I write in cursive, something about it boosts your self confidence.
3
I applaud the return of cursive instruction. My only caveat is that the American cursive standard is UGLY. Why not teach the beautiful Chancery Cursive?
2
If you can’t write cursive, will you learn to read cursive? Probably not. When you can’t read your history from the original documents, you will have to rely on summaries that you can’t verify. We are already inundated with proclamations of what our founding fathers “really” thought or intended. It is not hard to imagine extensive revisions being presented as fact, when original documents have become unintelligible. Fine motor skills, thoughtful composition, neural pathway developmental enhancement, and access to national history: that’s quite a bundle to jettison because “we have computers.”
12
I'm a notary. Most of my notary duties involve people signing things. People are already confused about which ways of signing are valid, and which are invalid. It doesn't help when the New York Times tells people they can't endorse a check or sign an application unless they can write in cursive. It is also hostile to people educated where English is not the native tongue, and who are less likely to have learned cursive writing.
2
My 4th grader has been learning cursive in school since third grade. However, all they really do is practice the letters in a workbook. When they do an in-class assignment or homework, it’s always print. So there’s no mastery, really. It’s not enough to teach it - the kids must be made to write this way on a daily basis. Alas I’m not seeing anything outside simple letter practice in a workbook.
4
I think people are conflating cursive script and the value of writing things down with a pencil rather than with a computer.
Studies have shown that just writing helps you learn, rather than typing.
Also, there are professions where writing legibly is a life and death matter: just think MEDICINE, where so much duplication of effort is because someone can't read the prior physician's notes on the patient. Or a prescription mistake is made because the pharmacist misread someone's chicken scratch. People have been materially harmed (Roughly 5,200 deaths a year from AEMT and 108,000 deaths in which an AEMT was contributory, as per Science-Based Medicine).
Rather, should we not emphasize that writing *legibly* is important; and for those with motor problems for which handwriting is a problem, use appropriate substitutes.
1
For all those who learned, forced or unforced , cursive, and wish to carve out more time for this in a crowded curriculum, ask yourself how you use it every day, how often do you practice it ( necessity if that skill is going to be kept) beyond a signature. Ask yourself who else do you actually think would do that.
Ask yourself when was the last time you sent a handwritten letter other than a greeting card versus filling out a form on line. Ask yourself how that would be used in the workplace.
Even prescriptions are electronic and the signature still a scrawl with a printed name below.Rather than waxing nostalgic, wax practical.
If it about a signature, offer a craft class on that. Mine is distinctive scrawl meant to not be amenable to being duplicated. That is why there is generally a line below that says print that name.
If it is about poor children not having electronics so surely they don't need to learn keyboarding. How about leveling the playing field and giving a hand up to make sure they can find employment that universally requires keyboarding skills.
The list is endless. Calligraphy is pretty, no doubt, but even Cyrillic can be keyboarded.
1
I'm a California native. I live in Peru now, where I teach (among other things).
I just finished the school year here, where KINDERGARTENERS are taught cursive BEFORE printing block letters!!! And as a side note, my children spent their early childhood in Lima. When we went back to California, my daughter had finished 2nd grade here, and was skipped to the 4th grade up there. They are way more demanding here!
Personal confession: I'm in the middle of gifting my students books, with their names inside and my best wishes...and at age 68, and after 30+ years of computer use, my handwriting is now so clumsy and riddled with mistakes... haha
2
Learning cursive has another benefit - it teaches focus. Having to concentrate on writing words instead of single letters means staying focused. There are those who say that learning cursive also helps counter the tendency to ADHD especially when coupled with that almost disappeared educational tool - recess - where kids (right through high school) can get rid of excessive energy
5
I'm a boomer. Sorry, not. Learned cursive in Catholic grammar school. Our writing evolved with our wrists: some florid, some of crabbed and cramped. Depended on where one was psychologically in high school. When I had to sign the check for my mother's funeral expenses, the funeral director was stunned : I knew how to write in long-hand. My internal reaction was, doesn't everybody. Now I know I was wrong. My bad.
3
I still love putting pen to paper, my handwriting is distinctive. I remember penmanship taught as its own subject in school, and I made my kids learn it. Another great reason to home school--you can teach the stuff 'experts' say we 'don't need'. Like history and critical thinking, consumer math, and grammar.
5
Instead of cursive, we should teach italic. it's a lifetime skill and informs all the arts. Cursive is shapeless, but italic becomes sculpture, and it's an accessible skill.
4
It is an indication of how far cursive has fallen if this writing won a national championship; it would have been average at best when I was in elementary school, when there were students whose cursive was really correct, and some of whose was approaching elegant. I am glad at the return, however; the cognitive connection to the ability to learn and retain information—to say nothing of write a thank you note and read historic documents—is reason enough for every child to be taught cursive.
13
I keep a diary. I use a leather-bound book that gets replaced every two to three years. it's generally the last thing i do before sleep. Fountain pens with different colored ink help frame my thoughts and paint the mood. All written in cursive. it is a life skill.
It should be a requirement. get rid of common bore math. (sic).
4
I still enjoy writing in cursive, having been born in the 1950s.
But I’m always told that I have a beautiful WOMAN’S handwriting!
And indeed I do! Mrs. W, a holy terror of a New York City public school teacher, decided that she didn’t like my, and several other pupil’s, script.
We sat at her desk for 30 minutes everyday until we had copied her handwriting perfectly.
So I do have a beautiful cursive script — it’s Mrs. W’s!!
8
My daughter attended a Montessori school when she started in JK. The students were taught cursive at a very young age, because it is easier for young children than block letter writing. Why?
Give a child a pencil and what you see are circular shapes on paper and not straight lines. Made perfect sense.
4
This well-researched story is a HUGE eye-opener to me!!! Not teaching children to write, because typing is so common these days, is like not teaching them to do math because pocket calculators can be bought at the dollar store. For starters, some students can't afford fancy gadgets like computers, tablets, cell phones and laptops, especially at a young age: should they be penalized academically because their parents are economically disadvantaged? However, that's the least of it: in everyday life even today, there are many situations where being able to write is an advantage - for starters its far faster than printing, so if one wishes to jot a few things down on a piece of paper, writing is handy and time-saving. Also, as many are pointing out in the comments below, writing helps children learn about words and other aspects of using language fluently and expressively - the same way music helps children learn math. We complain about our educational system, then blithely go about cutting things out that are either necessary or very useful, or that have "emergent" beneficial effects which are well-known yet seemingly quite often ignored. I feel appalled and discouraged.
11
Handwriting things for me has always been the way to remember them. The very act of writing is a mental glue.
14
Really? Cursive is a waste of time; when do you use it? Make it an elective class (like shop) and call it a day.
I use it daily. How else do you leave a note for a delivery person or a make a shopping list, or write a thank you note, or a note of condolence; or make a diary entry.
6
Why can't your signature on a check, yearbook, application be your printed name? I had a friend in college who printed everything, as fast as and neater than us cursivists. His printed name was his signature.
1
I HATED penmanship when I was a grade schooler in the mid sixties. My third grade seriously scarred me as she ridiculed me to the class. I got a D, after nothing but A’s for my first two years. My father told Me I would not get into college.
So, when my son, now in high school, did not have to suffer penmanship here in Brooklyn, I was not bothered.
Then, on some family event, his grandmother gave him a card along with a gift. She asked him to read the card, and he very quickly simply said “I cannot read it.” It was, of course, in script. This is a family where all of his older cousins are in Ivy League schools, and his grandparents are lawyers. As far as my mother in law was concerned, he had just admitted to illiteracy.
I was mortified. Do other students that did not learn cursive writing have a problem reading it?
FWIW, 50 years later, I still hate my 5th grade teacher, but at least I can read cursive. Is reading it an issue?
3
In my small Catholic school back in the 1950s we learned cursive writing through a system called Palmer Method beginning in first grade. It was as essential a part of the curriculum as all of our other subjects and duly included on our report cards. If I recall correctly, we were given ‘copy books’ which had slanted vertical lines to train our letter formations and we practiced and practiced. How exciting it was to finally write one’s name perfectly and get a gold star from Sister.
These days I’d barely merit a blue star as my ‘beautiful hand’ has gone the way of the dodo thanks to typing everything for the past 30 years. But I still have a fine signature when required!
5
2 things: 1. there is a difference between handwritten and cursive. they can both be beautiful or horrible to read but I've always found cursive much more straining on my eyes. it's why you'll almost never see anything printed or displayed in cursive - it's not accessible. 2. regarding tactile, with younger generations on phones, the swipe motion might be a fast substitute. there's so much to learn nowadays, let's consider what's going to matter in the long run.
I’m a genealogist and every time I teach a research class using old records such as the 1900 US census or birth and death records from the 1800s a student will invariably ask me how people who never learn cursive could ever possibly read those records. It literally comes up in every single class. I have no answer other than to say that I hope all the records are transcribed into digital format before those of us who can read cursive are all dead.
3
My cursive in the Roman alphabet is a mess. It has been since the third grade. My Cyrillic cursive, about all I really remember from a year of Russian when I was in my 20s is still quite readable; even almost pretty. Perhaps continuing instruction in cursive into the teens in small doses would be helpful. There are certain things that you just can't use a computer to do. For example, a note of condolence, or a custom-made birthday card. Sometimes it takes me a couple of tries, but I generally manage to churn out something acceptable.
3
His cursive is actually not very good. I suppose the competition is not very tight these days.
5
Ah, good for him. I've always found that I think better when writing by hand. Of course, I am 60, so maybe my brain is wired to that activity.
My young classmates in grad school seemed to spend as much time surfing as taking notes.
But, with age, comes problems. I seriously could not read half my cryptic notes, but typing distracted my attention.
Glad I'm through with THAT part of my education.
It doesn't surprise me that connecting letters helps children learn to spell or slow down to think/write more creatively. It's common sense—physically writing linked letters to form a unit, a picture or sorts like pictograms, helps our minds remember in a different way from individually printed letters—just like writing something down helps us to remember it.
In Paris, my daughter learned to write script, with a normal sized pencil, on normal sized lined paper, when she was 4 years old. They didn't fat pencils on oversized lined paper—who ever thought that a tiny hand could more easily hold and control a really fat pencil and inscribe letters that were much larger than what an adult hand could do? It's much easier for a child to hone their fine motor skills from the beginning than to struggle with clumsy tools and then have to re-learn how to write or draw when they get a little older.
As a writer I love the speed and convenience of writing on a keyboard, love to cut and paste, but I also appreciate the necessity of being able to read a note the boss has left on one's desk....and people still do scribble notes even if they're not 'old.' I recently wrote down some info for a bank clerk and the sweet young woman looked at me helplessly, and with obvious embarrassment, said she couldn't read it...and I'd written it very neatly. She had never learned to read or write cursive/script. Really sad.
5
I have quite nice handwriting, having studied calligraphy in my teens, although I use it only rarely nowadays. However, I never learned cursive, and I think cursive is a hideous illegible script. Handwriting and cursive are not synonymous! Learning to sign your name and write legibly does not require learning cursive. I objected to my older daughter being taught cursive in school, and was happy when several years later my younger daughter was not subjected to the same time-wasting exercise. By all means, learn to write by hand if needed, but don't waste kids' time forcing them to learn cursive.
3
I believe 100% in writing helping the brain process, digest and retain an idea vs typing. There is a connection between the mind and your hand that activates the idea and then imprints it in the person who is writing. I can see how cursive has a similar outcome of connecting one's mind to what his fingers produce- like drawing. It may no longer have an 'important' functional use but I'm willing to be if there were studies done, you'd see people who wrote by hand and who could also write in cursive having greater awareness, more visual/theoretical understanding and an ability to be present in their environment. I just found an old passport and realized how my own signature has evolved and that too tells me my personality and my experience have influenced how I write, another reason to take pleasure in it vs dismiss writing as a purely utilitarian activity.
3
Children should learn to read and write cursive. People still send out handwritten 'Thank you" notes. Almost everyone at some time in their life signs for a mortgage, a marriage license or a driver's license. I sign my signature on a computer iPad when I vote or on a pad when I use my charge cards. I hand write notes when I send out Christmas cards.
It is common sense to learn handwriting skills. It is politicians who deluge schools with worthless standardized tests that only gives profits to the tech companies and publishers.
There is more to life than a computer or iPhone.
6
I fervently hope that states mandate the teaching of cursive writing, as well as how to write legible numerals. As a seven-year volunteer math teacher for seventh graders in a remedial math program, it was appalling to see the level of functional illiteracy and innumeracy of my city's 12- to 13-year old kids.
The number of times I heard that, "When I graduate, I'll type everything," or "No one is ever going to care what my writing is like," scares me. And the number of people, children and adults, who believe that communicating through acronyms text abbreviations is appropriate borders on a national embarrassment.
Maybe I am an obsolescent person of middle age - as one rude seventh grader told me - but I can write legibly, even elegantly, thanks to my grade school's requirements. And I do say "Thanks" to the public schools I attended on Long Island back in the 1960s. My skills are in demand; I can actually make money by writing (legibly) what others cannot and tutoring those who never learned the skills.
7
Cursive is a graceful way to write quickly. And writing by hand is an important part of learning. For teachers, parents and children and (anyone) involved in learning, writing by hand builds neurological connections. Cursive may be a more challenging way to write, but for many people, it is a lot more fun too.
4
It is helpful to learn to write in cursive because our Constitution is written in cursive. Every American should be able to read it in its original form.
5
I’m afraid I have to agree with those who say that teaching cursive is akin to teaching horse and buggy making. I’m a top speller but never good at cursive so I don’t believe cursive has anything to do with spelling ability. I have used block lettering all my life, even in school. The only thing you need to know about cursive is how to sign your name. That’s it. Cute article but I’m afraid cursive has gone the way of the horse and buggy.
3
One of my biggest disappoints of the present state of education in this country was when I realized that the present Treasury Secretary cannot sign his name in cursive.
5
My cousin Jane has the most beautiful cursive writing I've ever seen- I've been getting cards in the mail for over 40 years from her, and I pick through the bills and ads to open her envelopes first.
Raised in Union, NJ with 12 years of Catholic school, no one I know writes better than Jane.
4
I'll send him one of my fountain pen-so he can continues to develop his art!
4
Let me be blunt: Any teacher who does not see the utility and beauty of cursive writing is either a total fool or so shallow he/she needs to lose whatever license held. Full stop. End of story. Any person reaching adulthood, excepting the disability limited, without being able to sign his/her name same applies. So obvious. So clear that even any contrary discussion is ridiculous.
7
Left handed OK boomer here. Taught by Sisters of Providence. Writing in ink resulted in a blue stained hand and smeared paperwork. Sign of the devil, no doubt.
5
There was nothing more pathetic than having to wait 20 minutes for people to struggle through the signature required to take the SAT. I stan Edbert.
1
Bravo! May we never, ever lose cursive!
5
I grew up in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. At Slackwood Elementary School, they were fanatical about teaching cursive writing. At Cherry Hill High School East, I learned to write Russian in cursive. I never understood how learning to read and write was deemed a superfluous skill to be abandoned. As far as I am concerned, if you cannot read or write cursive, you are illiterate.
7
I had no idea cursive was not being taught. My son, now in a University Masters program has used it all through school. I have felt that our country is going to h.ll in a hand basket, now I know its gone.
2
As a lefty, learning cursive was a miserable slog.
2
If You can't write in cursive how do You sign Your name?
5
Teach Civics! Cursive is pointless.
2
My favorite controversy! I'm always amazed when my firm is compelled to hire individuals that can not write in cursive, express themselves via an intelligent sentence, concise paragraph, or document a procedure. I'm tired of re-writing content to provide customers that doesn't embarrass my company.
What's next? To not teach reading or simple math?
Let's just make a video? Truly the domain of the lazy and non-critical thinker.
My most recent example of the absurdity of this aversion to cursive writing? A PhD history and anthropology student who learned cursive in order to read 200 year old diaries for his research. Documents his thesis advisor was incapable of reading! The student had to read them out loud for the professor to understand his arguments and conclusions.
The proclivity to text and emoji is breeding a class of idiots. I listened to a radio discussion (on public radio) that insisted that modern romance needed emojis. Oh please spare me your inarticulate ignorance.
Better yet, just text me a selfie so I can identify and appreciate what modern idiots look like.
8
Without learning cursive, taking notes on keyboards only, we will become necessarily more dependent on learning typing skills, in order to use qwerty machines, as the only alternative to slowly writing out each letter. Is this change like abandoning Morse code . . . or more like giving up chess for checkers? Many cultures consider calligraphy, the inking of text on paper, to be a high art. In Zen Japan it is considered the highest art . . . The loss of the tactile gestalt, of ink flowing from a fountain pen into words on paper, like pounding the keys to print out sentences on the old typewriters, for mere screen fingering, seems to me an impoverishment . . . .
5
The moment I could escape cursive I happily did so, but to this day I still love my Gregg Shorthand, Diamond Jubilee Edition (1963).
THIS is what they should be teaching, something that is both beautiful and useful.
2
The Library of Congress has asked for volunteers to transcribe handwritten documents for future generations of researchers. Soon only a few voters will be able to read the originals of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Go to crowd.loc.gov if you would like to transcribe historical cursive documents that could be lost to future generations.
7
The National Archives are looking for volunteers as well, for the same purpose.
3
Cursive is a skill that must be practiced else it can be lost. As a schoolgirl more than 70 years ago, I was every bit as adept as Edbert at the art of what was called penmanship at that time. Then came years of typewriting letters and term papers and later word-processing reports and emails. Whatever skill I had developed was gradually lost until my use of cursive was largely limited to writing checks and dashing off quick notes. These days, I sometimes struggle to decipher the handwriting in my own lists and notes. I applaud the renewed effort to teach cursive in schools, but with the warning that only with practice can one retain perfection in this dying art form.
4
Cursive is an art that must be practiced else it can be lost. As a schoolgirl more than 70 years ago, I was every bit as adept as Edbert in the art of cursive writing. But then came years of typing letters as well as term papers and later keying email and various reports. Before long, just about the only cursive writing I was doing involved writing checks and dashing off quick notes. My handwriting became worse and worse until these days I am often puzzled when attempting to decipher my own handwritten notes and lists. I applaud the renewed effort to revive and nurture cursive, but with a warning that only practice retains perfection.
Cursive need not be boring or without personality. I learned a cursive italic hand (there are so many beautiful italic styles to choose from) using an inexpensive square-nib fountain pen and one of many guidebooks when I was 23. Suddenly, writing became an enormous pleasure.
I'm 84 now, and I know that writing in a personally designed italic hand is just as fast as the dullest cursive handwriting style. (I was the fastest typist in my middle-school class: 103 words per minute, but writing cursive italic is much more fun and not much slower.)
It has been 61 years, now, that I've written this way. All it takes is some real ink, an inexpensive calligraphic pen, a simple guidebook, and a bit of pleasurable practice. I think children would love it---it brings so many compliments from everyone who reads what one writes. And it really can express one's personality in fascinating ways.
