Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
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Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#2Seems 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 given the most, if any, time in the article).
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#3Does everything taught in schools need to have immediate applicability?
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#4Seems 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 can remember the pain and hand fatigue that cursive writing gave me for around 5-6 years in school until I said fuck it, I’ll write letters convenient way, not “right way”. Teachers could do nothing with it, and I simply wrote letters as you can see in books, but with few shortcuts. All readers say it reads more clear on average than, well, average cursive.
We wrote with “fountain” pens back then, if it makes any difference.
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#5Does everything taught in schools need to have immediate applicability?
No. But I'd have a hard time making a case that cursive specifically (as opposed to handwriting more broadly) is some important life skill that warrants careful teaching in grade school. Personally my Palmer cursive skills (such as they were) probably peaked in about sixth grade to the point where they're effectively non-existent today.
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#6Does everything taught in schools need to have immediate applicability?
Of course not, but some non-zero eventual utility is a desirable trait. There are a variety of actually beneficial things children could spend their time doing, which are currently being displaced by being forced to learn a useless handwriting style.
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#7Just 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...
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#8Does everything taught in schools need to have immediate applicability?
Of course not, but some non-zero eventual utility is a desirable trait. There are a variety of actually beneficial things children could spend their time doing, which are currently being displaced by being forced to learn a useless handwriting style.
For that matter, I'd have zero issue with more classroom time spent on art, music, or other subjects of that type. But the fixation on an aesthetically pleasing copperplate writing style has about the same justification as universally teaching ancient Greek because it's part of a traditional Western upper class education.
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#9Reminds 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 :)
Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
#10Russian Cyrillic is hand-written exclusively in cursive. Children are never even taught how to write block letters.
The author may be right to argue that cursive has no decisive advantage over block letters, "so why teach it?", a more fundamental question to my mind is why bother teaching _both_ forms of hand-writing? If we have to pick one, why privilege block letters over cursive, if both are equally effective?
Edit: anecdotally, I write cursive cyrillic faster than I write block letter English, and Russian isn't even my native language.