Community Chat

[Kalli]

Our local elem teaches cursive.  It's not given the importance it once had, so there are no major awards, no submission of work, no contests.  But it is taught.  

Maybe those same "kids" who shocked senior folks when they couldn't read and write cursive, discussed with their young peers how shocked *they* were that there are actually people left who don't know basic technology.

   

[Lila Belle]

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@Krimpette wrote:

I'm a senior citizen.  Last week, at my local senior center, some of us had the opportunity to take some basic technology classes.  The instructors were from one of our local high schools.  Part of the goal was bridging the gap between the young and the old.  The classes worked out very, very well, and everyone seemed to enjoy them.

I took a class in facebook and was, as always, astounded by how much these kids know, technology-wise.  Almost intimading, at least to me!  But at the end of one of the sessions, my young instructor took my sheet with my questions that I had to be sure that she covered everything.  She looked at me and smiled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  I can't read cursive."

I hope TPTB have thought this through about no longer teaching cursive.  I asked what she did if she received mail that was in cursive.  She said she has her mom read it to her.  

I found it kind of sad.  I really hate to see cursive being swept aside by so many educators these days.

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Sorry. I don't believe that.

[wildcat fan]

I teach in a middle school, and I've been doing cursive handwriting practice for a few minutes after lunch each day.  The students practice their signatures, and I help them with the letters they want to know.  The ones they struggle the most with are cursive a, F, f, y, z, q, Q, and S.  They also have problems connecting cursive o and b to other letters.  They just don't understand why cursive n looks like an m and why the cursive m has three humps!  We'll keep trying!

Other teachers give me positive feedback saying it's good that I'm teaching them, but others think it's not a good investment of time.  Our spring benchmark scores are some of the highest in the area, so I'm very proud to say cursive hasn't held us back.  

None of our first year teachers can read cursive and they complain loudly when parents send in cursive notes!  

[wildcat fan]

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@Lila Belle wrote:

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@Krimpette wrote:

I'm a senior citizen.  Last week, at my local senior center, some of us had the opportunity to take some basic technology classes.  The instructors were from one of our local high schools.  Part of the goal was bridging the gap between the young and the old.  The classes worked out very, very well, and everyone seemed to enjoy them.

I took a class in facebook and was, as always, astounded by how much these kids know, technology-wise.  Almost intimading, at least to me!  But at the end of one of the sessions, my young instructor took my sheet with my questions that I had to be sure that she covered everything.  She looked at me and smiled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  I can't read cursive."

I hope TPTB have thought this through about no longer teaching cursive.  I asked what she did if she received mail that was in cursive.  She said she has her mom read it to her.  

I found it kind of sad.  I really hate to see cursive being swept aside by so many educators these days.

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Sorry. I don't believe that.

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I believe it.  A teacher at work, who graduated from college last year, asks me to read 504 plans and notes from parents to her that have been written in cursive.  Instead of trying to learn, she just complains about how old fashioned these people are because nobody uses cursive these days.

[Blahblahvampemer]

Civics, finance and history are gone or rewritten, and without cursive, you can't read the Constitution.  What on earth are they teaching?  

[sunshine45]

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@Beachy1 wrote:

Printing is an acceptable "signature" on legal documents.

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or you just "develop" a signature...... a curvy line, straight line, one letter with a line....

my young adult  college aged children rarely use cursive anymore......

[Blahblahvampemer]

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@Marianne1 wrote:

I will be the odd one out on this subject:

I see this as a part of educational evolution.  

Kids learn different things in school today than they did in generations before.  

Society and the workplace require different skills.

The older generations learned things that are obsolete or done by other means by the younger.

Just as we learned different things for our generation than our elders did.  

Maybe cursive is one of those lost skills that is now more of an art, taught separately from regular school.

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So what are these different skills?  When compared to the rest of the world, we tend to do quite badly in math, language, reading, history, geography...and every other category, and that's with the most expensive education system in the world.  We spend roughly $150,000 per person or more for K-12, and yet we put men on the moon using sliderules.  

We are graduating people who can't make change, who don't know who the first president was, who the Pilgrims were, and what WW 2 was all about.  All these classes are removed or minimized, but what on earth is taking their place?  

There are companies out there that are hiring, but they also want educated people with some skills, and many can't pass a basic reading, writing or math employment test.  When my dad was a teacher, he worked directly with training people for various tech jobs, and by the time he retired, virtually every student needed a year of remedial courses before they could enter his program.  Then they'd quit because the math was ""too hard."  

Somewhere online there was a curriculum for eighth graders for the late 1920s or early 30s, and what was demanded of those kids was a level of work I don't think most grad students could successfully complete.

Sorry, but I ran into three people in one day who couldn't make change, and that's an epic failure.

[Blahblahvampemer]

Forgot to mention an interesting WSJ article from the other day regarding typing vs. taking actual written notes in class.  Students could take more notes by typing it on their notebook/tablet, and their retention was okay right after the class, but those taking pen to paper had better retention long term.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can write a lot faster in cursive than when printing,  

[ECBG]

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@Lila Belle wrote:

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@Krimpette wrote:

I'm a senior citizen.  Last week, at my local senior center, some of us had the opportunity to take some basic technology classes.  The instructors were from one of our local high schools.  Part of the goal was bridging the gap between the young and the old.  The classes worked out very, very well, and everyone seemed to enjoy them.

I took a class in facebook and was, as always, astounded by how much these kids know, technology-wise.  Almost intimading, at least to me!  But at the end of one of the sessions, my young instructor took my sheet with my questions that I had to be sure that she covered everything.  She looked at me and smiled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  I can't read cursive."

I hope TPTB have thought this through about no longer teaching cursive.  I asked what she did if she received mail that was in cursive.  She said she has her mom read it to her.  

I found it kind of sad.  I really hate to see cursive being swept aside by so many educators these days.

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Sorry. I don't believe that.

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@Lila Belle*******Believe it.  I'm a former educator and this is happening in a lot of places!

[nrm]

Back during the dark ages we had penmanship through 7th grade. When I taught school - up until the '90's students wrote with cursive penmanship. My son who is in his 20's writes in cursive. So, I'm astonished that there are kids in schools who don't know how. 

That said, my son went to private school. So, maybe public schools in many parts of the country don't teach it or maybe with technology having come so far the kids don't need it since all keyboards,phones,etc are in print. 

Very interesting subject.