4
I learned cursive in 3rd grade. I stopped using it until I was in high school. After a teacher stopped class to watch me take notes, I spent my senior year trying to regain my cursive skills and have used them nearly every day since then, determined not to let something that took a great deal of time and effort to learn become obsolete.
I’m torn.
On the one hand, I understand that our schools are constantly being asked to do more with less and I get the argument that time spent on ‘other skills’ is a much better use of a limited amount of time. But what are the ‘other skills’? Things are changing so quickly that we are asking our schools to prepare students for work in the twenty-first century without much of an idea or a plan in place for where these children will fit into that future.
On the other hand, I learned next to nothing about technology in primary school and had the benefit of growing up and developing alongside the technology that now runs our world. I consider myself literate both digitally and analogically and I see both facets as necessary for survival as a citizen today. People who insist that one or the other is obsolete are molding citizens whose ignorance and illiteracy serve as weaknesses for the ill-intentioned to exploit (arguably the purpose of our massive defunding of public education). We live in a digital world that was built by people in an analog one. If we’re going to understand our place we need to be able to see in both directions.
2
At the ripe age of 56, I can clearly remember learning to write in school, and the lined paper with the 'half line' for the smaller letters.
I firmly believe that for all the 'advances' made with technology, that our younger generations will always long for, and figure out a way to retain, methods for personal connections...for self-reflection.
I am given hope by the young people I see on the subway...in coffeeshops...who are reading from real books...books made of paper! ;-) I am delighted to often see young people at coffeehouses writing with ....real pens .... in journals and notebooks. Many young folk now have record (LP) collections. I've also heard of younger folks having 'TV night' whereby a few friends will converge in one of their homes, and watch a show or movie together, complete with popcorn, etc.
There's a reason why so many of us (much as our social media pages may want to suggest otherwise) feel lonely and disconnected. There is nothing remotely normal about humans each sitting alone in their little boxes of apartments, staring at cold glowing devices, watching things on a 'loop', while eating food out of a microwaveable plastic container.
#peoplewhoneedpeople
2
Those who learn to write and read cursive will have a host of greater opportunities in life. I say this because my granddaughters can't read all family letters and documents written in cursive. They also will not possess a unique signature for legal documents, even in the age of electronic signatures.
3
I hope cursive will always be taught because it engages the hand and brain to securely imprint what is being learned. I am sorry these days to be on people's electronic mailing list and receive typed Christmas messages--the distinctive handwriting of friends on colorful cards was a pleasure to receive. Has anyone mentioned that when printing you must pull your hand off the paper for each letter you make, while you maintain contact when writing cursive? Don't get rid of this warm and personal means of communication.
3
In 1960's Canada, the MacLean's Method of cursive writing was taught in public schools starting in grade 3. Loopy capitals, precise lower case letters, lined paper turned at an angle with feet planted firmly on the floor while seated upright were all part of the Method. It wasn't easy, but we were all set up to succeed, from learning how to hold the pencil and letter outlines to trace, to fun incentives to practice. But the MacLean's Method taught us more than beautiful cursive. It taught us task preparation, concentration, patience, and perseverance. Foundational academic skills. Oh, and pride in mastering a difficult skill. I still get compliments on my cursive writing. Really.
5
Beautiful! This is similar to the Palmer Method which I learned in Catholic school in the early 60s. I always remember the physical posture, angle of paper, etc. And most importantly, as you mention , we learned focus and concentration.
4
@P. Maher
did you send your comments in cursive?
1
I had never heard of cursive. which is a style of handwriting, before I came to the US. As a child in England I was taught copperplate. a similar but more elegant style. We had to use split nib pens and ink which stained our fingers and clothes.. Fountain pens were allowed in later years, but ball point pens, known as Biros, were absolutely forbidden and if found using one, detention was the punishment. After leaving school I taught myself Italic, which is easier to read and faster to write.
6
I'm as old as dirt and I can still write cursive. It is so beautiful and so easily read. We, who know and use this skill, are dinosaurs. Sad but true. PS. I also type faster than I can write.
4
I live in a retirement community. For three years we had a pen pal club with a local elementary school. A group of third graders corresponded with us on a weekly basis. This was an extra activity the kids signed up for and gave up a recess session to participate. This school was teaching cursive but it wasn’t mandatory for the kids to use cursive when writing to us. My pals started out printing and then began to use cursive. It’s not easy to write to senior citizens when you are only eight or nine years old but these kids did a great job. We got to know each other through these letters. At the end of the school the kids came out for a picnic and we got to meet in person. It was fun and who knows they might even write a letter to their grandparents.
7
In fact, what many folks call "printing" is actually manuscript writing, or handwriting. And even the teaching of that is fading. Kids who learn to write correctly in manuscript, particularly if they use the Dnealian "or "modern") style, have a much easier time of learning cursive writing later in second or third grade.
I taught four grades, K-3, for 30 years in a rural 2-room school. I got many transfer students who, having been left to their own devices to figure out how to write letters, had taught themselves really convoluted methods, which were hard to correct. But our students had virtually no problem switching to cursive, which they were extremely anxious to be old enough to do.
We need to actually teach both manuscript and cursive writing in schools.
Think of poor future students of history who would otherwise need to take it in college in order to read primary documents!
Everybody thinks they don't need cursive until they stumble upon older documents (personal letters, journals, diaries, etc.) in the archives (or even in your grandma's attic) and suddenly they can't read them. Entire generations of documents could quite literally disappear if people fail to learn cursive (both reading and writing).
As a teacher of immigrants I always find it interesting which countries are teaching cursive and which ones aren't. I always ponder why.
That being said, one of my best students was also one of the only ones whose sideways chicken scratch cursive I could never decipher.
2
Until recently, I taught art history at the university level. A few years back, I started to notice that some (not all) students, printed their exam answers. It often was easier for me to read--a plus--but clearly, they struggled with the time constraints because printing can be quite slow. At the same time, I designated classes as "gizmo-free zones" on the principle that students did much better if they took notes by hand--and looked up frequently to view the images I was showing, or looked at their fellow students to pursue discussion. In my experience with hundreds of young minds, computers simply don't replace writing.
2
Congratulations, Elbert. Studies have shown that people who take handwritten notes remember better than those who use the computer to take notes. In addition, cursive is faster than printing for note taking.
6
Many posts here think cursive is a waste of time. I learned it in school way back and didn't think of it at the time, until a couple years ago I wrote in a notebook and a much younger colleague commented with envy on my ability. I think a demand is there, it is a useful skill and a lot of younger people feel cheated that they were left behind and can only write in scrawls.
And to those who say it would only eat into time better spent learning computing skills, those skills will die sooner than handwriting. Anybody still remember their skills at dBase III or Harvard Graphics? Thought not.
4
I went to Catholic school and I had sisters for teachers.
I may not know math, science, history, et al, but I am a GREAT cursive handwriter. I'll go up against this boy in a competition and even at my age I'll bet I can give him tough competition.
6
Hilarious! Those nuns (sisters) couldn’t get it together for Math or Science but I can write cursive and type like my life depends on it!
4
Learning to write legibly (in cursive) is not only a life skill, but a mind-body skill that is crucial for developmental learning at every stage from a grade schooler's homework to taking notes in higher grades, and as an adult, whether it's for meetings or for research purposes. [Not everyone has access (at all times, if at all), to electronic devices.] Think of the personal touch in a thank you note, traditional birthday/anniversary/condolence/get well card, or a handwritten letter. Moreover, writing thins out properly and methodically is a proven successful mnemonic tool. And I'm not sure whether the authors of this NYT article realized when they were using a quote from the WaPo's Alexandra Petri to bolster their argument -- that Ms. Petri is a satirist, who was clearly making her own point with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
3
why? cursive is neat but information wise it is more difficult to read. How about teacher basic math skills and also flunking kids who slack...then maybe the parents will start helping their kids instead of just blaming schools.
When I was in elementary school, I remember looking forward to third grade, when we would learn cursive, i.e. "grown-up writing."
My parents, who were in elementary school in the 1920s, actually had a hard time writing block letters. Both wrote very elegant cursive, though.
As a high school and college student, I took notes by outlining the chapter I was reading or the instructor's lecture, all by hand. Some of my fellow students were already using highighters, but many of them seemed to highlight every other sentence, which made the practice less useful. However, outlining by hand forced me to distinguish broad categories from possibly irrelevant details.
8
My daughter has dyslexia- one of the first things she learned at a specialist school for dyslexic kids was cursive- it helped the words flow together, meant it was less likely for kids to use a b instead of a d, p instead of q (classic letter reversal/directional issues), improved fine motor control etc. They learned cursive with pen, pencil, paint brush, and sometimes formed any problematic letters with clay to learn them.
Now, in the school I teach, I see kids with learning issues using computers and wonder are we doing good or harm. Digital reading/learning is so good in some ways, but is not the only solution/mechanism of learning and teaching. The book "Reader, Come Home- The Reading Brain in a Digital World" by Maryann Wolf along with her previous book "Proust and the Squid" have been very helpful to me as an educator and as the mother of a dyslexic child. (Now in her third year reading History in University).
5
I recently assisted two visitors to the historic site where I work who were looking into a troubling episode in their family’s history. Discovering a powerful document in our collection which addressed the incident, I placed it on the library table in front of them and stepped aside briefly to give them some privacy. Returning, I saw that they seemed immobilized, perhaps overwhelmed by the information before them. Turning to me with tears in her eyes, the young woman said, “I don’t know how to read this.”
If we lose our ability to read cursive, we lose our connection to our past.
16
So very well put. Thank you for your post.
2
I am 27, and I write everything in cursive: notes, cards, grocery lists. It is significantly quicker to write in cursive than to print. While taking French classes a few years ago, I found cursive greatly improved my retention and spelling. I couldn't pause mid-word; I had to plan before I put my pen to paper.
I only resolved to write this way in recent years (I stopped writing in cursive after 4th grade and began again at age 24), and I'll never go back to printing again. I practice everyday, and everyday my handwriting improves. Cursive certainly isn't obsolete!
10
For anyone thinking that cursive is merely a means to an end have probably never seen the beautiful handwriting of people like my father and grandfather. They learned the Palmer Method of cursive, which was “the” way to teach children cursive in the late 19th Century through the early-mid 20th Century. Their handwriting appears to be a form of calligraphy and it is gorgeous; letters, cards, and especially their signature, is a work of art. I’m not opposed to anyone learning how to write beautifully.
9
My handwriting was never very good, but I learned cursive along with everyone else; my brother, one of the smartest people I ever knew, had the worst handwriting I've ever seen but it didn't stop him from getting into Harvard. In college I became interested in Asian studies and had great pleasure learning to form Chinese characters, though mine were never very skillful.
Learning cursive allows for quick writing and develops small motor activity. It enables us to read handwritten notes from anyone. My children are 1/2 French and learned handwriting in their bilingual school; they write clearly and legibly.
I love to type and I type fast; but typing is not the same as forming letters...we lose more things than we know when we let this skill go: fast, clear, cheap, low-tech communication, spatial relationships and muscle control, an appreciation of the beauty of letters and penmanship in writing systems across the globe, even the ones we can't read...
5
@Austen1843
yet typing skills allowed you to post here. real time not a letter to the editor sent by mail (as in paper, envelope, stamp)
I've kept a diary since I was 8. My memories of things I described in my handwritten diary are still so vivid and my writing using pen and paper is richer than that I produce with a keyboard. Added bonus: my low-quality cursive offers its own form of encryption.
1
Ah, the beauty of cursive writing, reading time on analog clocks and face-to-face in-person conversations without emojis ... !
7
A pertinent take on writing rather than typing is:
Whence did the wond’rous mystic art arise
Of painting speech and speaking to the eye?
That we by tracing magic lines are taught
How both to colour and embody thought?
Thomas Astle
The Origins and Process of Writing, 1803
From: The Axemaker’s Gift
Chapter One~Title Page
4
The trick with learning cursive back in the day was learning to stay within the lines while a nun was flogging the skin off your knuckles with a steel edged ruler. Our national championship was in making it out of elementary school.
4
Central planning creates nonsense in education. Government rules abuse liberty and assume authority over you and your minds.
Teaching cursive writing takes time away for more test-prep.
This is nonsense. Handwriting is not synonymous with cursive. You don't need to learn cursive to be able to sign your name. This article is woefully short of references to credible studies on the supposed benefits of cursive.
Congratulations Edbert!
The nation must do everything it can to prevent people from writing and signing their names like Individual-1 and his lawyer Pat A. Cipollone.
Who even have the same bad taste to use Sharpies.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6556-read-the-letter-from-the-white/25010e6fa74fd792b75d/optimized/full.pdf
3
"To many people who recall being berated for their illegible writing, the disappearance of cursive is nothing to lament."
Anybody who thinks that's bad should try to deal with the average person's attitude to technology. Oh sure, they thumb-type like crazy and know how to selfie, but try getting them to keep some basic piece of office tech working without IT holding their hand and you'll get a different story.
Incompetence is like religion: you can't get rid of it, you just have to deal with it. Occasionally you have to be less tolerant and require some minimum standard of competence, regardless of who you discomfit. There were plenty of Illegibles produced when handwriting was taught, and they will no doubt complain mightily if it is taught again. But those who can learn it need to get the chance to do so.
4
There is a reason why web pages and printed books generally do not use cursive fonts. Cursive is simply difficult to read. However, it is reassuring that so many people defend the teaching of cursive writing for brain development, because my child is in the Spanish school system, where they teach cursive first, starting in preschool. I myself never have had any need for it after elementary school.
1
There's a huge wealth of information about this topic that I've never seen either side of the argument about handwriting instruction tap into and that's how many people in the workforce who were taught cursive use it actively today. This would allow educators to base school curriculum on real world skills which are actively used and valued rather than nostalgia. I accept that cursive re-enforces other skills like spelling but I also point out that skills we don't regularly use atrophy and evaporate. And if there's no use for cursive for most people their adult lives, teaching it comes at an opportunity cost.
When you write by hand something happens in the brain. There is a surge of creativity in one's thoughts. The march of words across the page is a kind of drawing (thinks the brain), a clever making of something. Writing by hand is like the pleasure of using tools properly. Hand muscles rarely used for any other endeavor are exercised. The sense of accomplishment and--yes--beauty follows the act.
As the poet said, "write on."
4
What's not mentioned here is that there are different versions of cursive. The Palmer method, with its elaborate curves and loops, is just one. As an adult, I spent some time teaching myself italic handwriting as promoted by Getty and Dubay. This form eschews the loops above and below the line - with 'g's and 'h's, for example - and as a result, it's easier to write and to read. I enjoyed learning it, and when I want something I write to look neat, I can slow down a bit and write a nice hand.
3
My handwriting is quite good.
Script is what it was called in the 1950’s in the Bronx where I learned it (PS 92) Every classroom had a frieze going around it, above the blackboard, below the ceiling, illustrating the ideal, both in “little” and “big” letters, capital letters, now we say lower and upper case.
I worked part time at NYPL branch libraries in the Bronx while a student at CCNY (1968-1972)
I registered people, kids and adults, for library cards that required a signature. It was then that I learned the word cursive. Only the black kids used that word when they asked how the signature was to be written. By the way, in my time the opposite of script was printing. Is it still?
2
Growing up in Lebanon in the 60s, we learned to write both Arabic and French with pens dipped in ink - there was an actual award given for who had the cleanest blotter paper at the end of the year. As a dyslexic, this was a major challenge to me and after a lot of hard work and practice, practice, practice until my fingers got numb, I actually was able to write well enough so that people could read my cursive script. I work in Technology so I spend a lot of time typing away (like right now) at the keyboard but I still won't give up on taking notes longhand. There's something so enjoyable as the feeling the motion of a pen with gel ink over well made paper (the Japanese products are my personal favorites) and watching those loops and swirls come to life that took me so long to learn how to create. I applaud the effort to bring back cursive writing and I've seen some apps/tablets that allow you to do so but I'm probably a curmudgeon fossil when I write that it really should start with the pencil and paper experience which is a wonderful sensation most people take for granted and/or have forgotten about.
8
I am completely in support of bringing back cursive to schools. I look at my three children and bemoan that they were never taught cursive in school. I have spent time with them forcing the issue and they are not pleased but I will be damned if my children print their names on a signature line. They might as well just scratch an x. The willful laziness and "dumbing down" of our society is unacceptable and we see the result every day in the White House. Not on my watch.
9
Cursive is a 3 dimensions control of your hands. It is more than for signature. If you are a surgeon, you will have a much better control of your scalpel, the force to turn a screw in bones and stich a wound without leaving scars!
3
Oh my. Congratulations to this child but.... his cursive sample is really quite unimpressive! Having grown up in the Soviet Union I know for a fact that 10 year olds can be taught to write in cursive much, much more beautifully. Aside from the arument about the necessity of teaching cursive, the fact that he is the national champion really speaks to the level of cursive taught in American schools (very poor).
1
Professor Thornton calling a resurgence in the popularity of cursive a "conservative backlash" seems a a bit heavy handed.
7
Elementary schools today barely teach any science or social studies and less of other vital subjects. Sorry, cursive writing - get to the back of the line.
2
Good idea. Let's take more time away from Math, Reading, and Science so where American children are dreadfully behind and have them waste hours copying cursive letters never to use them again until the SAT pledge.
2
In countries with cursive taught in school,  such as France, and many if not most European countries, they are way ahead of us in reading and science and math. In a top-notch public school system, all of those things go together, it’s not either or!
2
how about teach these kids some personal finance skills. something they need to know. Nobody uses cursive if they are considerate. Its the lowest possible form of writing. Its basically scribbling. why do old people think this is useful?
3
"Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of e-mails, texts and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory.
"Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing."
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing
6
I’m surprised the author didn’t refer to the 2014 Times op ed on cursive! It would seem that cursive is more important than NJ thinks.
1
@Tiny Terror
except those od eds are just that opinions
Are there not more important things to learn in school, such as the ability to read critically. If that was taught, we wouldn't have citizens confused over "fake news" and swallowing conspiracy theories. We wouldn't be on the verge of losing our democracy to a raving idiot.
Basic reading and thinking skills, satisfied, I'd go for introducing literature to students. Listening to some of our politicians, I doubt they were exposed to the wealth within libraries.
If grammar was taught, I wouldn't have to listen to radio announcers not knowing the difference between subject and object in personal pronouns.
If all of these basic skills are adequately taught, along with basic arithmetic, some history and arts, then by all means lets preserve the art of fine penmanship.
3
The physical act of writing connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Sequential hand movements, like those used in handwriting, activate large regions of the brain responsible for thinking, language, healing, and working memory.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyolson/2016/05/15/three-ways-that-writing-with-a-pen-positively-affects-your-brain/
3
Mike Judges "Idiocracy" isn't the future nor is it fiction—it is today's reality.
1
The idea that cursive is "just pretty printing," is wrongheaded. Anything you put into your brains forms the plastic brain. At the tender age of 8&9, children are developing eye/hand coordination and important brain connections, as well as develops important steadiness and flow in the movement of the hands, which again, *affects the brain.* These are much harder to develop at advanced ages and cannot be developed earlier as the brain is not ready, 3rd to 5th grade is the right age.
