Kansas may halt cursive education

[Loonyyy]

Meh. You can develop handwriting skills through using them. Those who need them will use them more, and those who don't, won't.

Typing is far more important, and the amount of people who can't type without looking at the keys and using absurd two finger hide-and-seek style methods to punch out a document is ridiculous (I'm referring specifically to older generations.). It's a problem for those who need to do it (Which is almost anyone today), and it's a hassle for anyone who'd hire them or work with them.

 

[BoredWalker]

Capcha: wicked witch

"Toto, I don't think we want to be in Kansas anymore."

OT:

In sixth grade, they taught us cursive, and made us write everything in cursive. The instructors said that we would be required to use it for all assignments from junior high school onward.

I was never required to use cursive for any assignment after I passed sixth grade. If it was required in any format, it was always typed. So, I definitely approve of this shift in priorities.

 

[Old Father Eternity]

I can understand that since tech is becoming ever more important and more convenient to use, actually writing may become less important, however I do not think it should be cast aside entirely.
The very least the art of calligraphy should be preserved, the applications can go beyond aesthetics ... more so for future times, after being long forgotten by the general populace, who have had no use for it for centuries.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Meh. You can develop handwriting skills through using them. Those who need them will use them more, and those who don't, won't.

Typing is far more important, and the amount of people who can't type without looking at the keys and using absurd two finger hide-and-seek style methods to punch out a document is ridiculous (I'm referring specifically to older generations.). It's a problem for those who need to do it (Which is almost anyone today), and it's a hassle for anyone who'd hire them or work with them.

Actually, I do look at the keys when I type. Not because I can't type without doing so, but because I just do it faster this way.

 

[Lieju]

I think you should know cursive but you shouldn't be required to use it. Some basics of it should be taught,in school, though, alongside typing.

In class, I write my notes in cursive because it's faster. One pen stroke, and my professors go through the material really fast, but that's just me.

I think the last time I took notes by hand was in high school around 1997. I got a laptop that summer, and have had one ever since.

Taking notes with a laptop isn't always the most practical way. Especially if you study subject where you have to make notes on a field or in a lab. Electronic devices are getting smaller and better, but still, most people who study the same subjects I do (geology, biology, chemistry) take notes by hand.

I have my own style of shorthand that's evolved from my cursive that's incomprehensible to anyone else.

 

[DanielBrown]

Cursive looks nicer, but in this computer age you don't really write much by hand except for signatures and grocery lists...
I wrote cursive from when I was taught it(by the age of eight I believe) until I was thirteen, then my Swedish teacher forced me to write "normally" since she couldn't read what I was writing.

Can't say I care about this matter. Print writing looks like a childs handwriting in most cases though.

 

[joshuaayt]

Teachers asked me to stop using cursive, because I have a hand tremor- my printing is barely legible, I imagine my cursive would make you throw up.

Anyway, I have no problem with this. Doesn't seem like a terribly important thing to keep hold of.

 

[DjinnFor]

To be honest I still write everything in cursive. It is simply faster anyone saying printing is faster is only faster because they never write in cursive.

Printing isn't any faster or slower than handwriting (aka "cursive") by default. The speed of your writing hinges on legibility and your fine motor skills.

The more legible your handwriting/printing is, the slower it becomes. People who print tend to favor and prioritize legibility so they tend to be slower, whereas people who handwrite tend to favor and prioritize speed so their legibility suffers. But studies show that handwriting tends not to be any faster than printing for people who undergo extensive penmanship workshops for both printing and handwriting (i.e. are roughly equally skilled in both). This is because people with illegible handwriting tend to have illegible printing, and people with neat printing tend to have beautiful handwriting. It's hypothesized that handwriting and printing take roughly the same number of strokes of the same general length to form words, and that releasing the pen/pencil from the page when preparing to print another letter really isn't that different from or slower than not releasing the pen/pencil from the page when handwriting.

I'm one of the minority of printers who writes quickly and messily (in fact, I'm in such a minority that I print faster than most writers). My wrist and arms tend to cramp up rather quickly if I try to print quickly after long stints of not printing at top speed, though.

 

[Joccaren]

Uhhh, being able to watch the screen, or whatever you might be transcribing from, and not the keyboard while you type is the entire point of touch typing. Kinda lets you divide your attention and multitask if need be. If your fingers already know where they need to be then there's essentially no middle-man between your thoughts and the computer screen. You think, and your fingers do the rest without anymore brain power devoted to the process. Maybe you should be less pig-headed and actually give it a chance. Sounds like before you were just a snot-brained kid determined to give their teacher the proverbial finger.

=P
Seriously, you didn't notice that that was a typo and had to be all arrogant about it?

My intention of that was never look at the keyboard - I am always looking at the screen or at my notes. What's the point of subconsciously knowing the layout of the keyboard if you're just going to look at it the whole time?
Its not that hard, and being an ass about a typo is almost hypocritical given your 'snot-brained kid' comment.

