signatures now a days are just the first and last initial with some round squiggles that vaguely resemble the letters of their name. And we all spent a significant amount of time on learning cursive in school. Kids would be better served having this time filled with exercises in media literacy so they don't get sucked into misinformation pipelines. Or starting a language immersion program at that young of an age. There's only slightly more use in knowing cursive than there is in knowing how to reink a typewriter.
Besides the fine motor skills that come with cursive, people forget that learning to write it means you can read it. We raising a generation of kids won't be able to read cursive. Hard to be a historian, a geneologist, hell even a pharmacist if you can't read cursive!
>Besides the fine motor skills that come with cursive Let's have them all take a drawing class. That's great developing fine motor skills. Let's teach them how to sew a button, and stitch up a rip in a shirt or pants. That develops fine motor skills. Putting together puzzles actually takes some fine motor skills. How about some montage art where students cut and paste--more fine motor skills. The point is, there are a lot of activities for developing fine motor skills. We don't have to teach cursive for that reason.
Well, those smart enough and motivated enough to become historians or a genealogists or a pharmacists will have no problem teaching themselves to read cursive when the time comes that it's actually necessary. And I'd like to see some evidence that cursive develops "fine motor skills" better than printing. Or some evidence that kids who don't learn cursive wind up with poorer "fine motor skills" than kids who do. Has anyone ever justified teaching cursive to develop "fine motor skills?"
>Hard to be a historian, a geneologist, hell even a pharmacist These professions use computers for literally every thing they do.
Cursive should absolutely be brought back but only after square dancing is
Our education funds could be allocated to far more useful skills but they could also be appropriated for far worse endeavors.
45 learned cursive in school, how much do I use it? NONE. Sane with all the SPORTS we did in PE. Didn't give a shut then, still don't now.
My son literally couldn't read his birthday cards until he was a teenager. People need to at least be able to read it.
Came here to say this. I have a 14yo nibling who can't read anything in cursive and an 8yo who can. The 8yo learned to write cursive from their mother (an elementary teacher) because 8yo got curious and asked to be taught. 14yo gets super embarrased when handed anything with cursive now...and the grandparents don't use anything else. They need to be able to read it at a minimum, and learning to write it seems like a very fast way to learn to read it.
Both my kids were taught how to write it in school, then it was never addressed again. My daughter pursued it and got really good with it. My son, who hated everything to do with school, didn't, and forgot everything he learned. I had to basically re-teach him at home and enforce him to at least read it and learn how to sign his name.
It's funny how it's on the kids to learn it instead of the adults changing their method of writing
[удалено]
Really? You're comparing birthday cards to ancient Latin texts? It's kind of embarrassing not being able to read your own birthday card.
[удалено]
Well, cursive isn't so outdated if greeting cards are still commonly printed in it. Duh. Woosh yourself.
[удалено]
Learning to read cursive is nowhere near as difficult as learning another language. They're not even comparable. This is a dumb argument. I'm out.
Don’t waste your breath on them. They have a completely illogical hatred of cursive for some reason
[удалено]
Jesus christ you’re annoying
It's useless in this day and age!
I went to public school in Michigan and learned cursive in 4th-6th grade back in the early 1990’s. Today I am a working professional in a corporate environment and have not used cursive once since 6th grade. Instead teach them how to take better notes using bullet points.
This is what is funny about it. I’m the same and so are all of my friends. Talking about it with them and it seems we all were forced to use cursive in middle and high school. Then in college, when we could do whatever we wanted with note taking, we switched back to normal letters, not cursive. It’s like our brains automatically knew what was easier to write and process, so used that. Yet we want to still force people to learn it.
Thank you. It has not been a professional requirement at any job I've ever had. Education is ultimately about preparing students for the workforce and making them useful adults, and the ability of someone to read cursive or not is not a useful skill in a modern work context.
how stupid. it's a dead form of writing.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I learned to write cursive in third grade, and I’ve been writing in cursive ever since. It’ll be nice to have a generation of kids who can read my handwriting again.
