They just reported in the news that Hawaii is no longer going to have cursive in its curriculum.
I just found this article on line on a website called Huffpost Education.
"Hawaii is joining several states across the country that are dropping cursive writing from mandatory school curriculum.
The Aloha state has adopted for this school year the national Common Core State Standards, a set of education standards that omits cursive but includes keyboard proficiency."
When I taught 1st grade I remember a parent telling me I shouldn't work so hard on penmanship because of computers. She told me her son was a near genius and wouldn't need good handwriting. After all, doctors have lousy handwriting she insisted.
I told her that I felt children should learn how to write neatly and correctly. I still think training a child to work on their fine motor skills is a good thing in the early grades. They will still need to print their names on application forms or documents throughout their lives.
I think we're getting lazy expecting everything to be done by computers. My mother keeps telling me that your handwriting can show your intelligence. Granted, I can't remember seeing her doctor's handwriting, since yes, he does everything by computer... but maybe that's a good thing. If his penmanship is bad, the prescription could be misread.
What do you think? Should we no longer teach penmanship? Should cursive no longer be in the curriculum?
I just found this article on line on a website called Huffpost Education.
"Hawaii is joining several states across the country that are dropping cursive writing from mandatory school curriculum.
The Aloha state has adopted for this school year the national Common Core State Standards, a set of education standards that omits cursive but includes keyboard proficiency."
When I taught 1st grade I remember a parent telling me I shouldn't work so hard on penmanship because of computers. She told me her son was a near genius and wouldn't need good handwriting. After all, doctors have lousy handwriting she insisted.
I think we're getting lazy expecting everything to be done by computers. My mother keeps telling me that your handwriting can show your intelligence. Granted, I can't remember seeing her doctor's handwriting, since yes, he does everything by computer... but maybe that's a good thing. If his penmanship is bad, the prescription could be misread.
What do you think? Should we no longer teach penmanship? Should cursive no longer be in the curriculum?
During my last ten or so years of teaching, I noticed first a few, then almost all students printed rather than wrote in cursive. Then in the final year or two, I discovered some students couldn't even read cursive, let alone write it. This disturbed me. Apparently cursive was no longer taught in my school system. I don't understand the reason for cutting it from the curriculum. You mentioned its role in developing fine motor skills, and for me it was the importance of being able to write quickly on timed AP English essays. I hate to see cursive go the way of the dinosaur. My mother, her sisters, and even her brothers had beautiful penmanship. Each one's was distinctive, too. There's nothing much distinctive about a person's printed letters.
ReplyDeleteHi Kay!
ReplyDeleteI heard children don't learn cursive writing in Japan, too.
I think it was good to learn it when I was in junior high.
and I think it's better to write alphabets beautifully.
when I learned English for the first time in junior high, I wanted to write my signature beautifully. and even now when I see famous people's signature, I learned the way they write it!
by the way my mother said the same thing as you.
when she gave a birth, she didn't have even telephones! so it was really hard to learn how to do everything for children. now we can see anyting on the net, it's very helpful!
My penmanship used to be so good in 3rd grade that my teacher often held it up to the class as a good example.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, my penmanship is dreadful. I print most of the time if I am forced to write something out, but I do prefer to email people than send something via snail mail.
I of course learned cursive in school, and I used to keep a journal and wrote in it. How do you write something by hand if you don't know cursive? Printing is so time consuming.
ReplyDeleteMy handwriting has deteriorated from lack of use, as I learned when I had to write something out in a thank you card. Sheesh! Not to even teach it? I think it's a mistake.
I agree with you...though I know my sons didn't like cursive writing.
ReplyDeleteIt is an integral part of one of the three "R"s.
ReplyDeleteI have read about this also. Maybe it is a sign of age, but I don't like the idea of no longer teaching cursive.
ReplyDeleteI agree whole heartedly,,
ReplyDeleteI've known for a decade that cursive was no longer being taught in elementary schools. I would write in cursive on the board (I taught high school) and the students would tell me they couldn't read it. And, I have beautiful, school-teacher, handwriting! In the last year or so of teaching, I communicated via email with some of my classes.
ReplyDeleteI believe handwriting helps the brain patterns and helps develop other skills, like logical thinking. But, alas, no one listens to what I believe. Another reason I left teaching.