This is not ABOUT writing. This is ABOUT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT.
There are other reasons for teaching cursive writing:
* Reading our Nation's founding documents in their original script
* Reading letters from their grandparents
* Reading script fonts (on the computer) which--*shocker*--exist!
The complaints of left handed people are red herrings, BTW. Lefties can write "left handed" script. It just slants backwards. So what. Either they must tilt the paper to slant it "forwards" or the teacher must be more flexible (which typically they were not--bad teacher!). But nevertheless, it's a red herring, not a serious argument for not teaching cursive. That was bad teaching, not "bad cursive."
3
Professor Berninger said "her studies have shown a connection between the linked letters in cursive writing and improved spelling proficiency."
^ Correlation is not causation.
How does a professor not know this?
What about knitting? When are they going to start teaching knitting again?
How about schools focus on how to keep track of finances with a budget, apply for a job, negotiate a raise, sign up for insurance policies and save for retirement instead of shoving more monumentally stupid and antiquated skills down students' throats?
Anyone advocating that we teach such a colossally useless skill to kids and grade them on their performance is part of the reason the US lags so badly in education.
Okay, so they don't teach kids cursive writing in dumbed down public education. They also don't teach Shop, Auto mechanics, Homemaking, and several other essential real world skills. We've become a country of totally undereducated, useless people.
3
As a grade-schooler in the 60's I hadn't the least interest in learning cursive. The result was, and still is, illegible handwriting. I was equally indifferent to taking typing classes in high school. I wasn't going to be a secretary, I argued to myself. Why bother? Well, that bit youthful stupidity sure came back to bite me!
By the time I got to college I was a littler wiser. I studied two foreign languages that don't use our alphabet (Russian and Chinese). I found that I really enjoyed learning to write in the Cyrillic alphabet, and mastering the stroke order of Chinese calligraphy. I actually became quite good at it! So now my handwriting in both of these languages is much better than in my native English.
We grow too soon old and too late smart.
88
@hammond The biggest mistake in the academic diploma mill was to look down on typing! Nothing more important skill wise, than the ability to TYPE!
11
@Counter Measures
So true. In high school, 1964, I was one of two guys in a typing class. Got a gentleman's C with 35 accurate words per minute (one girl, whom everyone was in awe of, even the teacher, typed 110 wpm). It's a skill that stood me in good stead professionally as a copywriter for decades.
In retrospect, I bitterly regret not having taken shorthand. That skill would have saved me thousands of hours of toil, sparing me the need to rely on a tape recorder and transcribe.
10
My grandmother made me take typing. “Some day you’ll thank me,” she said. Well she was right and then some. I spent my entire career as a programmer thanking her. As a touch typist I whipped through writing my code while my colleagues hunted and pecked through theirs. Who knew back in the 60s that the ability to type on a Qwerty keyboard with all 8 fingers and a thumb was going to turn out to be such a valuable and enviable skill.
16
This piece misses a good pitch: cursive isn't a beautiful font. Its principal value is its utility, a way to write legibly and quickly. Printing is slow; individual shorthand is illegible to all but the writer. Cursive is not always art, but it is always faster and legibler.
64
@Qxt63
how often have you used it other than greeting cards
@Qxt63 Unless compared to typing. Typing is faster, all characters are fully legible, can be searched and shared and updated later very easily, plus it can help with misspellings and bad grammar.
4
@Miriam Every time I write a personal letter, which I do frequently, I use my cursive writing. And while Qxt63 thinks it's "not a beautiful font', I disagree. Done correctly, it is beautiful, and Copperplate raises it to an art form. I agree that it is faster and more legible than most printing, and it certainly looks nicer.
12
I longed to read "Babar" from our Queens library growing up. It was in the original French script, though, so I couldn't.
I bought the book as a gift last year, only now, it seems only available in print. Sorrows.
I personally enjoy the opportunity of writing in script. And I would buy Babar for myself now, but only as a copy in the form I had first seen.
2
As a banker, and fraud professional of many decades, I had a forged endorsement claim. The endorsement was in print and matched to the signature card. The claim was denied. Without a unique signature, how are you able to legally enter into contract without the possibility of forgery. Though an "X" is legal, I don't recommend it.
3
The comments here are astonishing - by my rough count running about 10-1 in favor of cursive. I would never have guessed that the NYT readership was so enamored of a trivial tradition.
The arguments seem to fall in these categories:
1. You need to know cursive to sign a check, or a hunting license.
2. I learned cursive and it made me a wonderful person (not addicted to cell phones like kids today).
3. It’s a better way to take notes during lectures and meetings.
4. It improves fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
5. If you know cursive you can read the original Declaration of Independence, and 150 year old museum notes.
To which I would say, stop justifying cursive by looking backwards, and instead think about the future.
1. Signing checks? “What’s a check?”, said the Venmo/Paypal/ATM user (and the check printing industry).
2. Kids today are at least as good as we were, cursive has nothing to do with character (I teach high school, I know).
3. Note taking because you’re lecturing? Stop lecturing (it’s a terrible way to teach). Also, record your meetings, it’s a more accurate record.
4. Maybe we should insist that kids put their game controllers down so they can learn cursive to develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
5. Experts will translate old written languages for us. Who can read and write Sanskrit, or Aramaic? And be honest, how many of you have read the Declaration of Independence in its original cursive?
Let’s move forward, shall we?
@John Ranta
Maybe it doesn't have to be a technology/antiquity dichotomy. What about giving kids as many tools as possible to navigate their futures, as many ways to communicate with one another as possible?
Technology, like handwriting, is a tool for learning. Sometimes technology is the right tool; sometimes paper and pen are. Not all of us need everything we learned in school--very few of my middle school chorus went on to become professional singers, very few of my classmates in chem still need to use the Periodic Table, and very few of my Journalism classmates became journalists--but having the experience of learning these "useless" skills made us all smarter and more flexible in understanding that people see the world through different lenses. That's a 21st-century skill, if I ever heard of one.
3
@Human Sure, kids should learn everything. Except there’s a time constraint. Is the time and effort (along with the opportunity cost) needed to teach kids cursive worth it? I doubt it...
OK, I'm 74-years-old, so I can't wrap my mind around not learning cursive writing. I write notes to myself all the time, every day, whenever a thought occurs to me. I write on napkins and paper towels, purchase receipts, etc. And it's ridiculous to me that somehow cursive writing is a "politically conservative" idea. I believe it's just the opposite—that it's part of the dumbing down of education in general for poor and working class students that has been going on since the late '60 and '70s. How can writing quicker be anything else but better for children trying to learn to write their thoughts clearly—take notes quickly and instantaneously—instead of having to pull out a smart phone or tablet that, by their very nature, encourages or, in fact, requires short-cuts in spelling and grammar. Without learning the ground rules of spelling and grammar through physical handwriting, typing produces work just as sloppy as not knowing the language fluently enough to handwrite it in the first place. Not being taught cursive has become a distinct disadvantage for the overwhelming majority of our children and it is shameful.
12
I don't understand the conflation of "handwriting" with "cursive." I learned cursive as an elementary school student in the 80s but I abandoned it in high school in favor of printing, which I found to be faster and more legible. Of course people will always need to write by hand, but children should just be taught to print neatly instead of being forced to learn an obsolete skill that is difficult to master and produces illegible script from most people.
Always liked using a fountain pen when writing almost anything and when coupled to the Palmer method learned in grade school, both method and style stand out.
Never shied away from my hand and still, after many decades of handwritten grocery lists and thank you notes, feel a certain pride in the control it exercises.
2
After reading the article I’ve realised that I was slightly confused about the premise: I thing that teaching handwriting is much more important than teaching cursive. I was conflating them (is conflating the right word?)
As someone whose worked with students from a state that required students to learn cursive, I feel adequately informed enough to say it's not worth requiring it.
I remember students coming to me for help because they couldn't read the questions on the homework packet. Yet, these same students had 30-45 minutes of work of rote cursive tasks.
think about that for a second. A student who couldn't read had to exert 30 minutes of precious mental effort to copy something he couldn't understand.
Whats worse, because script is antiquated, the learning is totally disassociated from real life. For students who ask themselves "what am I learning and why does it matter?" cursive is just another example of meaningless school work.
I'm not anti- cursive. But we should be very selective when forcing teachers to meet an artificial goal created by the state. If the lawmaker's argument is, "well students don't know how to sign a check," that, in my estimation, isn't good enough. Unless there is some research that suggests script has significant educational benefits, pretty letters and a fancy signature aren't as valuable as the other rudimentary skills students could be learning instead.
Even in this digital age, handwriting is indispensable. In addition to a distinct, personal, signature that serves as a legal imprimatur, there are love notes, birthday cards, and "thank you" notes that have added expression when written,
3
The medical literature indicates that children exposed to computer screens have more behavioral and sleep problems.
Teaching about and giving assignments that must be handwritten could be a valuable tool to decrease children's "screen time." And to get their parents to do the same.
Besides, what do you do when all the computers crash?
Being able to actually write is a valuable skill.
3
I shudder to think how many hours of mind-numbing cursive practice I had to perform in Catholic grade school on Long Island back in the 1950s. The ONLY thing I use cursive for today is rendering my signature. If I have to take hand-written notes - a frequent occurrence - I print. Ninety-nine percent of my written communication is done via a keyboard.
If time were unlimited, cursive might be a nice skill to have, but resources are limited. Instead of dreary muscle-memory repetition of letter forming, why not enrichen the science curriculum? Or a music class? Of all the things I had to endure in school, cursive was probably the most boring and pointless. Modern communication methods have rendered it obsolete; let it die a natural death.
1
I'm in my fifties and until recently worked for a well-know tech firm where I was one of the few people in my age group. The company consisted of mostly millennials or younger hires. A person in charge of a group of beta customers wanted to send a special thank you - a gift with a card written in good handwriting with a personal message to each customer who took time to work with us. He could not write cursive. An email went out to the group of over 100 people asking if anyone knew cursive. Not one person could. I could have having learned cursive in the day, but I was on vacation at the time! The cards went out and some of these customers posted pictures of the gifts and the cards they received on social media which were passed around our working group. The cards were handwritten, but in block lettering (and not very good block lettering I might add). They looked unprofessional and childish. Nothing expresses a personal touch like a handwritten note in cursive. Perhaps there's opportunity here in the gig economy - Uber for handwritten cursive notes.
2
I work at the polls. Young people come in to vote and struggle to sign their names. One girl couldnt write her middle name because her mother had forgotten to teach her. Just like kids can no longer do math without a calculator. Is this progress?
7
@Teddi P: A little bit of hyperbole with your morning coffee? I have certainly run into the occasional young person who struggles with basic computation, but in my experience, students must still be able to complete even advanced math problems without a calculator. My eldest is an engineering student, and she's often taken exams where calculators were forbidden. Additionally, I believe one of the SAT's math sections must be completed without a calculator. So while it may be frustrating when the teenage cashier cannot figure out how much change to give you, let's not throw all young people under the math bus.
1
Your signature does not have to be legible. It just has to look about the same every time. Mine is completely illegible and it makes no difference. Cursive is like calligraphy. It may be nice to use on occasion but classroom time shouldn’t be wasted on it.
1
Edbert is completely charming, and I look forward to seeing him in the archives where I work. He'll be one of the few students who can do original research without help, and he won't look petrified and defeated when he finds himself reading old documents. He also won't look embarrassed when we ask him to sign his name at our register, and very likely, we'll be able to read what he writes. Welcome, Edbert!
5
The demise of cursive handwriting has been accompanied by the loss of like punctuation skills, spelling ability and knowledge of like basic grammar. Vocabulary is like non-existent. Young people especially now speak in emojis and lol's, btw's and wtf's.
The new language is text. It lacks any richness of quality and depth of meaning. It is simply a form of basic communication. The full effects of the loss of our basic language skills will not be fully felt for a few more generations, but it has started. For all their social media interactions, their ability to communicate effectively is increasingly evident. ;-)
8
I'm in college and, because of my major, our hourly tests and final exams involve Blue Books and long essays (explain, giving examples...). When I printed the Blue Blook essays, I was always running out of test time. When I switched to cursive, I could write a lot more in the time allowed. If you have to hand-write, cursive is definitely faster.
7
I have no idea when penmanship fell out of favor in our school systems, but to my mind, kids get more than enough instruction in the computer sciences both in school and at home.
It is time to bring a more balanced curriculum back into the classroom and provide the kids with a solid foundation in this very basic skill set.
What are they going to do when they need to sign an important legal document, mark it with an “X” like an illiterate?
Even a simple task like quickly jotting down notes in a book or during a phone call requires a degree of basic handwriting skills.
3
Cursive need not be stifling. Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) uses hand writing (keep the hand moving) as a key path to creativity and it self-evidently builds body- mind linkages that reinforce learning and development.
4
Many people who believe cursive is an essential skill struggle to cite tasks that cannot be performed without it. It is a proper exercise. I don’t need that kind of proof.
My grandmother and her two brothers were born on the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada to a miner and his wife—both poor immigrants from Ireland. When the father died of tuberculosis contracted in the mines, their mother abandoned them to a convent in Grass Valley, California. From there they were eventually taken separately.
I have a collection of letters written by one of those boys to my grandmother. I don’t know how he learned penmanship, grammar or composition. He was only 10 years old. He talks of mundane things, hinting, school, the weather. He asks if she has heard from their mother.
The letters are written in the most beautiful hand I have seen in my 72 years. I cannot fault his grammar or improve on his composition. They are heartbreaking.
That a little boy left alone in the world, 120 years ago, in such tragic circumstances could accomplish such a feat of literacy leaves me no need to prove the value of the fine arts, including penmanship. My 49-year old son, a high school principle, has never written a letter in his life, and, even if if he did, could muster only an ugly print with his pen held wrong.
I look around and see many technical achievements, but all I have to do is look at one of Eddy’s letters to know that we are steadily clawing our way backwards socially and culturally.
11
@Robert The letters sound beautiful. Please do consider offering them to a university archives, perhaps one in Nevada, where people can benefit from them -- people who can read cursive, that is.
2
Cursive writing is important way to develop an individual style. I am forever grateful to my third grade teacher in Glendale who taught me how to write. Look at Japanese and Chinese calligraphy for inspiration.
4
We moved to Europe when I was about to start third grade. My elementary school in the US was still teaching us to print and hadn't started cursive yet, but all my classmates in my new french school already wrote cursive as did the teacher at the blackboard. I had to copy the shapes as best I could and ask my mother to help decipher my lessons every evening. I (painstakingly) taught myself cursive by imitation and the results weren't pretty. To make matters worse, I'm left handed. To this day my handwriting is quite ugly. I envy people like Edbert who can write elegant cursive. And to those who think it's a waste of time, my nieces and nephews can't read the notes on the back of old family photos or their grandparent's letters. BTW there's nothing better than a handwritten invitation, gift card, or thank you note from someone with good penmanship, and no, block printing doesn't cut it.
3
The justifications for teaching cursive all sound to me like the justifications for teaching Latin: "maybe it'll help with other things...". We should be paying attention to what actually will be useful and enriching for kids with the limited curriculum time they have. Instead of Latin, teach French or Chinese -- languages that will actually help a child connect with other cultures. Instead of cursive, if you want to benefit dexterity, play a musical instrument -- something that brings a lifetime of enjoyment and culture. Youth is a window where learning language and music skills are more easily acquired than later in life. Don't waste it on obsolete skills.
@Henry Lieberman You sound like my high school teachers/counselors. I wanted to take a third language, and they said you already speak 2 languages.
2
Tamara Plakins Thornton's excellent "Handwriting In America" shows how attitudes toward cursive are rooted in 19th-century values. I'd add that the cursive we know was developed for a type of pen that is rarely used any more; no wonder it is regarded as pedantic. But by "cursive" do we merely mean pretty Palmer-method writing? I would settle for legible; without exaggerating, I can say that about 1/4 of my college students cannot write by hand in a way that can be easily followed. Many of the comments here have brought home the value of being able to write a word without lifting the pen or pencil from the page, in terms of the writer's speed, hand comfort, cognition, learning, motor skills (or embodied cognition, if you prefer). If communication to readers is a goal, then there has to be some agreement about how the letters should be formed. That's all right with me: we conform to many kinds of social contracts all the time. Cursive has a lot of baggage that it gained from more than a century of being taught as a form of drudgery or worse--and it's true, handwriting requires practice, but actually, the drudgery was in the schooling, not just the cursive. That's still true. If legislation requiring the teaching of cursive does anything to lessen education as drudgery, it will be an outlier. Far more likely, future generations will remember the drudgery of having to type directly to an iPad screen and upload it to the cloud using just the right file format.
I teach college freshmen and sophomores, and can say that success at this level is hampered by lack of cursive skills. One commentator here who is against teaching cursive views cursive as obsolete. This is just factually untrue and I will tell you why: college and university is a cursive-rich environment, from the posters one sees on the walls to the instructor’s handwriting on student papers. So I would just caution those k-12 teachers and researchers who are against cursive to consider that in the world we deliver students to this skill is necessary, still, for success. There’s nothing sadder than seeing students, already with so many impediments, given another.
9
As a parent of young children, I would rather my children's teachers not waste time teaching them cursive. It is and antiquated and learning it does nothing to make them a better student or to prepare them for higher level courses. Its time wasted on something from an earlier era that deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. I also find as an instructor of older students, that print is far more legible which makes grading essays and tests much easier.
1
The argument that cursive is necessary to sign a legal document, and therefore all children must learn cursive, is absurd.
In first year contracts - in law school - we learned that a signature is “any mark, sign, symbol, or device attached to a document to show the maker’s assent to items contained therein.”
This was revelatory because from second grade through my senior year in high school we were required to use cursive on all written assignments because we had to know how to sign our names in cursive if we ever wanted to write a check, sign a mortgage, etc.
I am left handed and always struggled with cursive. In fact, learning cursive was the first time I thought school was boring and pointless. Cursive does teach teach any new information, it simply elevates form over function.
I proudly and defiantly print my name on everything.
1
Beyond the many excellent reasons to teach cursive — fine motor skills, retention, spelling, memory, opportunity for creativity or contemplation, etc.— is the fact that expanding, not contracting, a child’s range of skills is the right thing to do.
Naysayers aside, cursive books are one of my biggest sellers at conferences and many of the adult purchasers express regret at never having learned to write beautifully. Both adults and students spend a great deal of time looking through and enjoying a couple of notebooks in which I have extensively demonstrated cursive and italic penmanship. Some even bring back samples of their own improved handwriting at subsequent conferences. It never hurts to add a skill, even if it’s seldom used (hello, algebra!). Once it’s learned well, penmanship can be a relaxing, stress reliever or a way to actively think through something — especially for people who don’t love tech. I’m happy to see renewed interest in this delightful art.
5
Many people who enjoy scrapbooking also practice penmanship, and those who might want to do genealogical research need to be able to read cursive, often the Palmer or Spencer script in English or the Sutterlin and Kurrentschrift in German.
