Handwriting: Should it continue to be taught?

[Dags90]

I honestly think that by the time that you are learning how to type on a keyboard, you would already know how to write. Even if no one ever really taught you, the letters are right in front of your eyes! If you understand them, then I'm sure that you would be able to write them on paper. It would still be best to teach people to hand-write to ensure that they don't write their letters like "a" and "g" sand "Q" exactly like how they appear in typing to avoid drawing them askew. By the time you are learning to type frankly, I would be shocked if you couldn't write and you were learning how to type.

Have you ever tried to write in a language not based on the letters you already learned? It takes a while for the muscle memory to set in when writing new characters. Especially so for children, who have poorer fine motor skills. Learning to write is actually a very good way to teach children fine motor control, and help them assimilate muscle memory into practice. That's a big reason to even keep cursive writing around, it's good learning.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I wish I would have taken more interest in it as a child. I am genuinely embarrassed by my child like hand writing.

 

[ThePurpleCube]

I have always had terrible handwriting, so I'm more inclined to say that people shouldn't forget about it. However, it shouldn't be prioritised.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

If it's going to be a case of lessons on basic handwriting, then I'm all for it since my own handwriting, while still mostly legible, is shameful at times. It's especially important for doctors to be able to write clearly under stress because so many drugs share similar enough names to other drugs that do completely different things. If a pharmaceutical technician can't completely understand what's written, they may not have the time to call up the doctor for clarification and simply grab what they think it is. In fact, anyone who has a job that involves a lot of hand written messages should be able to do it without much confusion.

 

[olicon]

Caligraphy is an entirely different beast than just handwriting. Handwriting teaches you to write neatly--proper caligraphy doesn't even look like normal character. They are more akin to art--drawings, not writing.

I wouldn't take it, and I definitely would never force anyone to take it. It definitely should not be a mandatory class.

 

[Timmy HarleQuin]

In my opinion, yes we should still be taught handwriting. Joint-writing (or cursive in US terms) is debatable really, because it's unnecessary and tends to aid how illegible people's hand-writing can be. But writing in general is something that should always be taught. It's a basic skill. Although for the majority of the time it isn't needed, if today someone told me that they didn't know how to write I would consider them partly illiterate.
I live in Ireland, where we still are taught Irish as a compulsory subject, unless you have special exemption, you cannot get into University without it as a general rule, along with Maths and English. Do we need Irish? Of course not. It's a national pride thing to bring it down to it's basic level. Somewhat similar to the chinese case made in the article, the national pride of being able to write the symbols of the language.
But, to wrap up an unnecessarily long comment, it should still be taught as there isn't a strong enough reason to not learn it. Not yet, at least.

 

[viranimus]

It is bad enough many schools ARE starting to no longer teach cursive, but Handwriting is completely illogical considering its the basis for using a computer as much as it is regular handwriting.

I also dont get the hate toward cursive.

Seriously, try writing more than 3 paragraphs comparatively and A: See which cramps your hand first, and B: see which you finish first, unless of course your one of the ones who couldnt be bothered to get proficient at it.

Cursive is still a viable and important technique. The purpose of it is if you have to write long and drawn out documents, statements, etc it is easier, and quicker to write it in cursive than in script. The medical field is an example of where it is used extensively. Literally hundreds of thousands of people using it, on a daily basis, multiple times a day.

Its disheartening to hear kids willing to trash something for everyone, all because they feel they have the right to determine what they learn and cant be bothered to learn what everyone else knows.

TL;DR Why on earth a person would choose ignorance over knowledge is mind boggling.

 

[Xaio30]

It is a different issue in china, as their writing is a large part of their culture.
But I still think the rest of the world should be taught how to write in the future.

 

[kelsyk]

Yes it should be taught, even if only as a backup incase your computer fails.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Yes, I think it should. Granted, we don't use longhand as much as we once did, thanks to netbooks and tablet and such, but it's still important for your writing to be legible. I think what we're really talking about here is "penmanship," which is simply teaching kids how to make letters properly. Chinese calligraphy goes rather beyond that, I think, so I can see why kids find it particularly frustrating, but for Arabic letters, I can't see the harm in students taking a few minutes a day to work on it.

 

[theevilgenius60]

Getting rid of handwriting would severely handicap several professions. All of the general contractors I know would be royally fucked if they had to lug around a computer or tablet just to do some figuring for a job. They generally get it done with a carpenters pencil, because they can also use it around the job. Drafting and graphic artists would be handicapped also because any notation they had to put inearly drafts would have to be printed onto the paper. So no, handwriting classes should not be cancelled, as they are important to several important jobs.

 

[Yoshisummons]

Ha! Syllabic writing it trivial compared to writing the logo-graphs in Chinese. Looks like they will transition to either abandoning it or developing their own syllabic writing system but I doubt they would since logo-graphs is such a great technology of power. China's predicament gets more entertaining by the day.

 

[DustStorm]

Yes, but only in the earlier grades and not cursive which is unnecessary. Entire classes should certainly not be devoted to it. As long as people can write print in a legible manner there isn't a problem. Most people can only write print anyway.

 

[xdom125x]

I'm going to have to say yes, handwriting still needs to be taught. Although I do sympathize for those kids that have to write in calligraphy (as oppose to simplicity that is the english language) because that looks really really complicated.

Why? There are times when you are away from technology and still need to have some information stored; if the electricity in your house goes out and you need to store some information, you're screwed; it is a little too soon, culturally speaking; info stored on a computer can't survive an E.M.P. pulse (I think); and my best argument: after the inevitable apocalypse, how will people store information?

 

[SextusMaximus]

No way. We used to have it three times a week and it was painful... did me no good anyway, if anything made my handwriting worse.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Handwriting in general, no. That is still very important. Cursive on the other hand, past learning to sign our names I don't see the point. I remember all my teachers telling me that I would use it every day for the rest of my life. How many times have I used it other than to sign my name? Probably about twice in the ten or so years since I learned it.

This quote is truth, well for most. The teachers go "You'll write in cursive for the rest of your life." Three years later teachers stop caring which format you use, the only reason I stuck to cursive is because I'm to the point where I actually have to think to write otherwise.

OT: Yeah, we need to continue to learn to write, it's just China's misfortune to have an alphabet that's practically an art form in itself. The one we use (vague) is rather simple once you figure out which of the two is b and which is d, and maybe s and z.

 

[Gorobrin]

I am rather young and only got taught about good handwriting on the side in 3rd grade English and although it was boring I do wish that my handwriting was better than that of a 8 year old... so yes it should be taught at least a bit in middle school because. Even with all these technological advances i don't think we will ever truly outgrow pen and paper

 

[liquidsolid]

I personally hated handwriting in school, and I was so bad at it I would sometimes be taken out of class and be worked with one on one with some "specialist". I still have rather sloppy handwriting, but that doesn't matter much anymore because most of the things you needed to write can be done on the computer. My handwriting is still legible enough to be able to fill out forms and whatever other little things I need to do.

They should start teaching kids typing skills at a young age because lets face it, computers and typing are the present and the future.

 

[General BrEeZy]

yes it should. someone above said your printer runs out of ink, so it should always be taught, i like that, so i'll sub for his/her quote...mainly because i cant think of more to write, so im done.