Oh, and the reason it's being cut...there is NO TIME to teach cursive when all you do is test prep.
ReplyDeleteIn India, exams are written on paper which includes long answers, essays, compositions and so on. If the hand writing is good there is a chance of getting good marks because the papers will be easy to value. If the writing is bad the person evaluating the paper will not bother to read and therefore the chances of getting good marks even for a good answer is less.Besides, I understand cursive writing helps in developing certain parts of the brain.
ReplyDeleteHaving said this, we should also understand times are changing and changing rapidly. Most of the children are sitting with a computer either browsing or playing games and their typing skills are excellent. Good jobs these days require excellent computer and typing proficiency. Since we are moving forward to a faster and faster world many old things which we thought important will be given up and new methods will take their place.
Excellent post and very thought provoking.
Best wishes,
Joseph
I would hate to see cursive dropped. I bet the expensive private schools won't drop it. They didn't deop Latin either.
ReplyDeleteI hate writing (cursive) owing to arthritis in my hands, but even I must write sometimes. Dianne
Cursive in my day was nothing like the elaborate script earlier generations wrote. Now it looks like the simple cursive I learned is also fading away. I suppose I contributed to that. I haven't used cursive for at least 40 years. I sign my name in cursive and that's about it. Never theless I hate to see the schools stop teaching it.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be a shame to drop cursive, but since nearly everything has moved to computers, I can understand why. I just don't think it's a good idea. Interesting and thoughtful post for the day! Hope your week is going well, Kay!
ReplyDeleteSylvia
My granddaughter is entering third grade this fall in a Seattle public school, and she told me proudly that she is going to learn cursive. I learned with the Palmer books and have a very fine hand when I choose to use it.
ReplyDeleteMy husband the PhD never learned cursive and can only print.
Seriously, it is not important to learn cursive these days, but it is fun, and it does teach some fine motor skills, as you say.
I love to write cursive. It looks elegant.
ReplyDeleteI find it easier to print than write any word in cursive, but imagine if I never learned it in school...it would be totally foreign. I think cursive looks elegant too and I love how older generations wrote their cursive. It seemed they took pride in their penmanship. Sadly we're going downhill in a lot of departments, thanks to technology. As much as I think technology is net better for mankind, it sure is changing society as we knew it.
ReplyDeletegood post, Kay. I didn't know they are eliminating cursive, it makes no sense. And how will they do signatures now.
ReplyDeleteMy 23-year-old son learned cursive, and when given the okay to print essays, etc., he printed, and still prints notes, etc. He actually prints pretty quickly, similar to architects when they label blueprints. I think kids should learn cursive in order to create a signature. Unfortunately, my son writes a crappy signature, but he says it's practice for becoming a veterinarian. All my docs use printed Rxs now with a computer or original signature. (A narcotic requires an original signature.) Texting and e-mail has replaced "notes left on the kitchen counter," but when my son is home, we still have notes on the kitchen counter. DrumMajor
ReplyDeleteI used to enjoy our handwriting lessons when I was teaching and the children did too. I don't think we'll ever entirely do without computers and a good hand is always lovely to see. Strangely, unless it's changed in the four years since I left, teaching cursive handwriting was recommended, and in fact we taught children to join their handwriting from nursery age and they managed it perfectly.
ReplyDeleteMy state has adopted the Common Core, too. I don't know if we've dropped cursive or not as a state, but I know several school districts that have. With the Common Core dropping skills into lower grade levels, I can see that there will be no time for teaching it. Computer skills will be more important as testing will be done by computer starting in 2014. It's just another change we have to get used to. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI was always proud of my handwriting, although it was never as beautiful as my mother's. I loved receiving letters and recognizing the handwriting with one glance at the envelope.
ReplyDeleteNo more, I'm afraid.
Who said "all good things must come to an end"? Why is it so darn true?
Sigh.
O well, look at all the new friends we make through blogging.
— K
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel
It sure will make autographs all look the same and have no value. What if John Handcock had printed?
ReplyDeleteNext think they will change spelling to text speech and codes. WATT. "What are they thinking."