After hand surgery, I practiced my penmanship to revive some fine motor skills, as I tend to think clumsy and unformed handwriting indicates that same level of thinking (a prejudice, I know).
3
Historical documents are written in cursive. It is of the utmost importance to learn to read them and understand their meaning for oneself.
As a left handed person, I understand it will be a pain for some children. I still think it should remain a skill taught in school.
5
I come into contact with so many young people who can’t add, subtract or spell simple words correctly. I’m a lot more concerned about the lack of those skills than I am about the disappearance of cursive writing.
1
This ignores the fact that a sizeable percentage of kids have disabilities (visual-motor, fine motor) that make cursive very very hard for them. Forcing them to learn cursive has a negative impact on all other aspects of their writing-- research has clearly shown that.
@Mosie
sorry, but making the claim "...that research has clearly shown that." without providing something to back up the claim is not credible.
is "a sizeable percentage" something you were taught in your statistics class?
1
Practicing handwriting would help both with fine motor skills and with honing the skill of patience, important to all of us but particularly important for those with learning disabilities.
1
The question and value of cursive often comes up in my teachers room. Many of the younger teachers think teaching cursive is a waste of time because students type on devices. I disagree and argue that the better performing school districts teach cursive as part of their 3rd grade curriculum. I worry cursive will become a privileged marker; soft indication of class. We fool only ourselves when we say there is no time to teach a skill. Cursive can easily be fit in with mini lessons and students will have an individual sign of who they are for the rest of their lives.
192
@Jim McAdams
My guess is a lot of those younger teachers were never taught cursive themselves.
24
@Jim McAdams
I suspect those teachers feel personally threatened because they themselves cannot do a decent cursive or cannot do it at all, and so their defense is to aggressively disparage it. Writing something down facilitates learning it and in the long run is more efficient.
17
@Jim McAdams Or is it because few write in cursive and thus it is a skill, but one that's not really needed or practiced. They can teach expertise in all sorts of things, but once central planning arrives, you are all forced to what authority demands without variability is interests or teaching technique.
1
Our kids go to a public school in Germany where it’s still requires. I think they handle cursive well. Instead of starting off with block lettering, they start off with DeNelian script. It’s basically block lettering with curves that will eventually link up. I don’t see why they don’t just go the same route in the US. It’s pretty basic, and doesn’t require a lot of extra explanation. Since I took DeNelian in 2nd grade 20 some years ago, it’s already a known thing here. Cursive *is* helpful and useful. It’s helpful when you want to write quickly, or when you want to read older material/primary resources. It’s also been proven that what you write, more so than what you type, is easier to memorise.
174
@Bethany
My great niece and nephew, ages 4 and 6, attend primary school in Oxfordshire, England, where the children learn cursive writing first. One reason is that it is easier for young children because the letters are connected. There is less starting and stopping.
28
@Bethany One size fits nobody. Even memorization is less useful than before. There are more facts and technologies and such to learn today than ever before. When cursive was the norm, there were no electronic technologies whatsoever, and science was rudimentary at best. Old ways should be an option for those interested, but once it's centrally planned requirement, you exchange liberty and thought for authoritarian control.
1
@Bethany
when I was in elementary school (more than 20 years ago) we were taught the D'Nealian method, and I believe my handwriting demonstrates the fact. (I have many people say to me I have nice handwriting - though I admit, it's getting worse as I get older, probably because I don't write as much on paper as I used to).
I used to be an elementary school teacher, and that type of handwriting was not D'Nealian, so I had a hard time "changing" mine, but I did the best I could with it. It had extra flourishes, etc, that I didn't think we needed. I finally just gave up, I didn't have to teach it, just "conform" but that's hard to do when you haven't been using the style your entire life.
5
They used to teach swordsmanship and horseback riding in school in centuries past also. They stopped doing so when it wasn't a needed skill anymore. Just like cursive writing. This is a waste of the precious resources that schools now have to teach kids today. Every minute not spend on cursive writing can be spent on computer skills that will actually benefit students in the real world.
25
@Jim
Those much vaunted computer skills are not nearly as reliable as one might think. Two students in my first year composition class this semester wrote much more effectively by hand with pen or pencil. When they tried to compose on the computer, it wasn't pretty.
36
@Jim Education requires money. If you really want to save money, don't have public education. Do you really think people are proud they cannot read or write cursive?
20
@Jim But it turns out handwriting is a needed skill. It helps with brain development, kids retain more information if they write it by hand, and it teaches fine motor skills that are required in a lot of careers - medicine, for instance.
42
I agree with redweather and the benefits
of writing things down. Old school tome
says, "read and understand, write and remember."
12
I would like to know what brain function researchers say about how a child's brain is affected by the interaction of mind, pencil and paper.
2
To deny the worth of cursive writing (and other elements of classical education) is as foolish and dangerous as denying the benefits of digital technology. There is a need for both. Nowadays, the primary goal of education seems to be passing standardized tests. I look at the results and wonder how some people find their way home at night.
11
@Larry Google maps
1
I have not written in cursive since junior high, but I have never forgotten my second grade teacher praising my cursive after I received the highest grade in the class on a handwriting exam: "my little lefty!"
3
The Luddites were correct.
Like cobbling shoes..shoeing horses?? Ah the age old problem we face around the world. Speed! To my thinking nothing in the world of lasting value or promise was created quickly. As is often said...or should I say...was often said when people took the time to actually speak to each other face to face...Rome was not built in a day! The Sistine Chapel was not created overnight. Even a child takes nine months to be born...grass..a while to grow. Even God is purported to have taken 7 Days to create the world. As I see it..the only things that can happen quickly are things like car accidents,falls,unwanted pregnancies etc...doesn't take much thinking to accomplish those. Nothing of any consequence or lasting value can be created quickly ! Whether it's a tradesperson's work,an athlete's competition, an artist's art etc...all quality workmanship takes time patience and effort !! I was tutoring someone through college a few years back and all the papers turned in by her as well as her classmates included text message abbreviations and misspellings mostly due to not proof reading their writing. The poor Grammar and sentence structures were shocking. I recently had some mechanical work done on a vehicle that involved some tricky welding. When I picked it up after nearly a week...it was as new. I told the owner he was like me ...he said what he would do...and did what he said he would...He was the Truth!! It was not done...Overnight and Alexa and Siri were of no help !!
2
"Edbert, 10, Excels at Cursive. Should Other Students Follow His Lead?"
I expect answers, not questions, from a newspaper. Especially not ridiculously unanswerable questions like this one.
1
Yeah!! Cursive!! And while they're at it, make them all learn saddle making!! And heiroglyphics!! Even better, we need to return to the days when kids could make a decent stone arrowhead!! On the other hand (though it doesn't carry the same sentimental weight), we might consider teaching them skills useful in the 21st century.
1
Students coming out of high school are borderline illiterate. They cannot compose complete sentences with correct punctuation. They have no idea what a topic or thesis sentence is. They have never heard the words bibliography or critical thought. A research paper sends everyone into chills of anxiety.
Whatever teachers are spending so much time teaching is not working.
7
@Saba Where are you meeting these students?
1
Where is the future application in cursive? It doesn’t exist.
@Nicholas: couldn't we say this about anything kids learn?
2
@Nicholas Brain surgery. You have to get those fine motor skills somewhere.
2
If you want to do research and examine letters. For example I took my students to the college archives. The librarian thought the students would be interested in letters by Jacob Riis in which he was advocating for a wage increase for young workers. They were fascinating letters using the same argument for wage increase that are used today. My students couldn’t read the letters.
My grandchildren probably won’t be able to read the notebooks I’ve kept.
2
This writer learned cursive in 1971 and has been using it ever since. Just sent about 25 handmade Christmas cards to friends, business associates and one inmate. Only we called it "script."
Anything to pry 'em away from screens for 15 seconds. (Although I am typing on one to write this letter.)
55
@Zellickson As for me, Iearned cursive in the early 60s ... hated it then and hate it now. I embraced the typewriter when that became available to me and transferred those keyboarding skills to computers when that became an option.
When called upon to make notes manually, printing serves me well and, for me, is faster than cursive.
I acknowledge that copperplate cursive is pretty but I see it as something of an artisanal indulgence.
1
@John Franz--Have you ever read a copy of the original Declaration of Independence? If so, thank a handwriting teacher.
6
@John Franz
𝓢𝓲𝓻-
𝓒𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓸𝓭𝓪𝔂, 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓸𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓻𝓸𝔀, 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻!
𝓖𝓸𝓸𝓭 𝓭𝓪𝔂, 𝓼𝓲𝓻.
𝓩
7
I have always taken pride in how much better a card or letter from me looks, right down to the address on the envelope, than most of what I receive with what I can only describe as childish printing. Of course the cursive “flow” of the writing has to be neat & legible and for these qualities I must thank the Franciscan nuns at St Peter & Paul in Sandusky.
60
I was forced to sit in a corner and face the wall because I am left handed and my cursive slanted the wrong way. That was in the late 70s. The idea that you need to know cursive to sign your name is ridiculous. You can mark an x and if that’s your x, that’s your signature. Printing legibly has always been better in my opinion. If we must write by hand, teach kids how to write like architects. It’s more beautiful and more legible.
18
@Kate marking an X as signature usually means you are illiterate, or have some type of disability.
10
@Kate
How is your X to be distinguished from anyone else's in a legal dispute?
8
@Kate
Many lefties tilt the paper on a table, lower left to upper right, so they can open their hand rather than turning it in. Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were left-handed and Franklin's signature in particular is admirable.
6
I remember when children had workbooks in school to learn how to write both in print and cursive.
Years after I learned how to write, I saw some of my old workbooks and the notebooks I used after I first started writing in the first or second grade, perhaps the third as well.
The double lines for practicing meant that I believed I was supposed to write using double lines even though I wasn't using a workbook, since the workbooks required the double lines for practicing capital letters.
I could see how my little hand wrote "Homework." The memories make me smile.
2
Handwriting is essential and teaching it to children is a necessary measure in order to provide them the best chances in life. Handwriting can save lives. I do not see any drawbacks in learning cursive. Romanian kids are taught handwriting in elementary school, and I think this is a good idea. I still use fountain pens on a daily basis and I have no problem in staining my fingers with ink.
1
I was terrible, terrible, terrible at what was called Script in elementary school. I always got low marks in that subject. It wasn't that I wasn't proficient in holding a pencil. I could certainly print block letters and draw pictures well. I just could not slow down enough to write in Cursive style properly.
Once I was in junior high and had to take notes during classes, I switched to using block lettering. I found that my notes were clearer and faster to do.
It was just a matter of style and nothing else.
Now, I was not lazy, which is what one elementary teacher proclaimed upon reviewing my Cursive lesson. A few years later I proudly showed my junior high art teacher a poster I created using an Old West style of tall and thin calligraphy with serifs; not that I knew the terms "calligraphy" or "serif" then.
To force kids to submit to one particularly calligraphy style ---especially one that requires redundant strokes as Cursive does--- is counter-productive and demoralizing.
To this day, I only use Script/Cursive for my signature which still draws whistling admiration.
By the way, note how the kid in the photo has really worn down that huge eraser. Something's amiss.
1
The eraser tells me that he is able to catch his mistakes and works to correct them. And that’s education!
4
I’m glad I learned as a child to write in cursive. I write personal notes in my Christmas cards!
2
I once had decent cursive skills. It was something that was taught in the 3rd grade public school that I attended back in the 1950s. One of my work responsibilities was signing checks. As a result I can write my name legibly however beyond that my handwriting has declined and anytime I need to write by hand I print. My son-in-law has beautiful cursive. Because of that our grandchildren have learned it by emulating their father. It is a skill that was taught at home and not at their school.
4
I don't get the conflation of cursive with writing. Just don't pick up the pen/pencil, and you're done. Nothing to teach. I have yet to be told my signature is insufficient because I don't write my letters don't have the extra squiggles that 'proper' cursive adds in. This is solving a problem that well and truly doesn't exist
1
I recall enjoying penmanship class which started with drawing lines and circles in second grade and ending in fifth with perfect Palmer method handwriting. Learning to write in cursive not only teaches you writing but it improves hand/eye coordination and brain development. I was shocked that my children only spent about six weeks on handwriting in fourth grade. As adults they mostly print which looks juvenile to me. Of note, my mother, who was in the Dutch school system had beautiful handwriting, was shocked that I wasn’t taught calligraphy and the thick and thin stroke created with a fountain pen!
2
I fully support Ms. McKnight’s initiative to require cursive handwriting instruction in schools. My only complaint is her assertion that it might be squeezed into English or history classes, as if the content of those subjects can easily be abridged. With regard to history, especially, handwriting has no connection. She might as well suggest that cursive could be squeezed into a math or science class, but of course that would have her STEM constituents up in arms.
To those who believe that cursive handwriting is a brainless and repetitive skill, I don’t think there is a clear understanding of what handwriting involves. To learn to match the shapes and sizes of the parts of letterforms and the spaces between them involves cognition to a very high degree, in addition to coordination and motor development. It only becomes repetitive once the practice has become internalized. Handwriting is, in fact, a kind of abstract drawing, which also involves high degrees of cognition. But then, I should probably not bring up the arts in the context of what should or should not be taught in schools.
13
@Proprius History does fit into the "handwriting" category -- just think about why we say "put your John Hancock there" when we ask for a signature. :)
Time is a finite resource..ie there is only so much time in the day, it is a zero sum day. Which subject would people like instruction to be reduced so that more can be added into an already crowded school day. Math, Science, History? Of course, do kids really need to eat ourside the home? Perhaps the lunch room could be closed and redesigned as a writing excercise gym.
I haven't gotten a hand written letter in years, and the notes in cards that I do receive usually say, love you, see you soon etc. Even Christmas news letters are typed.
None of that is going to change. The warm fuzzy lens of time that makes a time when email and word processors did not exist is never returning. Almost every application for colleges and credit cards is online
2
There was plenty of time for it 50 years ago.
3
@Larry
no doubt. since then a lot has happened in every imaginable field of learning
the world is a bigger place.
and we have keyboards, and printers now.
and email
"cursive" is a craft and should treated like that
Cursive has a big plus over printing. Printing requires that each letter has to be drawn--it is slow, college students who print struggle to take notes or copy what the teacher wrote on the chalkboard. Cursive is speedier as the pen glides quickly to form the letters, never lifting from the page until the next word is written. Some will argue that electronic devices negate the need for the use of a pen, but studies show pen and paper users in the classroom learn more than those relying on technology. The creators of this technology recognize this and send their children to school that severely limit or ban electronic devices. So three cheers for NJ for bringing back what one seven year old described as "the curse of writing," when asked what she had learned in school.
15
@an observer: Additionally, there are few things more obnoxious than keyboards clicking furiously in a large university lecture hall. For every college student's sanity, let's please not do away with handwriting.
5
British children are taught Chancery cursive, a much more beautiful hand than what we learn here in the States. As a young teenager, I was given an Osmiroid fountain pen with a left-hand nib, and an instruction book. I am now 70 and still have my notes from my 9th grade biology class. It earned me credit (!) and the admiration of my fellow students. Chancery cursive, sometimes called Italics, is not "just decorative." It is very readable and can be learned by anyone.
8
@Stefanie Green: My husband attended school in the UK, and he was taught connected pre-cursive. The letters are joined but there are few if any flourishes. As I've grown older, it's a style that I've adopted for myself. Faster and easier than Palmer or Zaner-Bloser, although not nearly as lovely.
3
Yes!
As long as we are still requiring people to "sign" their names on paper, i.e. checks, affidavits and other legal documents, we need to teach cursive. There are plenty of cogent arguments to be made for retaining this including hand eye coordination and motor skills, as well as memorization, which has been shown to be far better for things written than things typed. Additionally anyone who plans to seek advanced degrees or go into a line of work that may require reading original sources will be at a massive disadvantage if they can't read cursive.
9
@John C. Those of us trained to work with original sources have always had to acquire paleography skills -- and soon enough there will be skills classes in reading 20th-century hands. The current fuss reminds me of what it must have been like in the sixteenth century: "Have you seen how horrible that secretary hand is those young clerics are writing? Give me a good old quadrata any day!"
2
As a product of a parochial education in the 60's, I was taught Palmer cursive. I continue to use it today. I taught public high school for 25 years and always wrote in cursive. Students complained. I told them to figure it out. They did.
Aside from my history, cursive improves the fine motor skills of youngsters. My elementary age grandsons' handwriting is atrocious.
Perhaps educators today think that learning cursive AND printing uses valuable educational time better used for STEM subjects.
I'm not sure. But I do know that my parents' script and others from their generation had consistently clear and beautiful handwriting. And therefore, like myself, they had distinctive signatures.
8
In Russian, cursive is necessary - and so beautiful. The cursive Cyrillic alphabet is very different from the printed letters, so cursive is a necessary skill to learn. Russian don’t print block letters - they all write in cursive, which is almost another written language. I think it’s lovely.
5
@Citizen of the Earth
cursive is a highly valued skill for those intent on destabilizing democracies all over the planet.
As a left-handed child in the 1950s I was told by my teachers that all left-handed kids are sloppy and messy, and can’t be taught to write properly. They forced us to use fountain pens, and we dragged our contorted hands in the wet ink.
Cursive is a curse for the ten percent of the population who write with our left hands. Teaching it should be banned, not mandated, in public schools.
[proudly and rapidly typed on my iPhone keyboard]
4
@Charlie B
I'm a fellow southpaw, but I'm afraid I strongly disagree. I believe cursive is not only a practical skill for adult life (signing checks, etc.), but one never knows as a youth what path you're going to take, and in quite a few professions (i.e. history, law, literature), the ability to actually read cursive is essential. If you don't learn to write it, that's impossible to do.
5
@Charlie B
I am a lefty myself and my cursive is terrible. I would not change a thing. My signature at least, is awesome and I wear the ink on my pinky and hand, with pride!
3
But wouldn’t printing with a fountain pen for a lefty also make a mess? Does the cursive part make it worse? If so, how? Honestly curious.
1
They have taught cursive for decades. I can only barely read my mother’s writing. My husband and son ask me to read her scrawl to them. It’s a real struggle.
It's shocking that they don't teach kids cursive - they are crippling them for life.
Writing with the hand activates different regions of the brain than typing.
It also teaches eye-hand coordination.
13
Those denouncing cursive as unnecessary: go to a high school classroom and see how poor the handwriting is. I say this not to clutch my pearls (I'm a teacher). I think many truly have no conception of how poor teen handwriting is. It's.....really bad. Think your own handwriting when you were 6.
8
@Sarah A: Agreed. My now young adult daughter was one of the last classes in our school district to spend a significant amount of time on cursive. My youngest, a high school senior, learned just enough to read cursive and to sign his name. His handwriting is appalling. Truly appalling.
Both my grandmother and gg-grandmother had beautiful hand-writing. My gg-grandmother wrote in Spencer script, which is exquisitely complex, while my grandmother wrote in Palmer script. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the keyboard for ink and paper, but I recognize that we've lost something special in the trend away from teaching children cursive.