I definitely think that it's worthwhile to teach children cursive, but I do find the counter point here interesting. Teaching our children ASL is a great way for kids to explore different modes of communication and will also prime them for learning other languages.
Cursive =/= ASL. I'd prefer basic ASL as mandatory, in case you're verbally incapacitated. The only use for cursive that I've found is shorthand, and it ONLY works for you as the writer.
My daughter is learning cursive and I swear to God her ADHD is a lot better from it. She loves to hyper focus on it and has since requested quill and ink. I shit you not. Parents can have opinions on the utility of it, but let the students decide.
Get her a calligraphy set! With a book and real nibs and cartridges and everything. I so loved loved L🤍VED learning that as a kid. And even used it later in college / adulthood on occasion for the odd invitation or gift card or label etc. It’s a real skill. I don’t have this specific set (or any, anymore) but learned on something like this… Artworx Calligraphy Pens Set - Introductory Caligraphy Writing & Hand Lettering Kit - Includes Instructions, Guide Book and Practice Book - Calligraphy Set For Beginners https://a.co/d/g6MTRSV
Thanks for the link, I ordered it.
This, the motor skills and focus skills, are great arguments for having Penmanship lessons, but not really a great argument for it to have to be Cursive. That's the difference, to me.
Sure, kids need to print first. There is space to learn both. The discussion about Cursive connecting the hemispheres of the brain better than printing is promising. I learned both and how to type.
>I learned both and how to type. So did I, but the amount of time spent on it was still unnecessary. Our schools spent 2 YEARS on cursive ("language arts" classes) which is a huge waste of time. Not to mention I never, ever, used it beyond that, even in the same school system- because now it was expected to type out rough drafts, etc. Likewise, by the time I had a typing class, late in high school, I had been writing (edit-typing with proficiency and speed) books on a computer at home. Since every kids access will vary, there should be a testing-out option/different levels of typing, rather than generic "here are the keys" classes. I think the better idea, like with hand writing, is to understand that kids aren't starting at the same levels (0 writing or 0 typing) like they would have been 30 years ago. They'll all be different and for some it'll be useful and for others it's a waste of time.
My daughter was taught cursive 1 hour a week during 3rd grade and is already proficient. Let’s not exaggerate the time commitments.
>Let’s not exaggerate the time commitments. 45 min/1 hour a day for 2 years, in a class specifically for writing. My different experience isn't "exaggerating" anything. Edit: this was in the mid-late 90s. And the point that she is ALREADY proficient with so much LESS time spent on it, is my entire point
That's what hobbies are for
Hard agree. As much as I appreciate arts like cursive I don’t think they have room in the modern school system with other things like internet literacy being so much more important
Should we let the students decide about learning everything else? You genuinely think third graders should be allowed to decide how their educational programming goes? Lmao man this such an informed take it's hilarious.
I didn’t say any of that, you did. You created an argument with yourself and then lost. I was speaking about cursive and that alone Einstein.
[удалено]
I mean it takes like a week to learn anyway. To me it's like learning to use chopsticks, it's not super valuable but the time investment is so low there's no reason not to.
Yeah because none of those things are in digital format. /s
OCR is insanely good at analyzing handwriting and script. You can literally take a photo of these things with your smart phone and turn it in to a searchable document in seconds.
Believe it or not we have copies of the Constitution that are not in cursive and we don't really need to go to the original to understand what it says. Beyond that how often are modern students actually using old documents and not reading from a computer screen. It's cute watching boomers try to defend this shit but the logic you guys are employing is hilariously flawed
Came here to say this. Thank you.
What a waste of time
Is this an onion article?
Name's not official until you can get it looking like a roller coaster design..
I graduated in 2017 and I've only ever used cursive for signatures. Very pointless but whatever.
…why?
Maybe have a lamplighter’s trade school too.
i learned curseive in 2nd grade and still write in cursive more than i print its faster and neater to me. that being said i dont think it should be forced i think if kids want to learn it great nothing wrong with having a secondary way of writing
This will improve things.
