Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
Ursula Hennessey ·
Jan 25, 2011 at 9:19am
The art of writing cursive, script, or "swirly writing" (as my daughter calls it) is going out of style. It is being stripped from some state curricula and replaced with typing skills, in some cases.
Do we care?
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
No, I don't care. But if a school offers calligraphy as an elective, I guess they could throw that in.
My handwriting was always terrible. Finally, in high school, I started writing everything in print... except my signature. There seemed to be an unspoken rule that signatures must be cursive.
Then, in college, I finally started writing my signature in print, too. So now it's awkward when a contract asks me to sign my name and then print it on the next line.
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I'm not sure why it needs to be stripped out of the curriculum. I learned penmanship in elementary school, and how to type in middle school. Having both skills makes for a more versatile communicator. Why limit our children to one mode of written communication?
Dec '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
No we don't. When exaclty has anyone since the 90's used cursive for anything other than signing their name? You can't use it on official forms or documents, and a large number of people have problems reading it so it is rarely if ever used for personal corispondence (if you were born in the 80's or later). Whats the point of cursive?
May '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
People tell me my signature is "artistic." I challenge them to show me how many actual letters they can find.
Jul '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I know that early training in writing is important to the development of cooperation between the sides of the brain, and encourages the development of connecting links between the two. But I don't know that learning cursive contributes a lot to that process. Typing does not carry the same level of benefit in this area.
Of course, if we want to maximize the training, I suspect ideographic languages such as Japanese and Korean maximize this effect owing to the greater rigor in learning thousands of symbols rather than 26 letters, 10 numerals, and some punctuation.
Aug '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I don't think I've used cursive since elementary school. It seems that what forms of communication it would have been associated with have been replaced with typing. It probably should still be taught, but it's not as important these days as being able to type well.
Jul '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
As a person who was berated throughout school for my illegible handwriting, I too stopped writing and started printing in high school.
In Junior High a friend, Roger, and I took typing becuase at the time it was a class for girls. (We were the only two guys in a class full of girls and lauging at the yo yos who criticized us for 3 semesters before the they caught on.)
Today I'm very pleased I learned to type at a time well before the desktop PC existed. To be honest outside of a classroom environment I've never felt inadequate due to my lack of ability to write in cursive. (NOTE: the first part of that word is Curse.)
My Wife, on the other hand, writes so 'artisticly' that people have said it's a shame to cash the checks she writes. I'd put up her writing skills against any computer font out there. My Point in noting this? I do beleive that writing skills are more intrinsic than learned. I genuinely beleive that some people are not going to be able to do it regardless of how much they teach it.
Nov '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I think it's absolutely important; it's the first step in getting writers to think before before expressing. The handwritten world gave us the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers; now we get a 2000+ page incomprehensible Obamacare. There's a message in there somewhere.
May '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
Call me a sentimental old fluff but, yes we do. Writing with the hand seems seems to be a conduit to thought. Jacob Bronowski said, "It is the eye that drives the hand and the hand that drives the brain." Printing (which is not valued much either) is to cursive as checkers is to chess. It's a step in educational development and an exercise in self-discipline.
My dear old dad, who set high store by elegant cursive script, tortured me for many hours with the tedious exercises of the Palmer Method, even though I'm left-handed. Lines and loops, lines and loops, repeat. I hated and resented it as a child, but am glad for it now. My mother had only a high-school education but she wrote with a beautiful cursive script; no doubt a legacy of her education.
Cursive may seem buggy-whip and running-board to you moderns out there, but it's something I would feel sad to lose.
Jun '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
What is alarming about this is that I've seen and met persons that cannot read cursive hand writing. If anyone thinks this makes for a better set of communication tools that person is dense beyond belief.
As for the excuse that "my hand writing is bad" I would say DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! And what you do is practice. I used to have bad hand writing, I changed that by practicing good hand writing.
It is my view we shouldn't even teach computer skills to kids under the age of twenty-five. I had a friend who had to fight with his daughters' teachers to get them to accept hand written assignments. You know the kind of assignments wherein the kid learns how to write, spell, and punctuate. The next time any or you get to deal with a kid at a cash register that hasn't got a clue about counting back $6.46 from a sawbuck, ask yourself about the boon computers have become.
what really gets me, though, is that on a web site dedicated to communication by the written word, we actually have people arguing against communication in writing. Anyone see the irony?
Jun '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
If you were born in the 80's or later you use email, IM, or texting for personal correspondence. Except for Christmas cards all my personal correspondence involves some sort of keyboard.
Jun '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
You can pick out us old time Catholic school kids by our impressive cursive. (Except for my older brother, who was switched from being a natural lefty by the nuns & now has the world's worst handwriting.) I think my solid cursive training translates into a good ability to print artfully, do basic caligraphy, and have a very good eye for the use of graphics and typeface on a page or poster. Part of learning cursive is learning to anticipate and plan for what is upcomming and where it should be placed.