As an aside, my grandmother, the one who used the Palmer method, was left-handed, so I bristle at comments implying that left-handers cannot have beautiful script handwriting.
11
@Allison
I learnt to write cursive, and my writing was appalling. It became slightly better when a teacher gave me the order to never ever write cursive again.
@John - you may have been even worse without the cursive instruction.
Seems to me that learning ASL would be a far better use of classroom time than cursive.
2
@Ryan Russell
the Borg agrees
To all the folks clutching their pearls at the thought of "kids today":
I'm a high school teacher. My students want to do well, are afraid about the world they face, take their work seriously, and have ambition. They make awkward adorable jokes, and make awkward, adorable mistakes.
There are a few jerks too--about the same number, proportionately, as there are jerks in the world.
If you are really worried about the teenagers, maybe volunteer to tutor at the local library, or sign up for a big brother/big sister program. Become a scouts troop leader. But please don't just wail and rend your garments from afar: there are some pretty incredible young people in your community.
9
My students can’t read handwritten notes on their papers.
5
Hear hear! My nephew can’t even forge a horse-shoe or pluck a chicken! Bring back the classics!
2
@Matt French
but if your nephew can read and write he could learn to built a forge, smelt iron ore, and teach others to aid in the enterprise and on their lunch breaks learn to pluck chickens for their dinner and safely store the leftovers for the next days lunch break...even if they live in California where the power grid is a daily crap-shoot.
Bring back rotary phones-they also slow things down.
Such complete nonsense. When we were growing up cursive was used only to help us speed up writing. Fast forward to today's age and computers bring clarity to our thoughts and writing. Geez what's next mandatory rotary phones? The whole idea is about being able to decipher what the other person has written. Without computers, my kids tell me, reading my cursive is like deciphering morse code. Waste of time, money ( a lot of it) and burdening kids with brainless, repetitive activity. Does New Jersey have so few problems that need to be addressed in schools that they are focusing on the unnecessary?
2
@Meena And those who for whatever reason need to learn to read "cursive" can do what scholars have always done and take a paleography course or two. As a productive skill, writing in cursive is dead.
No! No! No! Learning cursive is a ridiculous waste of time! I learned it, and I always print - just as fast and much more legible. (And I'm a doctor!) That effort can so much better be used on history, math, science, phys ed - just about anything else. I was so proud of our education when cursive went away. Please don't bring it back!!!
2
@BGZ123 Maybe as an elective, or part of an art course.
1
Not being able to read and write cursive is to cut off the history of the generations that have used the method.
6
No no no! There are many children who have no artistic ability who have a terrible time with script as I did as a child no matter how much I tried. That was the source of embarrassment and humiliation in Elementary and part of high school until we started using typewriters.
@SMS It was indeed difficult for many kids, but most school things are...as was eating with knife and fork. Now I see senior students and young adults struggle with other related small tools skills such as screwdrivers and needle/thread button or repairs.
@elly Just like some people do better with tools and others are better construction and architecture and others are good at sport. So there are also people who are able to do script. Frankly I don’t understand how you and others don’t get this. I’m sure you can do who script otherwise you wouldn’t be writing this. I’m a doctor. As a child I practiced and practiced with the nuns over and over again and I could not do it. But no one could beat me in math and science.
Cursive handwriting is a thing of the past
One very solid reason for learning cursive or long hand: Some day you may want to read important things written by others in cursive. With absolutely no skills in this fading form of communication a TON of historical context is lost forever.
10
@Martino
Historical context...now there is a devalued concept.
Unfortunately history is written—in cursive before the printing press—by the victors.
@Martino Like the Constitution of the United States, for example.
1
@Kismet And more than just our constitution or Declaration of Independence there are also millions upon millions of private journals and diaries people have written for centuries. While not all are great writings, many are. I took care of an elderly woman who until her death from a stroke a few years ago kept journals every day of her life. She had volumes upon volumes saved going back before WWII.
If you grow up without knowing basic penmanship - writing print style as well as cursive, how are you going to be able to sign your name? Even at some computerized voting booths you sign your name with a stylus on the monitor.
3
@yvettekm
and now we know how Gen X got their name.
The cursive proponents in this article seem to be conflating cursive with actually being able to write letters and sign one's name. No one needs cursive to pen a letter, inscribe a yearbook, or sign an application. It may be prettier, but so is formal calligraphy.
1
@Maryam Kennedy
oh yeah...and formal calligraphy is so much easier to acquire proficiency in compared to cursive...
The problem isn’t with cursive, but with bad cursive which is sadly pervasive. I often glance at Visitor Comment logs at inns or wherever and can’t decipher many of the cursive entries. Then there is the hilarious bank robbery scene in Allen’s Take The Money And Run where the entire bank staff end up arguing about what the robbery note reads, “Abt normal, I have a gub”.
4
@Patrick
and those of who can write readable cursive are arguing about even mentioning Woody Allen's name while those who don't write in cursive and don't know why they would or should are asking "Whose Allen?" and "What is 'Take The Money And Run?'"
1
@GOP-destroying democracy
Never mind Allen. These days you can’t even mention having a hamburger for lunch, or flying to Europe or the Caribbean on a vacation. We live in an age of indoctrination.
Now this is a typical U.S. problem, not learning to write cursive... In France, as in most European countries, cursive is not even an option: it's the standard.
7
@Olivier le Friec
And another proof of French superiority [at least in the minds of the French] is that more then 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power.
Only a matter of time before France makes Chernobyl look like a minor release of radioactive isotopes and the French are all writing in cursive by candle light.
Cursive is a waste of time. It’s tough/discouraging for kids to learn, with not a lot of upside. Professionally and academically everyone uses computers anyway. I don’t know a single person under 50 that writes in cursive!
@Nathaniel 40 year old here - I take notes in a notepad all day long - IN CURSIVE.
3
@Nathaniel I'm 37 and I write in cursive. Nice to meet you.
It's ridiculous that cursive was stopped- i have to sign my kid s name for him - primarily on school papers like athletic program and club "contracts" - the HS doesnt see the irony.
6
@Clare Teach your child instead of doing it for them.
Maybe all children should be required to paint portraits instead of using a camera, or play the piano instead of listening to the radio, or raise sheep to knit a sweater? Seriously?
Cakes just don't look the same with printed messages. Save cursive. The world needs cake decorators.
7
@orangeorchid Your comment made my day! Thank you! Let them eat cake!
2
What a colossal waste of time, just so junior can sign his name on a check. Note that Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, all distinguished bastions of progressive education are the states that have reintroduced the required teaching of cursive---'nuff said.
Sounds like a complete and utter waste of time. As such, it should certainly be taught to our children.
This really seems like old people being old.
So what do the anti-cursives do when they need to sign a check, contract, or back of a credit card?
2
@BwayJoe I haven’t written a check in ten years, I sign contracts digitally, and they’re doing away with signatures on credit cards — not that anyone checks them.
@BwayJoe I just don't pick up the pen. I have yet to hear a complaint
evolve or?
When I was in elementary school we had cursive lessons almost every day (in the late 50's to early 60's). After elementary school I never wrote cursive again, except for my signature. Most of my family has beautiful non-cursive writing that is extremely easy to read. These individuals include published fiction and scientific authors with superb writing skills. We get some cursive letters from a few relatives but they are hard to interpret.
I do not see the point in promoting cursive writing.
I suppose that one should begin with the end in mind. What should or should not be taught depends on what we want to be the end result of our efforts in teaching young adults. I suggest that there is still room in our world for a lady, or gentle man. So the question becomes "what skills should a gentle man posses"? I think that beautiful hand writing is a skill that a gentle man should posses. And, despite the ubiquitous nature of our digital technologies there is still an important place for a well written note or letter. If you think not, then you have never received one. I have letters that are some of my lifes treasures, fine stationary,lightly perfumed, carefully chosen envelopes, beautiful,personal. Who ever thought of an email as a 'keep sake'? I, for one, choose to believe that there is still room for the kind of simple everyday beauty that neat penmanship represents.
5
@oldbugeyed You're a romantic! I'm glad that there are still people like you in our culture! I appreciate that!
I have a friend who ran the Accounting department in a major local car dealership. She told me she had hired a seemingly bright high school graduate to do basic clerical work in the office. On her first day on the job, my friend gave the girl a stack of handwritten lease documents and told her to sort them alphabetically. Ten minutes later the girl walked back into my friend’s office and told her she could not read cursive. And did not understand what “alphabetical” meant.
10
I feel mixed about cursive, called "script" when I was growing up on Long Island in the '60s-'70s. The only time I use it is when I am signing the interior of greeting cards. When I must add a digital signature, I just draw a haphazard squiggle because I know it is now different than marking with an "X".
All of this said, a very good skill that should consider being taught is formal lettering. I remember being taught that in 1st Grade (although I missed "S" - I was absent that day and paid the price ever since).
However, the well-disciplined lettering used in drafting and blueprints is still a very useful skill that I learned in high school when I took "Industrial Design". What is different is that you are taught how very specifically to make letters, lines, arrowheads, etc. The discipline required to master lettering and arrowheads will carry on throughout life - not just because it forces the mind to be disciplined but also because any subsequent writing is clear.
For instance, when I address envelopes of those same greeting cards, my addressing is very clear and easy to read by address readers used by the US Postal Service. Also, if I need to write on a piece of paper to give instructions or teach a coworker, the work I produce is clean and easily understood.
I am not saying teach drafting, but teaching
it's lettering techniques would be better than cursive.
2
Rather than cursive (Palmer-Pittman cursive), schools should teach, for one school year at least, the elements of good penmanship - a basic Italic hand with a broad pointed marker or fountain pen. Cursive is barely legible (even when done well) requiring unnatural movements of the muscles of the hand. Additionally, a few weeks of some form of speed-writing should be taught so that whatever legible handwriting is developed is not ruined attempting to take notes.
3
We spend a lot of time jamming knowledge in the children's heads and making a lot of connections in the brain. If they don't review it or make some effort to remember it, all those connections go away. (Because we looked up something on a device doesn't mean we have it permanently in our heads.)
Cursive is one way of thoughtfully remembering what was learned earlier.
A teacher I know, pointed out to me that the act of writing/cursive opens up a channel to the storehouse in the brain and makes recalling it easier. One comment heard frequently from writers is that they have to start writing/cursive on paper to get started. I'm not a writer, but when I'm stuck I will take out pen and paper and start writing ideas.
When I was writing computer programs in the past and became stuck, I frequently wrote out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go to accomplish the task.
Maybe it's time to teach students less, but teach them thoughtfully how to learn and recall. Cursive is a powerful tool.
11
I'm in my early 70's so you know I was taught cursive in school. Of course I used it throughout all my education. Computers were science fiction, typewriters ruled the day for mechanical transcription. It is a bit ironic that typing skills were not then taught as part of the mandatory curriculum. Since I didn't take typing in high school, my college work suffered a bit. I had to get my papers typed for me. It was not until I purchased my first computer that I learned to type. I still can't do the top row without looking.
Anyway... after reading this article I wondered if I could still complete the full lazy dog sentence. So I tried it, of course. And I only had to think about a few of the letters. My own cursive has become a sort of cursive/printing mashup of sorts. It serves me well enough.
My hat's off to young Mr Aquino. (Wish I could have sent this last sentence in cursive!)
1
I am a physician, and find note-taking (in cursive) conducive to paying attention, as well as organizing my thoughts. Typing is rote skill, in comparison. With cursive (and paper notes), I can emphasize things, link items (literally by arrow), etc.
All my education linked note-taking with learning, whether in class, or reviewing/organizing information from textbooks and articles. My personal view is handwriting likely links important language centers in our brain- as well as improving fine motor skills.
There is new information emerging that fine motor skills, previously developed in habits like handicraft hobbies (embroidery, model-building, woodwork carving) are having a negative impact on current surgeons in training, as their fine motor skills are falling behind the earlier curves.
12
As a (retired) teacher of English, elementary through college, I suggest that those who make key decisions about cursive vs no cursive at least go to the research, of which there is a fair amount. A lot of good old-fashioned feeling exists about a return to the basics motivates many parents' and teachers' belief that cursive is key -- yet dismissing it altogether misses some important brain development work. Extremes rarely help when it comes to every child learning.
Teachers of cursive should not, in my view, expect too much in the way of perfection, nor ignore each child's ability to form certain shapes. Spending extended time on cursive for the sake of a signature or reading the Constitution is not justifiable. Teachers are already burdened with a plethora of 'stuff' to deliver.
Legibility is crucial. If taking notes is a goal, teach skills about that rather than the handwriting itself. But making cursive about the culture wars is dangerous when it comes to time allotted to a child's learning.
3
I'm a college student studying computer science. This semester, I took a machine learning class and originally wanted to type my notes, but quickly found typing really inconvenient because I had to write down a lot of mathematical formulas. So I switched to handwriting for that class.
I do believe that the act of handwriting is important. However, it's less important to write in cursive specifically, let alone a specific type of cursive. It's much more important to learn to write *legibly*. One stated advantage of cursive is that it lets you write faster. However, I find that my personal style of semi-cursive script is faster for me to write than standard cursive, because I don't have to remember *not* to pick up my pencil in the middle of writing a word. Also, it's only by convention that Westerners are expected to write their signatures in cursive, but it's not legally required.
Finally, the claims that us young'uns won't be able to read the U.S. Constitution are downright laughable. The Constitution and other founding documents are available in digital and print formats for anyone to read. But if you're a humanities student who needs to read old documents, you'll definitely need to know how to read cursive.
9
@Evelyn I am glad that you mentioned this because this is something I would do too.
Consider learning "lettering" used in drafting.
Google "French and Svensen" for books on this. They have a dedicated chapter on lettering - the kind you see on blueprints. I will change how you take notes.
2
@Evelyn Agreed on all fronts. I'm in grad school for computational linguistics, and my notes are overwhelmingly handwritten. But not in cursive
@Evelyn I suggest you learn the system TeX -- it prints math formulae like a dream!
Thanks for this article, Ms. Tully. Beyond being a nice way for students to unwind and disconnect from technology, cursive provides a critical link to the past. If students can't write it, how can they read it? So many letters and documents were handwritten. To abandon cursive is to abandon an important connection to history.
Phoebe Toland
3
Congratulations to Mr. Aquino. His aspiration to become a doctor surely will benefit his country, and that he would like his patients to be able to read his legible handwriting speaks volumes about his compassion and concern for others.
In my 50s and working in public libraries, I often write information for patrons and notes for other staff. What I’ve noticed recently is how clear or messy my writing is depends on my mood. Trying to return to consistent handwriting is my current project.
3
This article made me smile. My 25 year old niece is a 2nd grade teacher and although she is doing a wonderful job (per professional evaluations and parent support) she was never taught how to write in cursive. I enjoy listening to her “teacher stories” and can’t wait to hear how she handles this assignment!
2
Locally, what I've seen is that cursive is no longer taught, but neither is keyboarding, resulting in high schoolers, like my daughter, who are neither fluent hand-writers or typists. (Now, the thumbs on the text screen are another matter...)
9
I took the Bar Exam in the seventies when we wrote answers in cursive. My handwriting was barely legible and I failed my first try. For my second try I was given permission to take in an electric typewriter. I passed.
Cursive is nice for thank-you notes and sympathy cards. Anything more substantial takes a keyboard. Teach both.
4
I am a college instructor. What I discovered was that not only could students not write cursive, they couldn't read it either. They couldn't read my comments on their work, the important documents in the library's special collections, their grandmother's notes on their birthday cards. Computers aren't everywhere. Then last year I got a pleasant surprise: all the students I asked could both read and write cursive. I hope this resurgence spreads.
19
@Ruby. I've had a similar experience: 10-15 years ago, all my college students had terrible handwriting. Today only about half of them do, and many have beautiful handwriting. I think we've already hit bottom on this and are starting to see the upswing.
2
As a teacher, I would be furious if I had to sacrifice valuable learning time to indulge some politician's nostalgia for a dead skill. There's no benefit from writing in cursive that students can't get from writing in print. If you want students to be good spellers, give me the time to teach them good books.
2
Knowing how to read and write cursive is still a valuable skill. I could give many examples
5
@Alex
Actually, there is plenty of research that supports handwriting and cursive as instrumental in building neural pathways in the brain.
Teaching phonics and sound symbol correlation is essential to appropriate spelling instruction. Another "archaic" practice that teachers no longer have time for. Can you explain how teaching, "good books" helps students become better spellers?
3
In the college courses that I teach in California, perhaps only one or two students per class will use cursive on the written portion of exams, and those tend to be students above the median age of their peers. Although I personally like cursive, I think it’s even more imperative to teach the importance of writing legibly, regardless of the system a student uses. Even high-achieving students often represent themselves poorly with writing that is messy or difficult to decipher.
2
The percentage of students that can read and write proficiently in 4th grade has been below 40% for two decades. And yet, all of our efforts to strip away any l instruction that doesn't translate to standardized tested skills is having the opposite effect. Scores have been on a downward trend since 2005.
Though many commenters bemoan their torturous education in the 60s, 70s and 80s, maybe educators were on to something back then? Shoving in more technology and efficiency at the expense of handwriting and other "outdated" learning doesn't seem to be working.
9
Under the watchful eyes of the good Sisters of St. Joseph, I filled pages with elegant loops and curlicues. Though not an absolutely necessary adjunct to the skill of cursive writing, I still write with a fountain pen and take pleasure in laying down silky lines of black ink on a page. For all this, I am thankful. Also related to cursive writing lessons in my memory are blackboards filled with sentence diagrams. (Millions of grammar books now gather dust in school book rooms across the nation. Yet, graduates of expensive private schools seem always to have good handwriting and know the parts of speech.)
12
Cursive is not everyone's cup of tea, it takes time, patience and practice which is indicative of any worthwhile endeavor. While the demise of cursive is not detrimental to life as we know it, written correspondence is. I've got shoeboxes full of letters I received while in college from friends, family and loved ones. Part of them is still there in front of me as I read their script. All that stopped in the late 80's with email. Technology gave us great advances in communication but at the cost of having bits of our past stripped away forever.
6
Current research suggests that taking notes by hand leads to greater retention, for a variety of reasons. Not only is there a stronger connection between handwriting and memory than there is between typing and memory, note-taking by hand is slower, and therefore, students must pay more attention and make careful choices about what information to take down. By engaging in this kind of critical thinking even in the early stages of learning, students are more likely to form memories and comprehend the connections between things than if they are just transcribing.
Furthermore, there are many skills that students learn in school that end up being superfluous in their later lives; very few of us who took chem actually still need to know how to read the periodic table of elements. Who knows what will end up being important in a world that changes so quickly? Why not give kids a whole panoply of skills, so they have a very full toolkit as they try to navigate a crazy world?
22
I have read that unlike printing or typing, any type of handwriting, but especially cursive, stimulates brain synapses and the synchronicity between both sides of the brain. So, as a high school teacher, I let my students decide whether to write on paper instead of on chromebooks whenever it's time to write. Surprisingly, paper is often the preferred choice. I realize it's anecdotal, but many of my students tell me they feel more creative when they are not typing.