Comparing cursive to other languages is a stretch. Japanese kanji, as you know, is pictogram based and evolved from pictures, actually chinese characters originally. I've always thought the japanese were just being elitist by requiring a person to memorize 7000 characters. But the other element is that japanese and chinese place a high value on the execution... beauty ...of the art inherent in the brush strokes themselves, completely apart from the intellectual content of the message. Thus calligraphy and display of independent characters simply for the beauty of it, not necessarily for contemplation of any message or content. Westerners are quick to evaluate things and weigh them for their value, but based solely, purely on its UTILITY to them, its value is only what use you can put it to. In other words, a thing has value for only so long as you can wring a use out of it. You ignore the rest of that thing (which is pretty much MOST of that thing). This is a profoundly bankrupt view and leads to the vast ability of western thinkers to reduce everything around them; to ignore all the traits that make a thing a thing and concentrate only on utility, to accept waste streams, flying plastic bags everywhere, as acceptable. Landfills filled with trash are acceptable. Things like cursive which can be replaced by a keyboard, acceptable. Because everything is merely a means to an end, when you close your door you can't see the landfill thus it's acceptable because the purpose of a landfill is to accept your trash. The rest of a landfill's existence, the fact that it is an open sore on the land, means nothing to westerners other than where do we put the next landfill when this one fills up? ...because the only thing we worry about is the landfill's USE to us. We cannot SEE a thing for what it is; only what that thing can do for us. The epitomy of this culture of utility is called 'civilization' and is a strangely inverse chinese wall. The chinese built their wall to hold the barbarians at arms length. We have built ours in order to pursue 'science' in a newtonian sense, but it has required us to be blind to the other qualities of the world which would contaminate newtonian quantification and now we are able to comfortably build enough cars and factories to change the climate of our planet and elevate the seas, and ignore all of it since you can't sell shares of the environment on wall street. AND we lose cursive, but the loss of cursive probably won't displace millions in the next few hundred years.
ReplyDeletewalt
I love to see the handwritten word and think it will be a sad day when schools stop teaching cursive.
ReplyDeleteWell my son is in his pre-school and is already learning cursive writing .Almost all schools teach cursive and penmanship is considered very important here .
ReplyDeletethat's an in-depth topic more than it seems on the surface from reading some of the responses. I bought the digital version of Post-It Notes® a few year ago, but when I asked them if I could post my scribblings on my blog, they replied back that it wasn't possible. Actually, I asked them 'how.' But they said, no can. I better re-check with the Post-It Notes® company. Btw, before computers, we never use to type as much as we do today. That's before the 'delete' key was part of the keyboard which single handedly revolutionized typing. Something in the order as an eraser is to a pencil.
ReplyDeleteCursive handwriting is absolutely necessary, because some people love handwritten letters and if you apply for a job it makes a far better impression if you send a handwritten letter. When my husband died I sent a handwritten card to the printer in order to thank all the people who attended my husband's funeral or sent a card with their condolences.
ReplyDeleteComputers may fail to do their job. They may crash, but a handwritten letter doesn't fail to arrive.
I hate to see it go, but no one writes by hand any more. I used to print...but now even my printing isn't legible. Yes, to more keyboard proficiency.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you for so many reasons. Cursive writing is a form of discipline that allows for the expression of an individual's personality. By not learning to write in cursive, I think children are robbed of self expression.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, I believe a larger issue is at stake. My daughter and I were just talking about this as she read my grandmother's hand written recipe notebook kept through the 1920's and the 1930's. She said that when children don't learn cursive, they are not able to read historical documents. Think of that! Think how important it was for your mother to be able to read the Japanese documents that you had to compile family histories. Think of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren not being able to read my journals because they were not taught cursive. That is something to get upset about. We are robbing our children of their roots, their past, and their history if they can't read cursive.
Kay, are you serious?? This is terrible! I can hardly believe it.
ReplyDeleteBy chance I have started reading the 1959 classic "A Canticle for Leibowitz." Apparently, as a reaction against the scientists and educated who devised the atomic bomb [oi, and look at today's date], the few who survived the "Flame Deluge" burned all the books and willingly became Simpletons. Years and centuries after the Simplification, only monks could still read and write.
I too love handwritten notes. I don't like the idea that handwriting is no longer considered necessary.
ReplyDeleteI use a combination printing/cursive, but cursive is much faster than printing/manuscript. I hope we don't lose the art of handwriting.
I agree with you, Kay. Writing is faster. Many kids don't have computers. Imagine going into a 3-hour high school written exam and having to print it all!
ReplyDelete