Point being, I don't need to position my fingers and think about where each key is in relation to them - like you are taught to in touch typing - nor look at the keyboard to be able to type entire books worth of content at high speeds with few errors that aren't caused by my brain not being focused on what I'm typing [Like with my first post] - I just instinctively know where everything on the keyboard is and can move my hands according to the needs of the word, rather than keeping them in a fixed position so my style of typing doesn't screw up. If anything it requires less thought than touch typing as the entire process just goes on without me even thinking about it - like speaking in everyday life; you don't think about how you should move your mouth to pronounce each word, you just pronounce them.
Hence why touch typing, IMO, should be based around intensive keyboard usage rather than a rigid technique. If you use a keyboard loads, you learn the layout without even trying, and you gain the ability to type without looking. All that keeping your hands in fixed positions does is slow you down whilst your learning, and force you to occupy those fixed positions until you get good enough at that style of touch typing to learn the layout of the keyboard and not rely on positioning of hands and fingers.

Fixing that typo now, thanks.

 

[Tumedus]

To the people saying cursive is faster: it isn't.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/996624?uid=3739960&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101286207793/
There are other studies out there, but they generally end up the same. The fastest, most legible hand writing is a combination of cursive joining at certain points with mostly print style letters. Neither printing nor cursive is inherently faster than the other in its pure form.

Also in terms of recognizing script vs cursive:
http://lianza.org/files/cursivevsprint.pdf
A study that tried to show that the type of writing we are accustomed to will be recognized faster but it turned out that print was more quickly recognized than script in all cases. There are, of course, some warnings in the discussion about reading too much into a correlational study and some of the limitations but, again, if you want to search you will find largely the same results with other studies.

Granted, there are benefits to teaching cursive writing, especially in developmental stages of childhood. But in terms of value as a communication medium, it really doesn't have much leg to stand on.

I personally think that the time spent teaching children an alternative writing form, since they teach print first regardless (here in the US, anyway), would be better spent teaching other languages, something the US does a piss poor job of.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Does anyone really use cursive anymore? It was taught to us in primary school, and for like a year or two it was demanded for major assignments. Then dropped entirely. I can't remember the last time anyone used it for something more lengthy than their signature.

I use it, but not the general accepted form of it. I use it mostly just because I like mathematical x's.

 

[Olas]

Good, I've never liked cursive. It's hard to read if you aren't used to it. Takes time to get good with. Plus it's totally incompatible with the digital age.

All 95% of us need it for is signatures, and signatures should be phased out anyway, they're a ridiculous concept when you think about it. They never look like anything, are easily forged. They're archaic. I'd much rather use thumbprints or something else more easy and practical.

 

[Kaymish]

yeah even in a business environment you do not need cursive all you need is legible hand writing and some people are awful so standards are not high

 

[Denamic]

Cursive classes was such a tremendous waste of time for me. I NEVER used it outside of class, and it pissed me off when people did, because it was harder to read. Just what is the fucking point?

 

[The_Echo]

I remember my elementary teachers telling me, "You'll need cursive in middle school!" Outside of a refresher course in sixth grade, never used it. Said my teacher, "You'll use cursive for everything in high school!"

High school rolls along, and... what the fuck is a cursive?

I never use cursive. Not even for signatures. Good on Kansas.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

All very well, but until exams are held on computers cursive needs to stay. I have a slightly heavy-handed writing style, although very legible, that made it incredibly difficult for me to write even a decent-sized essay in my HSC exams. I practically sawed my own fingertips off with the adjacent fingernails. But even that aside, you don't need nearly as much time to learn how to type as you do to write properly. It's not something you perfect, it's something you know, and I doubt kids do as much cursive writing in their free time as they do typing.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

This is good news. I hated cursive, and now the only thing I use it for is my signature... like pretty much everyone else.

And, as stated, your signature doesn't even have to be legible. In fact, the less legible it is, the better. I sign mine with multiple smiley faces. Yes, multiple smiley faces. I am an artist.

 

[surg3n]

People aren't necesserily sitting in front of a computer their whole life, FFS America do you really want your next generation to only be able to communicate through a fricken keyboard?

Get rid of cursive, then handwriting alltogether I'm guessing - hell, whatever makes it even harder for your kids to find a job - why bother learning English, or social skills, or anything at all that isn't spoon fed through a computer screen. Hell, why do we even need teachers these days if handwriting is on it's way out. God damn pens and pencils holding us back.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I will laugh at the day when people are so used to computer typing for written work that when in some strange situation, they are force to use cursive writing, their hand writing will be awful!

I cannot fathom a single situation where an adult would be forced to use cursive. Pretty much everything is typed now.

I agree. I was forced to learn it at primary school, then forced to unlearn it at secondary school, where teachers demanded written work be printed (so they could read it more easily).

I tend to write notes to myself cursive because it's slightly faster. But I don't write anything cursive that needs to be read by anyone else.