Technology is fabulous, but why not have both?
20
@SGM
My students often prefer paper, too. Some of them keep fat pencil bags full of colored pens and color code their notes as they go. I'm guessing it wouldn't surprise you to learn that those are the highest performing students in the class...
And you are right about being able to function with both digital and analog. That's the best skill we can give our students for the future.
5
As good as this champion's writing is, it's nowhere as good as my mother's was. She was born in the early 20th century. After she had a stroke, she complained she couldn't write well anymore. Still, it was better than 99% of what you see today.
One of the high school students working in the grocery store complemented me on my signature. She noticed 'cause her mother insisted she learn cursive despite its not being taught in school anymore.
5
I taught third and fourth grades for many years. I always taught cursive. It took only 15-20 minutes a few times a week. There was plenty of time to teach the other subjects.
Learning to read cursive is an essential life skill. How anyone thought to not teach it is beyond me.
26
Congratulations young Edbert. You will go far in life and you have made me very happy this morning! Thank you.
18
I remember the banners in every classroom, showing cursive letterforms. A lot of us wished to be free of practicing those forms. We didn't get it; we were impatient to create our own hand, reflecting our own style. But in fact all the practice helped me learn to discipline the lines and patterns I drew naturally, develop the focus that helped me work fluidly and express my ideas. Kids may not "need" to know cursive anymore, but they'll all still benefit from learning it.
14
I write things by hand throughout the day, every day. It is inconceivable to me that anyone would think this is a superfluous skill.
13
As an adult people often tell me I have beautiful handwriting. My writing is not cursive, and owes nothing to the cursive writing courses I was forced to endure in the fifth and sixth grades. Cursive writing study was perhaps the greatest single waste of time I experienced in my entire education (I am a graduate of an ivy league university and I have a masters degree). Don't force this anachronistic nonsense on your children. Kids today communicate digitally for everything including thank-you notes, and hand-written checks went out along with buggy whips. Cursive writing, if offered at all, should be completely optional.
5
@Leslie Ehrlich
Different strokes for different folks.
Cursive is a way of communicating. That alone is sufficient reason to continue to teach it.
It's also a far more expressive method than emojis and emoticons which are at best, banal.
16
While you are at it teach Latin! It will bring even more benefits!
12
@Counter Measures
Learning Latin actually has many benefits. Ask Wm. Buckley, Jr. Besides easing the learning of Romance languages, it help one understand English grammar. Some studies show bi-linguists are less subject to dementia.
1
I am of an age where hand writing was commonly taught. I am a college student now and find writing an enormous plus. For instance: in one of my courses the teacher allowed "cheat sheets" (the coping of notes that you think will help answer questions; (choose wisely)) for an exam. One side of one page; and everybody tries to incorporate as much information as possible and that means writing really really small. Another plus for writing is that for some college papers I find writing them out before hand allows for easier editing during the typing process. I also like writing out my class notes as it's easier to develop a shorthand system for faster transcription. I don't really see how anybody could not have handwriting skills. They make a person more versatile in so many ways.
18
I attended a Catholic school in the Philippines. We had writing-handwriting- classes that were vigorously monitored. We learned print (Roman letters and numbers) with pencil. Then we learned "script", what we called cursive, with pencil. The goal was to earn the right to write cursive with a pen. I remember the thrill wielding a blue Bic! The adults (I am 45) I work with can barely remember how read and write. When they see me practice they look at me like some exotic bird. I still love it.
13
The sad thing is that the kid's handwriting isn't even all that good! I'm pretty sure that when I was in 5th grade there were plenty of kids (not me for sure; mostly or all girls) whose handwriting was better than that.
4
@Steve When I was in 5th Grade through 8th Grade, Jeannette Bland's handwriting was beautiful and she was always called on to write lesson information on the blackboard. Edbert's handwriting is typical of what was common when I was in grade school in the 1950s.
6
@Dallas Crumpley Still carrying a torch for her, I see!
Learning cursive handwriting teaches patience. We could all use a bit more of that these days.
13
“To add another thing — that kids are really never going to use — is kind of silly.”
That an elementary school teacher would have such an attitude is frightening. I'm no pedagogist, but is it really that hard to see how the act of writing in cursive could stimulate and develop the brain of a youngster? And isn't that the point? Surrender to the idea of teaching children only what they are "going to use" is the road to literal and figurative poverty.
52
“But her studies have shown a connection between the linked letters in cursive writing and improved spelling proficiency.”
Correlation does not equal causation. These students who have the time in their school day to study cursive writing probably come from privileged backgrounds where reading is encouraged in the home and the teacher does not have to spend time getting below-grade-level readers to be proficient.
I also am curious about the New Jersey legislators background in education and how much time she has spent teaching? If she is going to add something new for teachers, then what does she suggest we remove from the curriculum? Perhaps science, since nobody in this country accepts the science behind climate change or vaccines? There are only so many instructional minutes in a day. As an educator I am tired of being told what to do by people who have only experienced education by sitting passively in a classroom.
3
@Rachel Peters ; "These students who have the time in their school day to study cursive writing probably come from privileged backgrounds where reading is encouraged in the home and the teacher does not have to spend time getting below-grade-level readers to be proficient. " Catholic schools aren't the bastions of privilege you think they are.
5
When my first granddaughter was born, I kept a journal of her first year recounting milestones, personality traits, my infinite love. I called it a love letter. I did the same when my second granddaughter arrived. Sadly, now aged 17 and 18, they cannot read it.
4
@Nicole Though my grandchildren, aged 13 and 15, struggle to read it, I write to them in cursive anyway. Maybe a little will sink through. (My printing is pretty bad, but my handwriting is excellent.)
4
@Nicole For what it's worth, there's software that would let them scan what you wrote and display it in print. Technology takes away but it also gives!
@alan Thank you for the info. It makes me feel better.
Teaching kids cursive is an excellent idea. As for "going the way of the typewriter," manual and electric typewriters are still being made; they are also appearing in classrooms, and are increasingly popular as tools for creative writing and art. Anything that gives us some distance from the digital miasma and grounds us in physical reality is healthy.
10
Many of civilizations founding documents, governmental, religious, etc., are written in cursive script. If we don’t teach this material we could end up with an entire generation of people that can’t read our constitution.
I’ll let you determine how that will end.
17
The mini-mental-status-exam I requires the writing of a complete sentence in cursive. I am amazed at the number of college students who can not write in cursive. I also have given a clock test and again I'm amazed at the number of college students who can only tell time with a digital clock. I think these young people are missing something good.
18
Everything involved in writing is being lost. Not just hand writing, but how to compose correspondence is becoming a lost art. Reading through the resumes and cover letters of college graduates is like studying hieroglyphics. Their thoughts are scattered, punctuation is nonexistent, syntax garbled. Finding an employee who can prepare even the simplest business letter is an almost impossible task. If bringing back hand writing will also help with general literacy, then I'm all for it.
64
@Ms. Pea You're not wrong here. I just don't know if it will matter in the future, and I'm worried something of value is being lost. Having said that, I would argue that the bigger issue is that reading patterns must be changing radically--I'm 30, grew up during the analog-to-digital conversion, and if I read when I was young like I did now, I would probably write in sentence fragments and poorly-formatted blurbs also.
I have no formal data for any of that and I do think being forced to slow down helped my composition significantly but I do think the more important thing is reading, well, quality content--what I suppose we would have previously called literature? Everyone these days is so easily able to surround themselves with what they like, that it becomes less important for us to collectively identify what is good, which is fine and great for art but I'm starting to think not so wonderful for, you know, our thinkers.
5
@Ms. Pea
We're living through the era of the time suck, and the writing skills you list are being squeezed out of business today. It takes time to focus your thoughts, outline your message, consider the audience and craft a text that will help you connect with clarity. That kind of time is a luxury in the "always-on" business world, and plenty of execs privilege speed over clarity and polish. In my own field saw the same problems you describe. But by the time I retired, I was as sympathetic to the staffers as I was frustrated by the weaknesses in their copy. They don't have time to do better, even if they know how.
1
I love writing and pens (and have published articles about the history of pens).. However, too many assume that the only form of handwriting is cursive and that it is cursive or computer. I gave up cursive in high school 50 years ago after having to had to read so much nearly unreadable cursive handwriting. Printing is much clearer. In fact, my signature is printed. People can read it unlike the vast majority of cursive signatures that become, too often, just squiggly lines. Only once is a half-century have I had a problem with a printed signature. Want to write in cursive, fine, but there are much greater educational needs.
6
Children should be taught shorthand.
Never once in my life have I looked back at my notes I've taken (in class, in court, in a meeting, at a conference) and said to myself, these are the prettiest notes.
Always, I've said: what did the speaker say exactly again? I wish I had more complete notes.
When I was 10, we moved from the US to another country where they'd decided that everyone's handwriting was so bad that they would teach italic to students.
Not just italic--but italic with an Osmiroid fountain pen and an italic nib. Filled from a bottle on the teacher's desk.
Everyone else had been learning italic for years. I had to switch immediately--my first lessons, done in script and ballpoint--"biro" as they called it--were returned to me with large red x's through them.
So I learned somewhat freewheeling italic very fast. Cursive went out the window.
Today my "handwriting" is a weird amalgam of print, script, and italic. Capitol J? Script. Lower case f? Italic. etc.
I envy people who can write beautiful, clear script. It's worth teaching.
8
Cursive was the curse of First Grade: I flunked it despite straight A's in every other subject. It took me months to recover. At age 78, I'm almost there.
3
Writing cursive with a pen or pencil activates a different part of the brain than typing. When we lose this skill, we lose brain activation. It is much the same area as art.
37
Yes! It's important to know that youngers CANNOT READ CURSIVE either! My adult daughters tell humorous stories of bosses leaving notes that they have to read for the younger employees. Does anyone else worry about an older doctor leaving a note for a younger nurse? This cursive skill goes way beyond writing versus typing.
Anecdotally I'll also add that my senior students had remarkably poor draw/sketch skills. Hand control and strength was notably weak...
and calculators have NOT replaced the need for basic mental math skills
This really isn't about nostalgia as much as human mental and physical development.
69
Over 50 years ago, I could not, at first, understand why the study of Latin was required of me. Later, I understood it to be the root of many European languages and consequently an immeasurable advantage in the reading and writing of English. The intellectual discipline required was also valuable training and practice for many endeavors to come. The skills and knowledge of cursive writing are similar tools for the future of today’s students. Proper education is a progressive effort; there are no shortcuts.
50
@Larry - I think Latin should be required, but I'm also a dinosaur!
7
I would definitely support having cursive brought back into the elementary school curriculum. I have two children five years apart, the first was taught and mastered cursive (interestingly, a terrible speller). The second was not taught cursive, excellent speller, but everything he writes looks like a ransom note. I think learning cursive is a meditative exercise that encourages a different sort of thought process. Also, how will students who can't read it do original research on documents that are written in cursive? There was also an issue in my second child's class where the kids couldn't read the lessons on the board/screen written by the teacher in cursive. Cursive also strengthens fine motor skills. Bring it back!!
43
As a long time progressive educator, I find this an unusual occasion when I support the "traditional." The benefits of cursive are multiple, including the neurobiological stimulation that comes from the tactile and visual representation of language.
While on this general theme, I believe that computers, laptops and all keyboards be banished from early childhood/elementary education. These tools are distractions, have little real value in learning, and are primarily a profit center for technology companies. Anything children or adults need to do with computers can be learned quickly - later.
30
@Barking Doggerel
I'm neither a progressive nor a luddite educator: I'm for what works for my students, and building an effective toolkit. Sometimes, the best tools are pen and paper; sometimes a digital text that students comment on through their phones.
It feels like half the time I'm fighting my "progressive" colleagues because I'm trying to be results-oriented rather than technology-oriented. Nobody brags about being a "pragmatic" educator.
5
A perfect article for the nostalgic type. Cursive is an outdated art form in today's society, much like calligraphy in Japan. Does it have its uses? Sure! Should we spend time and money teaching it to the public, no.
I mention the nostalgia because of the number of commentators that are confusing an artistic form of writing with learning. You can take notes and internalize things by typing them out too, I do that every day as a business professional and am significantly more effective than my handwriting-counterparts from 50 years ago.
The only argument for continuing the practice of teaching cursive is tradition. Just remember, if you ever feel frustrated because that young'in can't read your cursive, they are more frustrated with all the things you don't know that they learned in school.
1
@Chris —FINE MOTOR SKILLS. Along with other benefits. But teach the kids to type too. Just because they do it all the time doesn’t mean they know their way around a keyboard or a word processing program.
10
Don’t teach cursive to kids! Who on earth could need fine motor skills? Just dentists, neurosurgeons, jewelers, artists, pianists and such. Who on earth might enjoy knitting or tying flies?
51
I come from a long line of teachers and others that had beautiful handwriting. Some knew calligraphy. I hate to see cursive die. Journals written by our grandparents will be hard to read for this generation. I still write out letters and cards.
130
@Therese Stellato
But that's really just nostalgic thinking. I would point out the others on this thread who remember those teachers (the ones with beautiful handwriting) scolding them for being left-handed.
Despite what this article implies, it is mostly just parents and grandparents that want to see cursive brought back, not teachers. I myself am a teacher and I am thinking: what would you sacrifice in the curriculum to make room for cursive? I think of how my math colleagues laugh at the fact that they once had to teach Roman numerals and the use of an abacus for.....some reason...? Now they don't and they can actually use that time for more productive things, not just doing things because they've always been done (never a good reason to keep doing something!). Also, students who have never taken cursive classes can still reliably read cursive writing. When it comes to the processing of written language, there can be a great deal of misalignment between what is on the paper and what the reader codes as language with relatively little loss of fidelity. It's how you could read a sentence in which every word is misspelled but still understand it instantaneously.
There will always be people who choose to study Latin, calligraphy, etc. and I hope that group never dies out. But it is unreasonable to make obsolete areas of study mandatory when teachers have enough to get through in the course of a year already.
6
@Therese Stellato My hypothetical children and grandchildren won't be able to read my hypothetical journals because the electronic devices they'll have won't be able to read the media I saved them to.
4
@Therese Stellato Cursive writing and calligraphy are not the same. I studied calligraphy, and I hate the loopy illegible script taught as "cursive" here in the US. For beauty and legibility there are many other far better scripts. I'm all for learning to write legibly and quickly, but that doesn't mean forcing kids to learn cursive.
2
How about we start with how to hold a pen and pencil? You will be hard pressed to find person under twenty who can hold a pen or pencil properly in this country.
14
@HistoryRhymes
Weird. I teach in a high school where more than a thousand students seem to manage holding their pens and pencils just fine.
1
@HistoryRhymes I see this all the time in college students who awkwardly grasp a pen or pencil.
1
They can't hold eating utensils properly either! And it's not just those "under twenty" - they're copying their young parents, too. Not exactly critical to our civilization, I admit.
Re cursive. On the other hand, what about left handers? I am a lefty who struggled with cursive in grade school (Palmer Method, Sacred Heart, 1955-1962). The nuns wanted the lines to tilt left. My hand wanted them to tilt right. The nuns won, but it always felt forced and odd - and it looked that way, too. No national title for me. Let’s recall that the Palmer method was devised not for children but adults who worked in clerical jobs. The theory was that writing cursive was quicker and more legible than the florid script of previous times and that a worker’s hand would be less likely to tire, thereby resulting in increased efficiency and output. It was a beautiful theory destroyed by an ugly little fact: the arrival of the typewriter. (By high school, I was studying typing, on a Qwerty keyboard that favored righties.) And don’t even get me started on those tablet arm chairs, with the arm rest and writing area on the right, of course. Even today, in college lecture rooms, they have a flip up version of that monster. It only takes a moment of any photo of President Obama signing a bill to realize he is a lefty. Clinton was, too.
Reagan was a lefty,too, but was forced to become a right handed writer by teachers, who in that generation, believed that left handedness was something sinister. Pun intended.
8
I can’t imagine not being able to write . It sounds ridiculous. The problem is not cursive writing but money. Our schools are strapped for cash and teachers are overburdened. Cutbacks in the arts, physical education and writing are the scapegoats.
Education and physical fitness are never antiquated, it makes for better people. We have abdicated our children’s future for a sack full of coins. As a recent article in the Times describes the lives lost and the billions spent on another lost war we continue to short change our children.
8
I am very old. I used to chisel my notes onto stone tablets. Forget cursive, let’s get back to chiseling.
12
Consider having penmanship as part of the Art Curriculum.
Cursive writing is really all about lines and shapes and visual impressions.
4
@imlk Yeah, the art teachers would bless your name.
Kids should have to learn cursive the way they learn other vital skills, like shoeing horses, spinning thread, and applying leeches. Like calligraphy and cuneiform, it is a historic art form, useful to keep alive, but not actually useful to most people.
The ability to write cursive well depends upon hand-eye coordination, the shape of one's hand, and certain fine motor skills. At best it produces something slow to read. For many of us with physical limits, it is impossible to do well. I had a lot of trouble with schoolwork until I learned to type; I later became an editor and writer, and had books published. I cannot write one word in cursive, though. Nor could my son, who did however have the benefit of an AlphaSmart when young. But he did fine too.
Kids do need to learn proper grammar, though. Ever time I hear a supposedly educated person saying "between you and I", I cringe. It would be just as ungrammatical in cursive.
11
As somebody under the age of 65, I just want to chime in that there has never been a point in my life when I felt that I should have learned cursive in school.
3
@Brock As someone under the age of 40, I am so glad I learned cursive in school and still use it to this day.
2
This debate, over whether we should teach children cursive writing skills is timely and essential to the full education of children in the brave new world of technology. The evidence presented here is clear, there is an enhanced cognitive connection, increased creativity and improved retention when eye, hand and brain are forced to connect in pursuit of a precise task. I have witnessed over 40 years in the architectural woodworking business a marked decay in the quality of architectural drawing. The difference between hand rendered drawings in terms of detail, completeness and originality and CAD drawings, is both sad on an emotional level and frustrating on a strictly professional one. Lazy minds do lazy work, the soft arm chair of technology is more insidious and destructive than we realize. It is widely misapplied and in so doing we remove ourselves from understanding our capacity to do extraordinary things.There is room for the bounty of efficiency and speed technology clearly affords and the amazing things we can do with a practiced skill. Learning to swim, ride a bicycle or write by hand is neither conservative nor retro, these are life skills that can be applied in ways we cannot predict when they are acquired.
32
@Kelly... Thank you, yours is very much along the lines of the comment I wanted to make. Edbert’s observation that he can type faster than he can write is an easy one for a ten-year-old, or anyone, to make. Of course he can, it’s why typewriters were invented. Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs allow the user to draw faster than by hand as well. But CAD and keyboards are simply TOOLS. They will never replace the human hand and its connection to the human brain when it comes to producing creative work.
This is about more than learning cursive.