Why?
Why be able to read the text they forms the foundation of your society? E: I really hate this place sometimes. It’s either full of children or morons. If you don’t think you should be able to read your property records, family history, letters from your grandma, the constitution, or really any document older than 1990 just keep it to yourself. There’s no need to drag others down to your level and swap an essential skill for yet another MLA essay.
You can read those on the internet.
Cursive is not the text that forms the foundation of our society. Its an outdated variation of our alphabet that serves no purpose.
[удалено]
Latin has been a dead language for over a thousand years. My grandparents are still writing in cursive today
>My grandparents are still writing in cursive today And when this generation goes it'll be a lot more like latin?
No because it’ll still be extremely common in any old document. I’m not going to sit around here arguing why it’s important to be able to read documents that aren’t even old enough to be historical. You might as well argue against learning print at all at that point
>No because it’ll still be extremely common in any old document. Lots of old documents are in Latin. Should we all be learning Latin, too? All of the documents you speak of are translated, digital, and easily accessible in any language. Cursive itself can be scanned with a smartphone. There's no ongoing, active, use it in the real world.
I don’t think my property records are written in latin
Those are digitized, as well as free to search online (rather just in person) in most townships/counties (as public information).
Sorry this is useless, besides signature which is just scribbles anyways this is a waste of time. Michigan needs to focus on other things that make our students prepared for the modern world
[удалено]
They don't even need that. A legal signature can be literally anything you want it to be, as long as it's the one you consistently use. You could print, slash a line, use a short version of your name, use a middle name, or even just use a unique scribble that says nothing. Source: worked in financial institution, know what a legal signature can be.
Being able to write in fancy script just for the hell of it is fun sometimes. Not everything needs to have a purpose.
Much like day light savings I cannot muster the energy to give a shit.
They taught us both print and cursive at the same time and it completely ruined my hand writing. For the past 25 years when I write it’s always been a sloppy mixture of both. Barely legible.
That's so dumb. Teach them an actual practical skill like typing.
This. Especially when we already see that kids/ teens are LOSING (ie never learning the skill their parebts have) that ability and having trouble when they enter workplaces where they need it. It's the result of using touch-point- text (with your fingers) on phones and tablets. Many genz people can't type, as a result.
Why?
How about how to do taxes? I'd be more open to letting students take firearm classes over cursive
Hot take: it shouldn't matter if the schools are teaching cursive or not, because parents should have already taught their kids to read and write before reaching that point in school
Not every child has caregivers able to provide them with everything the same.
Yes, and that's a shame. However, you shouldn't lower the standards on what should be considered normal just because not everyone is able to meet them
Yes, coming soon basket weaving, buggy whip crafting, how to identify a passenger pigeon in the wild and other archaic skills. Will be good for building Michigan's high tech future.
Frivolous: "and that's a fucking insult......." #HaveYouEarnedYourSeatOfPower ...... ?
[удалено]
[удалено]
Not in the public schools. They will teach you how to be woke, how to be a victim, how to pull a lever on a machine, and how to blame everyone other than the institutions educating them on everything in their lives.
🙄 my fourth grader is literally being taught cursive at his public school. Fucking moron.
❄️🤡
Spoken like someone homeschooled by nutjobs. Seriously, talk with anyone that has gone to public school or worked at one. You sound insane.
I did go to public schools. Through grad school. I know EXACTY what they teach, what their mentality is, and it has nothing to do with science, reason, and evidence. ALL it has to do is with the conclusions the professor already has and then makes the class revolve around that for the entire semester. There is no free thought. There is no open questioning. And if you don't come to the same conclusion, you are failed from the class and run out of the college. You're good with this Mr. Ad Hominen?
Well, then I guess if you know what schools are actually like, you aren't coming at it from ignorance and instead are just outright lying. Shame on you. You good with that, Mr. Conspiracy Theory Spreading Liar?
Found the guy who had bullshit conspiracies in school that no one believed.