My son, also a lefty writer, is cross-dominant and even printing skills came very slow. Every time he attempted anything as a youngster he had to add another decision --- which hand shall I use? He shoots hockey and bats righty. He writes, throws, & catches lefty. Cursive is more difficult for lefty kids, so I never pushed it. No need to add to his frustration, I thought.
Daughter is righty & broke her right elbow just as the class was introduced to cursive. She uses that as her excuse for her awful cursive style, although she's had about ten years to learn it properly!
Aug '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I don't care. I preferred typing as far back as 1988. My first Commodore 64 was a godsend, what with the rudimentary word processor that I got for it.
My handwriting was atrocious and the school wasted an untold number of hours forcing me to attend remedial classes to practice my handwriting, which never improved.
I see no need to mourn the passing of cursive.
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
Ursula: put me down on the side of the dinosaurs. I care. Developing one's own handwriting is one of those milestones in developing an identity. When you write something in your own hand, you own it in a way that just isn't true for something that gets spit out of the computer. I don't agree with those who think that handwriting is rendered obsolete by the computer. Does the advent of "spell check" mean that we should stop teaching spelling?
Besides, knowing the folks who run state curriculum boards, does anybody think that handwriting instruction is going to be replaced with something better?
May '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I went to Catholic (Parochial, we called it) school in the early 60's and vividly remember many of my second-grade classmates giving a cheer when sister Maria announced that we were to start learning "handwriting." I was too dumb then to know what they were talking about but I went along.
I'm left-handed but the nuns must not have noticed or were by then indifferent because I was never made to write with my right hand. I remember charts in class showing proper pencil-holding for both right and left hand.
Of note: I had a cousin-in-law who suffered a stroke in his 50's. He lost use of the right side of his body and so could not write. However, during his rehabilitation therapy it was somehow discovered that he was actually left-handed but had been taught to use his right hand so early he never knew he was a lefty.
Jun '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
I forbid my students from using cursive.
Aug '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
If we're fine throwing out cursive, then we should be fine de-listing calligraphy as an art form. It's just a fancier way to communicate words, after all.
Cursive is a point between the extremes of plain block lettering and artistic script. Why should we dictate function over form? What's wrong with adding a bit more art to the everyday experience? (Which vaguely reminds me of a theme James Lileks may have expounded on.)
On a more practical note: is there any real cost to giving kids this (admittedly minor) skill? I somehow doubt switching time spent on cursive for additional assigned reading will raise test scores.
Dec '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
BlueAnt:
On a more practical note: is there any real cost to giving kids this (admittedly minor) skill? I somehow doubt switching time spent on cursive for additional assigned reading will raise test scores.
I really wish my school had taught me to type rather than cursive. If was quite frustrating learning "on the fly" during college and at my job. It is also incredibly frustrating to be forced to learn something you know for a fact you won't have use for later. I spent hours and hours learning cursive in elementary and middle school only to be told it was not allowed in High School.
Kervinlee: Call me a sentimental old fluff but, yes we do. Writing with the hand seems seems to be a conduit to thought. Jacob Bronowski said, "It is the eye that drives the hand and the hand that drives the brain." Printing (which is not valued much either) is to cursive as checkers is to chess. It's a step in educational development and an exercise in self-discipline.
I don't think anyone is calling for schools to stop teaching handwritting....just cursive.
Jul '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
Cas Balicki:
As for the excuse that "my hand writing is bad" I would say DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! And what you do is practice. I used to have bad hand writing, I changed that by practicing good hand writing.
Good Advice is So Hard To Come By. I guess all those recesses I missed going outside in order to practice all those loops and swirls at my desk were spent doing something else!
I'm not arguing against writing. I'm simply advocating the theory that some people will be unable to do it and that is something that should be recognized.
When I started turning in all of my reports in High School typewritten rather than handwritten I noticed an increase in the average grade I was getting because the teacher was focused on content rather than 'appearance.'
Funny how that miraculously happened.
The advocacy of different methodology is not the same as advocating elimination.
Edited on Jan 25, 2011 at 12:03pmJun '10
Re: Goodbye, Cursive. "Curses!" or "Hallelujah!"?
Kervinlee
I'm left-handed but the nuns must not have noticed or were by then indifferent because I was never made to write with my right hand. I remember charts in class showing proper pencil-holding for both right and left hand. · Jan 25 at 11:18am
My teachers never tried to make me write with my right hand, but they also never taught me proper left-hand technique. It was a revelation for me when I finally read somewhere that lefties should slant their cursive to the left rather than to the right: I gave it a try and suddenly cursive was much easier, and for the first time I was able to write without dragging my hand across the page and smearing what I had just written. And then I had to fight with teachers who insisting I was doing it wrong...