12
All this attention to cursive handwriting when keyboarding is also not being taught. The latter is much more relevant to the working world. All you need is a signature. Most people’s cursive is illegible, even from people in their 60s.
4
There is so much more information taught in schools that some things need to go. if anything is not used in this world, it's cursive. It just starts kids off with a talent that they'll learn and be inundated with adults saying, "Oh yeah, that's useless." One of your first introductions into schooling shouldn't be that your material isn't relevant to the world.
It is a nice talent, but absolutely not a necessary one. Teach typing, coding, or electricity instead. Let cursive be part of a design class, where people can draw their own fonts. The only convincing argument I've ever heard for cursive was to be able to read some of the founding documents of the USA, but I've seen them and they're virtually illegible anyway.
6
Good handwriting is a delightful skill, reinforces focus and attention; it is meditative; an art when done right, and a source of envy when the writing is seen by others. Although not everyone may reach that level of artistry, it will be nice to look at handwriting that is beyond a bunch of scratches. It also teaches young learners the need to be patient, at least in some jobs.
Congratulations to the young champion, way to go, Edbert!
11
I have noticed of late that my children are impatient. Nothing they do requires real patience - everything is immediately at their fingertips...for now. I wonder if we are shorting our children in not teaching some skills that can't be generated in milliseconds on a screen. I think I will buy some cursive practice books on the way home.
16
I recall that in both Catholic School and public grade school, one of the necessities for back to school shopping was the fountain pen because it facilitates cursive handwriting. No doubt cursive handwriting was invented as a means to write more quickly than one could print. And yes, most people can type (on a typewriter) faster than they can write, and "keyboard" faster than they can type. One can also ski faster down a hill if they point themselves straight down the slope and let-'er-rip instead of taking the more circuitous route via parallel turns. The former will buy you injury, the latter, better skiing. So it is with writing. And yes, I do own multiple fountain pens and still write the occasional letter and holiday card sent via the US mail.
6
Also look at how kids type now (two fingers, no home keys)---most schools don't teach traditional typing anymore either.
That being said, there are plenty of programs that teach traditional typing methods as well as workbooks, etc. for self-teaching cursive. I don't think everything needs to be piled on the public school teachers. My kids learned how to do their signatures in cursive within a half hour.
4
Handwriting is a reflection of the handwriter: it's like the tone of the voice, part of the personality of who we are. Do we really 'need' to learn cursive; possibly, even probably, not. But it makes us more unique, and in a world obsessed with identity and individuality, it's a great surprise it's not being embraced more. Maybe it's just cheaper and easier to buy a fancy phone cover?
1
My mom taught me that you never, ever, send anything but a handwritten letter or card for condolences or thanks—and I’ve taught my kids the same thing. The beautiful and very personal letters we received when my mom died are a family treasure; each person’s distinctive handwriting jolts us back to childhood. I can’t bear online condolence sites—ugh!
But more practically, there’s a connection between writing and thinking. My kids used to use laptops to take notes in high school but they quickly went back to their pencils. Both found that their brains and memories work best when they handwrite notes during class and then type up summaries.
14
@S Turner Yay for your mom! I tell my kids the same thing! Certain sentiments need to show thought and caring, and nothing says that better than a handwritten note. They think I'm crazy, but I insist!
1
@Yertle My kids thought I was a little crazy too, but now they’re grown they have each said, thanks mooooom, you were right—after seeing how the various mentors who have helped them along their way react to those handwritten notes of thanks.
1
I agree that handwriting things, say class notes, can be very useful. It forces kids to digest and filter the material. But that doesn’t require formal cursive instruction, with letters written a certain way in a certain sequence of movements. Print is sufficient and most kids will pick up some form of adapted print/cursive writing as they get older. In many other ways, and for many kids, learning how to type and use the computer more freely in class, can be extremely liberating. Fine motor skills are very important to development, but kids develop differently, some are stronger and more dexterous when younger (many of these kids simply have wider joints and bigger hands), while others find their minds moving faster than their bodies. I’ve seen writing blossom when kids are allowed to type. Let’s be flexible in our approach to writing (and handwriting) instruction.
7
This is a tradeoff between quality and quantity. Cursive can be slower than typing. But more thought goes into it. One page of cursive notes, enriched with graphs, diagrams, and pictures, is better than five pages of typed text.
9
My elementary school education from 1945 to 1951 in a public school was very very good. Cursive was required. we seemed to have time for everything. We were taught MASTERY!
Addition before subtraction. Subtraction before Multiplication. Multiplication before Division. No spiral based learning .
Confidence at really knowing something well. Note taking by hand. Writing down the lecture was the first step. Studying was the second step. Writing exams was the third step.
When I went to college: blue books exams! Handwritten!
Now we know that the brain learns from the hand, not just from the eyes and ears.
My prescription: throw out everything and start with learning to read aloud and write by hand. It also teaches patience which is a a very very good quality when you need it.
While we're at it: School from nine to three with two recesses and an hour for lunch. Plus outdoor and indoor play space.
We've tried education on the cheap. Now let's try education with generosity.
99
I’m with you, in principle; but your failure to compose complete sentences is a serious hindrance to understanding your points and to taking them seriously.
“The brain learns from the hand” indeed. I wish I could recommend this comment 1000 more times.
1
Cursive handwriting readily extends to drawing figures and graphs. These are essential to comprehension of math and science. They also encourage creativity. Visit offices of any well regarded corporation. You will find walls and boards filled with handwritten graphs, pictures, and notes.
When students take notes on a computer, they are unlikely to draw any pictures or graphs.
13
I’m confident any well regarded corporation discovered to have hand drawn charts on their walls would see their stock crash immediately
1
Good article and a strong reminder that we should learn cursive. At 83, I still use it a lot.
13
As a tech worker, cursive gives me an edge. I live on laptops. But companies have noticed that in meetings, laptops are distraction devices - workers do other work, check email, etc. while paying less attention and contributing less effectively to the meeting in progress. Many teams have implemented “device free” meetings.
In these meetings the cursive writer’s notes, which flow more easily and rapidly than print, become invaluable. For whatever reason, they interfere much less with the meeting than typing on a laptop. When it’s an important meeting, gathering requirements for some major project, I frequently find myself hit up for notes afterward.
62
Cursive is the chosen style of learners I tutor: they are all American-born men who never learned to read or write beyond the very most basic words. However...
What they do write is in beautiful cursive because, at age 45 or 50 or 60, it is what they remember from the days before they dropped out of school years before.
These men, some of whom have prison records or learning challenges or mental illness, or have just survived early lives of bad breaks, have some of the most fluid and gorgeous and graceful handwriting I've encountered in decades. I remind them that everyone has special talents.
They are very precious people. It is the most engaging work I've ever done.
34
i learned cursive when I was in grade school and I haven't used it ever since. We need to invest in STEM, not cursive.
7
@Kevin It is not about writing only...It is about brain development, hand-eye coordination and understanding a sense of process found not only in the creative arts but everyday living..fluidity of thought.
GTL (83 yr Illustrator)
43
@Kevin Why need it be an either/or? Both have benefits and should be part of a well-rounded education.
4
Let the educators decide curriculum, not politicians. It's not lost on me that the article mentions states whose legislatures made cursive law, are all southern and have the lowest test scores in the country. More time wasted here on teaching how to make buggy whips. This is just another last stand of Boomers who are slowing progress by holding on to the past. Get out of the way.
4
We need to slow down our super-speed, hectic lives.
What better way to accomplish that than by emphasizing cursive writing?
Who cares if typing and keyboarding are so much faster than cursive? We can't type as fast as we think anyway, so slowing down the process of creating written communication won't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I am also urging my grandkids to drop coding classes and study horse-shoeing and buggy whip-making; so what if they do poorly on all those academic tests and can't get jobs when they graduate from college? Kids getting out of college can't get decent jobs anyway, at least let them enjoy the benefits of manual activity and attention to detail.
Oh, and I am also teaching them to slow down their reading by moving their lips and sliding their index fingers from word to word as they read.
Slow is beautiful.
3
@Mon Ray Apropos of nothing: the Kinder and 1st grade students I taught loved getting their names written in cursive. Using a colored pencil in my lovely (it's just true) cursive, I would embellish their names on the construction paper of their color choice, and they would proudly take them home to put on the fridge or their bedroom wall. And my hope was that they'd want to learn to do that, too.
3
I had beautiful handwriting. I never learned to type, though, because at my high school the typing courses were a training ground for secretarial school and as a girl, I was quite afraid that once I ended up there I’d somehow never make it out. I took math, science, and painting instead.
I now marvel at colleagues my age—men and women—who all type well. Kids from the upper and upper middle classes were taught typing as a practical skill, because their schools understood computing was the future.
As an educated professional, I haven’t used my beautiful longhand in years.
3
I am in my mid-50s, and was taught cursive at a Catholic elementary school. I am appreciative of this analog skill which I acquired many years ago. This article reminded me that many people cannot read cursive because they were not taught how to write in cursive. Recently, I sent a birthday card with a brief note written in cursive, to my 14 year-old niece (who was not taught cursive) who called to thank me and said, "I can't read what you wrote, but it sure looks pretty!"
5
I've always felt that cursive makes the communication more personal. I recently wrote a note of condolence in cursive to a friend who's wonderful father had passed away. His wife took me aside at the memorial and couldn't thank me enough for my words. Somehow, a typewritten (printed) note wouldn't have carried the emotion of the message.
18
As a teacher I can tell you that the quality of one's handwriting correlates strongly with the quality of one's expression of thought. I can't tell you if one causes the other; maybe the third variable is being taught to take pride in your written communication.
16
As a high school teacher, I began to hear "I can't read that," about information I had written on the board in cursive.
At first, I was startled. "What do you mean, you can't read that?" I'd ask, before it dawned on me that students who could not write in cursive perceived cursive as another language.
I began teaching my high school students to write in cursive. Many of them loved the speed and fluidity of it, the bragging rights, the satisfaction of having mastered what they considered art.
Teach cursive! It's also fun.
83
I taught high school chemistry for 34 years and had the very same experience. I had very neat and clear penmanship but students claimed they couldn’t read it. Penmanship is critical in chemistry- there’s a big difference between CaO and CoO, for example.
13
@Monicat I've read of teachers who who have not learned to read cursive. I don't imagine they are common, but they apparently do exist.
I'm a former school principal, a business consultant, and now instruct and coach at 2 major US business schools.
My grad students usually take notes, most often on legal pads in cursive. More than once I've heard the claim that they remember better when they write it by hand (we now know that's a fact).
I'm sure cursive's enhancement of small motor skills, spelling proficiency, and memory is more than enough justification for its inclusion as a basic learning skill. My suspicion is that as we learn more of brain function, we will come to appreciate handwriting even more.
Winning cursive "beauty contests" is quite beside the point. That's an art competition having little to do with the educational value of handwriting.
The conservative/liberal divide is likewise a ridiculous way to arrange the debate. Conservatives are often allergic to good science, and good science increasingly favors learning to read and write the cursive flow. Also, the culture will not be saved by children filling copy books with swirls and lines.
Teaching little kids handwriting is a good idea, a sound educational practice. That's all.
26
@Victor I agree. Just boiling it down to some artistic competition is utterly ludicrous. Although my handwriting now is difficult at best to read it is still legible for the most part. It wasn't always this way. I was once a very good art student, but cursive was never a part of my art work. It was just necessity to be able to take notes, write letters, sign my name and so on. I even wrote unpublished books and journals in my long hand. I still write letter and use postage stamps to communicate with certain individuals. My niece is in prison and cannot access a computer so every letter I write to her is in my own hand and one of her few lifelines to the outside world.
An even better reason to learn cursive is to be able to decipher old written manuscripts, letter from grandma, even some business communications.
Imagine someday finding a troff of old letter from your grandfather or great grandfather written to his wife while he was off to war. Without this necessary skill those letters become utterly meaningless, but even out very constitution and Declaration of Independence were written in a fine hand written script of cursive. So we're to deny an entire generation or more of our citizens the ability to read the originals?
5
Even though it's a different example it fits with this story.
I was watching the Amazing Race a few years ago and there was a young male gay couple who were in the final three teams. One of the last challenges involved them driving a car (not the challenge) to a site to finish a task. The problem for the gay couple, neither knew had to drive a stick shift (manual vehicle). They foundered for hours and could never get the vehicle going. Everyone used to drive a manual vehicle; now probably 20% or fewer drive a manual vehicle.
Like driving a manual vehicle, there will come an important time in ones life where they no longer have a smart phone, tablet or computer with them and are unable to dictate a message, take notes, or describe their experience and then the details will be lost.
Learning to write (printing or cursive) is generally not a challenge and easily picked up by young, fresh minds. Spend the time to teach/learn and they'll easily be able to overcome future challenges ... maybe winning a $1 million in a reality TV show.
5
I can type at a rate of 90 WPM, and I'm fluent in at least two languages needed to make computers do what they do.
Let's all keep that in mind when we're teaching kids "skills" by stressing cursive and one day a week of French classes.
2
It’s great that you have a job skill. But you don’t know what you don’t know.
I’ve been successful in the technology field for over three decades, but besides my family, the most valuable thing in my life is the body of knowledge I amassed from liberal arts classes. Shakespeare, Roman History, Astronomy, Urban Planning and, yes, French occupy my mind along with a plethora of other pursuits. That knowledge is what makes me; I couldn’t imagine life without all of that knowledge inside me.
You sound very young and self-assured. But don’t confuse your wonderful vocational skillset with the joys of living a well-informed, well-educated life. You can have both, and they’ll complement one another in ways you cannot imagine.
16
@Marshall
Allow me address this:
1.)We're the same age.
2.)I have both a technical degree and a liberal arts degree from public university.
3.)I haven't used cursive since the last time somebody made me do it. Nor have I used French. But that hasn't stopped people from pushing them like they're something that's worth pursuing over *actual* skills, like typing and understanding computers.
I am an English teacher who has seen what the inability to write in cursive has done to our students. I taught Seniors in high school and when I would 'write' notes on their papers/essays, they would ask me to read it to them because they couldn't read my handwriting. Mind you, I have a beautiful penmanship taught by my Catholic school nuns, and I also type extremely fast having taken a typing class in high school many years ago. I don't look at this as a conservative backlash against cultural change because I think it was eliminated due to the testing culture. With little time for all but the essential academic subjects and test taking strategies, it has left little time for elementary school teachers to instruct in cursive handwriting. I will go so far as to say my students' printing was abominable too, and I would occasionally have to ask them to read their notes back to me. I also agree with John that in addition to writing instruction, reading has taken a huge backseat in the lives of our middle/high school students. Education is in a sorry state, even with the millions of dollars spent in many districts. Only time will tell how society will be impacted, but I think we're starting to see bits and pieces of it in the kind of service we receive from companies and the many mistakes that take place in all sectors on a daily basis. I'm not a pessimist just a realist who sees the big picture ahead.
39
Teach block printing (like the lettering in comic strips) instead. It's much more legible than cursive, and once you master it, you can write just as quickly. I taught it to MYSELF when I was in high school, and I've used it ever since. The only thing I ever write in cursive is my signature. Other than that, I've completely forgotten how to write the accursed cursive.
5
@Rollo Nichols
You make an excellent point. Writing legibly, however that is accomplished, should be the aim. The mission after all is to master a style that invites comprehension.
3
The examples of cursive in the article would have been considered merely above average at my elementary school. Today I have to deal with clients who cannot sign a legible name to a contract and the spaces where they provide their email address and mailing address are usually indecipherable. The only people who can achieve this mundane task are over 60. What is baffling is that these clients are signing probate documents where they are beneficiaries of large sums of money, yet many cannot be bothered to write anything other than a single initial. Being able to read a valid email address means I can update them promptly. The average IQ in the US used to be 100; now it is 98. I believe that is an optimistic over-valuation. "Dumbing down" is a phrase used a lot - somehow we have great difficulty instructing our clients how to sign, date, and return a document. We routinely send a tinted duplicate marked diagonally with "client's copy" - they invariably sign and return that one instead of the original legal document. Not being able to write is only a symptom.
38
Our daughter is dyslexic. She started the second grade not reading--like at all. At our annual IEP meeting, our team suggested we teach her how to write in cursive. The amazing occupational therapist explained that he believed it would break the quagmire in her brain. Look at the following two letters:
b
d
If you have right-left confusion and you are 7 years old, do they look different to you? Not really. Both consists of sticks with bellies. The fact they are looking at opposite directions is meaningless, especially if those directions are indistinguishable to you.
Now take a pen and write out a "b" and a "d". Ah-ha! Suddenly you see a difference, right? A cursive "b" is a ball over an open loop on a stick. A cursive "d" is a more demure fellow, with no loop and a shy circle attached to its leg. At least that is how it looked to my daughter.
Within a month of her learning cursive, she began to read. Not just in cursive, but typed texts. We know this was the breakthrough because the following month she began to learn her numbers in cursive and suddenly a 2 and a 5 were no longer the same thing. I still remember one morning in the fourth grade when I was serving breakfast and looked over to see her nose in a Harry Potter book. I burst into tears.
These days our daughter is a strong writer and has a book hanging off her nose. She is likely going to go into a profession that involves words. When she graduates, her whole team of teachers will be there.
241
@GWE To be clear, the "we teach her cursive" meant the collective we. Her team taught her cursive, not her parents. :-)
12
My very dyslexic son attended an English school when we were overseas where he was taught and had to use cursive. It was ignored when he went to an American school. It was fundamental to his ability to spell and read letters, which are essentially abstract symbols that can take some time for even non-dyslexic children to decode. There are studies proving a connection between good handwriting and good motor skills, as well as supporting a stronger interplay between the different zones of the brain, and an ability to think more fluidly. Moving fast is not always the best approach.
32
@GWE Because reading and writing are inextricably linked. Do one well and you will do the other well, but they need to be taught in tandem for the best results.
18
In Europe, at least, children learn cursive from the get-go. There is no printing phase. Years ago in the United States, children learned and practiced cursive penmanship until the 6th grade. Even those with little skill learned to write legibly. As a substitute teacher, I am utterly appalled by what I see pass off as handwriting. Bring cursive back. It is an art form that inspires creativity, analytical thinking, and introspection. I have beautiful penmanship and, at the age of 55, I still practice — even in Russian and Hebrew. Let's get going again, America; cursive is waiting, and it's wonderful!
24
@Eggs & Oatmeal
My great niece and nephew attend an English primary school, where they start cursive writing at age 5 or 6. One reason is that it is easier than printing, because there is less starting and stopping.
2
Yes, this is nice for writing thoughtful and personal thank you cards and actually mailing the letter. It has been my experience that people appreciate and hang on to these rare treats.
However, young kids would be MUCH better served if they read one or two quality newspapers for 20 minutes per day, and a literary paperback (not from a screen!) for 30 minutes before turning in.
And encouraging the writing of a journal (not a diary) will also improve their writing, their confidence, their introspection and prime the writing pump for those that have any desire to be writers.
