I wouldn’t keep beating on this cursive thing so much except that I was bad at it and really hated being forced to deal with it as a kid in school. Between typing and printing, I have not missed cursive for an instant since the moment my teachers stopped requiring me to use it.
So, I studied this article in the Journal & Courier with respect to the justifications offered for continuing cursive instruction even if it was no longer in the curriculum. There is less here than meets the eye. The justifications offered, as I read them are:
Cursive writing and handwriting are ways to do hands-on instruction in the writing process and thinking process and small motor skills. There are many benefits that are research-based for cursive handwriting.
Small motor skills I can understand. The rest just looks like word salad to me. “Ways to do hands-on instruction in the writing process” and “many benefits that are research-based.” But, then, my brain has always had difficulty parsing Education jargon.
Cursive proponents contend that cursive is an unfiltered form of self-expression, a much more personal form of language than typing on a computer keyboard. . . . cursive is a method through which students can demonstrate their individuality. Handwriting is still such a unique quality to each and every (student). . . More of the personality comes out rather than with a keyboard, which you can use to say the same thing but with a little bit of a disconnect because it’s going through the keyboard
Really? Seems to me that, particularly with writing, the words chosen for the expression are far better and more important vehicles for expression of individuality than the method of writing the letters to form those words could ever be. In fact, I would argue, that the method of constructing those letters is almost entirely incidental when compared to the words used for expression, in terms of “demonstrating individuality.” Writing out “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” half a hundred times does very little in terms of allowing one to express one’s personality.
Cursive is an additional way for people to separate themselves and express their thoughts, stylizing the physical appearance of their writing much more than is possible with print or typed characters.
I don’t buy it. Again, the words used are far better vehicles for individualizing expression than the method of constructing those words. And, if you really want to get into flexibility, check out the gazillion fonts and colors and other typographical nuances one can get with computers that aren’t necessarily possible or easy with a pencil and paper. To me, this boils down to, “we used to do it this way; therefore, there must be a reason why it’s a shame we won’t continue to do things this way even if I can’t articulate that reason except in vague generalities.”
Indiana students who do learn cursive may find themselves with a more marketable skill in the future.Those that do still take the time and make the effort, they will stand out even more. If able to master it, it might be a little bit like learning another language in a way.
Permit me to be skeptical that the marketplace is clamoring for cursive.
If you like cursive, super; keep using it. If you think it’s something valuable to teach your child; by all means, teach it. But I don’t see a need to put it alongside math, science, spelling, or grammar as something that a kid needs to know. Golf is difficult, allows for individual style, builds character, and is certainly something that helps someone in the marketplace, but it need not be included in the curriculum. I don’t see a need to elevate cursive either.
Yep.
-daron
I’ve always found cursive to be faster than printing when I needed to write something by hand. That’s what I was told when we had to learn it, and it seems to be true for me, at least.
And I do much better at creative writing when I write it in a notebook and transfer it to the computer. Dunno why that is at all, but it’s the case.
I agree totally. There are reasons for keeping cursive, but they are very minor, not worth imposing the requirement for a writing style that people don’t use anymore, or at least not much.
I respect that, Steph. For me, printing was always faster.
I have found the thinking process of composing slightly different as between writing and typing. But, I never found the process any different as between printing and cursive.
I would say that if we’re concerned with speedy writing, we should actually teach shorthand.
Making cursive even remotely legible requires more time than typing does.
You must also consider the speed at which someone can read text, which will be, from slowest to fastest, shorthand, cursive, print writing, machine text.
I actually think best on keyboard, as I’ve been using a computer since I was 6. I recall making my “rough draft” on computer, then being forced to transcribe it into handwriting because of my 4th-grade class requirements. I continued that practice until computer-printed homework was accepted my senior HS year.
For what it’s worth, I have also shunned the dictaphone which was popular in the office among the other, older attorneys when I arrived at my law firm.
It was simply easier for me to type my letters, memoranda, etc. rather than trying to dictate them.
While I generally support the elimination of cursive writing instruction, I do wonder how folks will sign their names in the fugure. Will they simply be printing them?
Don’t yet have the unemployment projections for handwriting/forgery experts.
And come to think of it, there has been printing allowed…..just look at the “X”. Or is that really a cursive “X”. How many crossed lines can you put on the head of a pin?
Take a day or two & teach them how to sign their names. But, if you’re worried about forgery, have them use electronic, PGP encrypted signatures.
I was signing 50 drawings yesterday, and wondered how kids are going to sign their names in the future.
Doug, you don’t have a legal opinion concerning a generation of kids who can’t sign their names? Are “PGP encrypted signatures” (whatever THAT is) legal? I can use them to sign my mortgage documents? I can use them to sign on my driver’s license?
I tend to think the value of signatures as a reliable identifier is a little over rated. With respect to teaching cursive specifically, go ahead and teach them to sign their names — it shouldn’t take more than a day or two, I wouldn’t think.
I was kidding about the PGP encryption — but, if we were serious about reliable identifiers, encrypted digital signatures would be the way to go.
By the way, the last time I knew even barely enough about encryption to fake it a little was 1996. See “The Genie Let Loose: Ineffectual Encryption Export Restrictions and Their Deleterious Effect On Business” by yours truly, published in a 1996 volume of The University of Florida’s Journal of Technology Law & Policy.
PGP encryption. Now you’re jogging my memory from past issues of “Wired”. “Pretty good protection”.
Hell, my signature is scribble anyway. Having to sign stacks of drawings does that to you. A monkey could fake my signature. But I just wonder if the anti-cursive forces have thought about that one.
Signing a gazillion collection letters has done the same to my signature. It’s not even letters anymore.
If cursive is “a little like learning another language,” why not learn another language?