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Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

nautil.us

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Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#21

Post by __david__ »

qsymmachus wrote: post #14
mattnewton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keyboards eliminated the advantages cursive had for input speed in most cases, and I find block characters easier to read. Definitely don’t feel cursive has advantages when handwriting speed is less relevant.

People who learned block letters first, and who rarely encounter cursive, undoubtedly find block letters easier to read. But you might imagine that if had learned cursive first and used it regularly, you would have no problem reading it. The point I'm trying to make is that the preference for block letters is an accident of how most of us were taught, and not intrinsic to the writing style itself.

That's undoubtedly true, but I think the more important thing is that cursive is just dead in adult society. Reading other people's cursive handwriting represents a tiny, infinitesimal percentage of the reading in most people's lives. Computers, books, magazines, newspapers all render text as block letters and that's what most people are used to nowadays.

Teaching cursive is a complete waste of everyone's time.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#22

Post by HarryHirsch »

crazygringo wrote: post #20

> So was cursive faster than manuscript? No, it was slower. But fastest of all was a personalized mixture of cursive and manuscript developed spontaneously by pupils around the fourth to fifth grade. Even in France, a quarter of the French pupils who were taught cursive exclusively and were still mostly using it in the fourth grade, had largely abandoned it for a mixed style by the fifth grade. I was shocked at how c…

ignore all the fancy curly parts that uppercase letters

You could be talking about Roman Cursive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive

You could make a case for that.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#23

Post by plytheman »

Personally I (30 years old now) went to Catholic school (K-12) and learned cursive somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade and was forced to write in cursive until I graduated 8th grade. Most of the time as a kid I hated it and wished I could write in block letters and once I hit freshman year of high school I never looked back. Fast forward through four years of high school and three gap years when as a freshman in college I realized I really missed writing in cursive. After a pretty rocky few weeks of abysmal looking script I got back into the groove and took four years of notes in handwriting and continue to journal and write notes and letters in cursive.

I've always been somewhat artistic and take a lot of pride in my handwriting as I would a drawing. I look at others' writing to see how they draw letters I like and try to incorporate it into my own style. I take my time writing each letter and word and try to make it as consistent and beautiful as I can (and while others compliment me on my writing I'm always a bit dissatisfied) and generally take a lot of pleasure in the simple act of writing. For me it's a means of expression for myself.

Despite all that, I've tried really hard to come up with defenses for teaching it in schools much like I was taught and I generally come up pretty empty handed. Other than reading some random bits of cursive here or there in our society there really is little need for it. I'd like to think that its artistic merits are enough to justify it, in giving kids a chance to express themselves, but I doubt most kids appreciate it for that - even I hated it as a child. I'd like to say it will help improve people's writing, but frankly most people's writing I see, cursive or otherwise, looks like, as Sister Anne back in 7th grade would say, chicken scratch. As a piece of tradition which unites us as a thread through previous generations I do like it, in a way it's a cultural link to my parents, grandparents, and beyond, but that doesn't necessarily stand as a great argument against more practical skills that could be taught in that time. If the opportunity cost of teaching it can be ignored, though, it doesn't seem otherwise harmful to keep teaching it for the sake of tradition. Maybe keep teaching it but not spend as much time on it to satisfy all camps?

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#24

Post by ggambetta »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #15
ggambetta wrote: post #9

Reminds me of the long battle I had with my teachers trying to make me write the weird cursive "4", when I was trying to write the "4" I had always seen up to that point in the keyboard of the ZX Spectrum :)

There's a cursive 4? I didn't even realize numbers _had_ cursive forms. Next you'll be telling me that I should have been capitalizing the first numbers of my addresses.

Yes, IIRC it was similar to the one you can see at https://us.123rf.com/450wm/baksiabat/baksiabat1410/baksiabat... but worse, it had two loops instead of just one.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#25

Post by gruez »

ahoka wrote: post #18
gruez wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"preventing identity theft" (via cursive signatures) lol. as if banks (and other institutions likely to get hit by fraud) do signature checks.

They do. I have been asked in the past to write as in my recorded sample or record a new one.

>I have been asked in the past to write as in my recorded sample

if you're a fraudster, this can be easily circumvented by going to a new financial institution?

>record a new one

wait, what's the point asking for a signature sample when you can always record a new one?

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#27

Post by JeanMarcS »

gruez wrote: post #16
3JPLW wrote: post #7

Just yesterday the Illinois state senate overrode the governor's veto in order to mandate that all schools teach cursive before fifth grade. Major arguments I heard included "reading notes from grandma" and "preventing identity theft" (via cursive signatures). http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-cursive-required-illinois-2... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-illinoi...

>"preventing identity theft" (via cursive signatures) lol. as if banks (and other institutions likely to get hit by fraud) do signature checks.

Maybe when there's a problem they do check ?

I know in France signature on bank checks are verified above a certain amount (3000€ or 5000€ I think but I'm not sure)

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#28

Post by woodruffw »

I think my elementary school years (early/mid 2000s) were some of the last years that cursive was taught in NYC. It looks like they're bringing it back this year[1].

I hated it at the time and switched to block lettering as soon as I was allowed, but I've noticed that my style has become increasingly (and organically) cursive ever since I began college and really needed to take notes quickly.

Cursive may still be slower than typing, but there's a reasonable evidence that screens diminish in-class comprehension and that writing notes requires more digestion of the material than typing. Anecdotally, that's certainly been the case for me.

[1]: https://twitter.com/NYCSchools/status/832275877924831233

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#29

Post by echion »

__david__ wrote: post #19
echion wrote: post #2

Seems to ignore the fact that picking up and putting down the writing point is actually harder for small children than just sliding the writing implement along the paper. Also consider the popularity of "Swype"-style keyboards, since continuous sliding a finger across a surface is, for many, easier than discrete screen presses. Sources: personal experience and anecdotes from teachers of 4-6 yr olds (an age range not…

I didn't "ignore" that, it directly refuted it. The article sites studies that claim cursive takes far more fine motor skills than non-cursive and was harder to teach to younger children.

Which studies? "Fine motor" appears exactly once in the article:

> And every time I hear of a young child turned off writing because he lacks the fine motor skills needed to master cursive [...] I see [confirmation bias].

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)

#30

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #11

> Or is what children learn determined more by precedent and cultural or institutional norms Yeah, it always is, that’s just how human societies work.

I remember learning how to write official letters at school.

Dear Sir. Dear Madam. Yours faithfully. Yours sincerely. Your obedient servant.

In the classroom, we were told it was so very important to get the language right.

In fact it was a complete waste of time.

I used the language a handful of times - the stylings were already becoming archaic - then email conventions took over.

Now we have "Hi", or maybe "Hello", and "Kind regards" - if email occurs at all, and the entire exchange isn't an informal collection of short text messages.

The Guardians of Culture in schools seem reliably clueless. I suspect their opinions are so definite because they have so little else to offer, and appearing to be right about something is better than admitting the truth about that.

Likewise with cursive. Kids today benefit more from YouTube editing and social media skills - and by the time they start getting jobs, those will probably be archaic skills too.

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