Signed
A cranky reader who despairs at the low level of discourse prevalent in 2019. (But not on this forum! : ) )
2
Years ago we taught students how to print in grades one and two. Cursive was taught in grades three and up. I remember the day the superintendent found out that some teachers were allowing students in the upper grades to print their assignments rather the write in cursive since it was easier.
He informed me ( I was the school principal) that students in the upper grades were not allowed to print but were required to use cursive on all assignments. It's seems that his wife,who was a fourth grade teacher at our school, did not like the fact that some teachers were allowing children to choose what was easier for them even though they knew how to write in cursive. She complained to him about this. Ah yes, the good old days.
1
I was a straight-A student except I always got C in Penmanship. Great handwriters are born not made.
10
I don’t agree. I am quite unable to draw well, though goodness knows I’ve tried to learn. On the other hand, I have beautiful, artful handwriting. This is because I was taught not only the skill, but the purpose behind using cursive. I have often been asked to address wedding invitations, and friends have told me they save my cards and letters because they are a visual treat. I thank my second grade teacher, Mrs. Rhodes, who encouraged us to master the cursive as an expression and extension of ourselves. She taught us that our handwriting represents us in our absence, so if we wished to be heard, we should present our words and ideas beautifully and legibly. And memorably.
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@Jennifer M - You only think that you can not draw..Your skills are there - it is just that you never learned to see...Drawing is more about understanding what you are looking at than pencil to paper.
Thanks to the professor who managed to use 13 parentheses and 9 self-citations IN ONE SENTENCE in a journal article.
A guide for fine writing.
In case you missed it, parentheses appear in pairs. Usually.
For children who attend Montessori schools, cursive has always been part of their curriculum. The typically Montessori student learns cursive writing well before they learn to print letters. Very young children are naturally predisposed to the uninterrupted flow of line drawing rather the stick building that printing requires. Furthermore, the connection between hand and motion fosters brain development at a critical age that informs other important physical and mental skills during child development. While some may not see value in learning to write in the age of computers, writing skills are but one form of learning that foster creative thinking and ways of communicating that are invaluable to any career including those in the tech world. Just ask Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, etc.
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The decline in cursive is like the decline in shop classes. We are going to be using our hands and fingers only to type, swipe, tap and click, but even Siri and Alexa are taking over some of these tasks. One of these days, those with skilled hands like mechanics, plumbers and other tradesmen will be getting paid a lot more than we desk jockeys.
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"Let's bail on cursive and require that everyone lug around a heavy, $1,000 device loaded with mindless distractions and invitations to buy stuff just so they can quickly take notes, write exams, or respond to student writing." Yep, totally makes sense. (30 years teaching in university English classrooms here.)
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@Rocco Marinaccio Printing by hand is still here, works just as well as cursive, and is usually far more legible!
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@Rocco Marinaccio Amen, amen. And become addicted to their cell phones.
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@Rocco Marinaccio Yep, indeedy! Those young whipper-snappers with their cell phones and their Snapchats, they jes’ don’t ‘preciate what real larnin’ is all about. I should know, I been doin’ stuff the good old fashioned way for nigh about forever, and it worked fine. Don’t get me started on that goldarn Internetty thingamabob. Sheesh!
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What many people recognize as the cursive script has only been around since maybe the 1800s. The purported reason: a belief that it increased writing speed. However, studies show that there’s no increase in speed, especially if you use a Latin alphabet.
What you probably think of as “Cursive” is the Palmer Method. When you think of a fancier script you probably envision something like the Spencerian Method.
Both were principally taught to satisfy business interests. Today, we are told corporations need workers with STEM skills. A hundred-plus years ago when handwriting was still very much in demand - think ledgers, invoices, etc. - having a pool of workers with good handwriting was important.
Spencer's advice was to practice six to 12 hours a day. Ouch. But, if the year was 1903 and you were a bookkeeper at least 6 and probably more hours of your day would be dedicated to writing.
The Palmer Method was developed by Austin Palmer and the first text explaining the method was published in 1894. This treatise on “muscular movement writing” became the preferred method of the business world at the time. Its boosters emphasized its plainness and speed - ostensibly a decent practitioner could keep pace with someone on a typewriter.
Last time I looked, this isn’t 1893 and people aren’t toiling away in front of a ledger or competing with typewriters. There’s nothing wrong with good penmanship but let’s remember the roots of “cursive” is in business needs - which change.
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@saucier: Creativity and mental focus have been around since Neolithic times. If I apply your argument, say, to painting, then we have no need for art media other than Photoshop and Dreamweaver. To heck with art, then! If the USA has become nothing but modern “business needs,” then we have indeed reached a low point in our culture.
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@saucier
Cursive writing in English has been around since the Norman conquest, in the 11th century.
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Cursive writing needs to be taught in school. People need to be able to sign their name on documents. Until the requirement for signatures on contracts, bank notes, driver's licenses, etc. are eliminated, people must learn and know how to write in cursive.
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@larry As in this post, the examples given in the article for why cursive is useful are specifically for writing one's own name. That's a much more specific skill.
You don't have to use the Palmer method to endorse a check. You certainly don't need to be able to write things other than your name in cursive script. This whole article seems like generational hand-wringing.
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@larry Electronic signatures are the usual, not the exception in healthcare. My drivers license has my fingerprint. I imagine biometrics will be far more common than a signature in the future.
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@larry I use my handwriting a great deal, but I haven't written in cursive for decades--not since I got out of high school and had to start taking rapid notes. My signature could only be called cursive by courtesy, but it serves legally and it's fast.
We should teach handwriting. Cursive as such is impractical, and students should learn a script better adapted to note-taking with modern writing implements.
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I work at a museum where interns are often expected to enter information from specimen tags or field notes into a computer database. Some of this florid cursive writing is over 100 years old. I was staggered to find that cursive writing is like Greek to some of these young people and they cannot do their job. I also treasure the letters my father sent home during WWII. My grandchildren may be unable to read these treasures or work with writing that predates the modern age where everyone prints or uses a keyboard or dictates to generate their text. Bring back cursive in schools!
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Can you read Ancient Greek? Times change. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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Your anecdote struck a chord wit me. As a collector of antique postcards since I was a boy, I still enjoy looking at all the beautiful handwriting and being able to read the messages people thought important 100 years ago. At the very least we stay connected to our past when we continue leaning cursive.
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@Delawarian
Hold on--another way to look at this is that some of today’s students can become “Ancient Cursive” experts and find some use for their humanities education!
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I taught grade 2 children for 40 years. Cursive handwriting (we called it calligraphy in my class) was very important. They loved it. By my standards, this fifth grader would not have won the championship. Too many inconsistencies: letter shapes, height, angle...
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@Ghislaine M - I was going to say...this is no better than my cursive was, and I wasn't a great penman!
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A long time ago, if you could hop on one foot you were deemed ready to read. Of course, we now know there is no connection whatsoever. As a long time educator, I assure you, handwriting is not a "skill." It requires no cognitive activity. The United States is at the very bottom of the international ladder in education because our focus is not focussed on the future. Most elementary schools do not teach history, civics or science due to lack of time and money. Art and music have been eliminated in many schools. There is barely enough time to teach reading and math. Lovely handwriting, while attractive, offers no benefits for higher education or the work world. In the limited time teachers have to teach, handwriting is the least of their concerns.
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@Tina Gordon
But cursive writing is still being taught in many if not most of those countries that have surpassed us. As well as subjects such as music and art.
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Our education system lags because politicians, business, and the testing industry set the curriculum to suit their own desires and biases, rather than the needs and development of children. Some countries excel because their systems focus on teacher quality and a deep understanding of children. Others perform well on tests because their systems amount to psychological abuse — a direction the US, sadly, has adopted with its emphasis on high-stakes testing. The US led the world in innovation and discovery while teaching its children math, science, literature, grammar, civics, history, and yes, handwriting.
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@Tina Gordon If they are not teaching history, civics, science, art, and music, and are barely tackling reading and math, then precisely what are they teaching?
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I am astonished at how many people insist that handwriting has no purpose in life anymore! I am a senior scientist (biophysics and biochemistry). All of my work involves computation and modeling. However, when i am listening to a lecture, reading a scientific paper, or having a face-to-face meeting with one of my direct reports, I cannot imagine taking notes on a computer! Not only is it faster and more intelligible, it allows me to remain engaged with the speaker throughout. I’ve tried it both ways, and handwriting wins hands down.
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@Felix - they still teach handwriting in the early grades, just not cursive( script).
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@Felix This article isn't about handwriting; it's about cursive. Where's the harm in lettering (or "printing") lecture notes?
You've missed the point entirely.
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@Felix
@Felix
Oh, I often take notes by hand. But then I have to retype them before I myself am unable to read them.
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I taught a high school student to write cursive - because, without writing it, he could not read his teacher's cursive comments on his block-printed homework. Once teachers don't use cursive. or read homework only on devices, maybe there will be no more use for cursive.
But he loved signing his name.
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I was one of those students who found cursive instruction painful and humiliating. As much as I tried, I couldn’t get the perfect slant or stay within the lines. I still hate to use cursive. A couple years ago, I was at a Central Florida Walmart and overheard a conversation between a teenager and a clerk. The kid was trying to get a hunting permit and was unable to sign the form because he didn’t know how to sign his name. The clerk and his mother tried to explain what his signature should look like, but he was not capable of producing an instant cursive signature. In the end his mother wrote the boy’s signature on a another paper and told the boy to copy it as best he could on his own hand. Then and there it suddenly became more than evident why cursive was important and what children have missed in not learning it. Imagine not having your own signature.
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@R Stiegel
There is no legal requirement that a signature needs to be in cursive. A signature is supposed to be unique. I've signed single document in an elided block version of my name since I've been an adult. The only time I was forced to sign in cursive was when some jerk at the DMV made me, and I'll bet I could have argued against that if I was more than 16. It was stupid because my drivers license then had a "signature" that didn't match how I would actually sign something.
I'm with you on cursive instruction, though. I found it to be a huge waste of time. My handwriting got markedly worse once they started requiring cursive, and improved (but never was really great) when it was no longer required.
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@Andrew
Interesting, but the kid in the story couldn’t even do what you do for a “signature” and that is quite shocking.
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The problem was that the teacher wanted you to have a perfect slant. The Palmer Method produces beautiful cursive, but it's the connecting of the letters that's important.
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Advocates always fail to note that reading cursive is most often painful; even the cursive of teachers who taught me varied, and was only really legible if they wrote slowly & deliberately. Great, spend time on a poor communication medium. The rule should be that if you require X in the curriculum, you must specify a Y to take out. The school day is full, lunch often down to 20minutes, and digital literacy more important than it was when cursive advocates were not learning it.
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@JustJoe
I agree that very slanted cursive with lots of embellishments is difficult to read. I was taught another form of handwriting (Italianate?), where letters are joined, but not much slanted. It serves me well while taking notes, writing letters, even official documents. It is very legible. I was very unhappy when I could not write legibly after a stroke, so I had spent hours practicing my handwriting. My therapist loved it as a form of therapy and a measure of progress. Luckily I recovered completely my handwriting ability. (right handwell rounder
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Cursive writing makes so much sense! When I was in first grade in a mid-western city nearly 80 years ago, my school tried the shocking experiment of teaching cursive writing at the same time we were learning to read block letters. As we all learned to read, while having the advantage of writing in a more natural and fluid style, we all benefited. There is a misbegotten idea out there that kids can't learn to read block lettering if they don't learn to write it. Nonsense! These days I tutor kids who are learning to write print--a klutzy method that slows down writing skills, and probably reading as well.
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Teaching cursive is like learning an art but an art one can actually use and is useful. But, as with art and music, cursive is not deemed to be a critical skill to learn or, at least, appreciate. It's a shame how we deprive ourselves of these kind of enriching opportunities mostly because they have no direct link to making money. I do feel bad, though, for lefties that attempt cursive; it usually doesn't look good. Pushing, instead of pulling the pen across the page must be very hard.
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I'd suggest visiting the attic, the closet, the unused room where past possessions may be kept, untouched, for years or decades. Let curiosity be a guide: Open boxes, books, ledgers, anything wherein the written word may be found. Then, imagine the hand that formed the written words, the mind that shaped the thoughts recorded inside.
Feel the surfaces that the words are written on, sniff the pages for scents left behind. Tilt the page toward the light to see it better. Maybe the writing helps bring to mind a parent, grand -or great- grandparent, because those squiggles are unique. Some things have value that lasts generations.
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This brought to mind the old suitcase full of cards and letters I have stored away that my mother received in the 30's, the 40's during the war and the 50's. They're not necessarily love letters, but loving letters and cards from friends and family. Who will be able to read them in the future? Or the old picture postcards that are so much fun to find in antique stores? Bring back cursive!
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@Gary
This is a very beautiful comment and describes exactly how hand written articles make me feel
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@Gary
One of the most beautiful, precious memories I have: the sound of my quill pen scratching words on a page...sheer poetry of sound against a background of total silence.
Most kids actually LIKE cursive writing. They think it looks fancy; they think it feels adult. You can set up an after-school club or an elective that teaches cursive and you'll get plenty of eager sign-ups. You don't have to make it mandatory in order for a majority of students to be well-trained in the form. Making cursive just another part of required curricula lessens its appeal and ups the likelihood that children will view it as a tiresome chore.
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If future generations do not learn cursive, how will they be able to read history? We’ve all become addicted to typing and texting which is all well and good on a day to day basis... as long as today’s technology is in vogue. What happens when the next electronic gadget comes along and whatever we’ve “written” today goes poof? There is no way to know what will happen to our ideas, history, photos or love letters unless we write things down.
Recently, during an elderly aunt’s funeral, her family shared her history with those in attendance by reading letters the young woman had written to her beau/soon to be husband; letters to her sister that shared details of her pregnancies, her kids’ development and other daily occurrences. It was such a treat to relive all of this and to be able to share those memories. If Aunt “W” hadn’t written out her story in such lovely Palmer penmanship, these vintage WWII stories would have been lost.
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@Rose
You can learn to read cursive without writing it. I don't know how to write blackletter, but I can read it.
The hand and the brain are absolutely connected. Exercise the hand, and you exercise the brain. Besides, spending part of a school year on penmanship teaches a child patience.
And if a student can't learn how to write in cursive, you can bet there are things wrong. If nothing else (and there's plenty else), it's a reliable diagnostic tool for teachers.
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@B. I agree. BTW, I learned more in college by copying my lecture notes and studying them. The act of copying a notation and later expounding on the details reinforced the information I was absorbing.
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I'm not an expert, but this does smell, sound, feel, and read like we're fixing a problem that isn't broken when there are many critical educational challenges that urgently need attention: social and emotional learning being right at the top. I'd be happy to scrawl out a copy of this comment in cursive if you send me the mailing address and let me know when the next pony express is coming through.
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Social and emotional learning begins at home. By the time children are five or six, some big pieces of healthy development are missing if their parents haven't tackled them.
Once upon a time, there were "slow" students who sat in the back and flunked quizzes -- sad, but a teacher could help them. Now they throw chairs, call their teachers foul names, attack one another, carry their fights into the hallways, and make it impossible for other students to learn.
Parents' job is to teach their kids self-control and respect for others. We cannot expect teachers to play catch-up.
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@Seth Eisenberg
The only thing about those challenges you mention is that they predate the Pony Express.
“As an exercise, writing things by hand is up there with cobbling shoes and shoeing horses,” a columnist, Alexandra Petri.
Perhaps humorous, but dead wrong. There is plenty of evidence that when children (people in general, actually) write things down they are much more likely to remember them. This comes in handy in school when, for instance, taking notes. A student using a laptop may be able to almost transcribe what the teacher says word for word. However, he won't have the depth of understanding that students have who listened for key concepts and connections and noted those down.
Another way this works is when reading. Students often highlight all kinds of things in their textbooks, planning to reread what they've highlighted when it comes time to study for a test. If they instead write down key information, they typically have much better recall.
Parents and students are well advised to invest in a pack of pencils.
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@redweather Yes - kinesthetic learning works. It's how I passed two bar exams.
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@redweather
I think you're absolutely right about the importance of taking notes by hand, but printing by hand works fine.
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@redweather You're conflating writing with cursive. Cursive is about looking nice and being readable by everyone. The in-depth note taking you're talking about would only be for the writer to reference him- or herself at a later date. Why does it matter if that is written in chicken scratch? As long as the writer can read it, how it looks is irrelevant.
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I thoroughly agree that we should teach cursive. One of the side benefits is the development of fine-motor coordination. The Chinese are masters at copying. Why? Examine the demands of their writing system, and it will be evident. Cursive is easy in comparison. My grandchildren cannot read my letters to them, let alone the Constitution.
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@Connecticut Grandmother
I have bad handwriting and have studied Japanese. The challenge was in learning the many characters, not in writing them. (I'm talking about ordinary writing, not calligraphy.) There's an established stroke order and the characters are not linked. It was easier than cursive.
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“Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee have all passed legislation since 2013 requiring the instruction of handwriting, Ms. Wright said”
New Jersey is regularly ranked one of the best states for K-12 education. Those states are not. Do the math and don’t follow their lead by wasting even more of students’ days on things that will not help out children become globally competitive.
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@JohnD Bingo, you've summed it up perfectly. Let's emphasize learning other languages, e.g., Spanish, Chinese, etc., before we devote resources to a hobby like this.
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@JohnD
All but New Jersey are in the south. American history has much to say that explains the discrepancy you note.
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I am left wondering why we teach kids one series of letters to start with and then switch over and teach them an entirely different set a few years later. It seems a bit much to me. We don’t do this with numbers. If you step back and think about it for even two seconds, you can see that it would be stupid to teach children how to write the digits from zero to nine and then, three or four years later, to teach them a different way to write those same digits.
I am going to say it out loud: teaching cursive is a waste of time. Once a child learns how to form the letters, they can do all they need to do to communicate their thoughts in writing. The keyboard I am looking at right now has 26 upper case printed letters on it. The keypad on my phone has printed upper case letters. Is cursive used anywhere in the everyday world any more? And if not, why do we waste time teaching it?
I am generally a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to teaching things at school. My sixth graders have had to memorize the states and capitals. In the past, they had to memorize the American Presidents in order. I have even taught them how to find a square root using a long-hand algorithm instead of a calculator. I believe there is a value in knowing how to do hard things by hand or mentally. I no longer see any academic value in teaching or learning cursive writing.
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@Chris Dawson Two of the merchants I use have to charge me more if I want to put my purchase on a credit card--because the credit card companies are charging them so much per transaction. Take a check? Happy to do so and to give a discount. So I write them checks--which need a signature. Saves me money--which is a timeless value.
As far as teaching kids two sets of letters.... The relationship between the cursive letters and the block letters of printing is pretty easy to see. That's how cursive developed: from block letters. It isn't as if we are teaching them Latinate block letters and then Chinese characters.
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@Chris Dawson
I believe, e-mails in all caps were/ are considered to be 'shouting' and rude.
Texting uses lower case.
Cursive is faster than all CAPITALS to write.
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For any number of reasons, it's useful to be comfortable using a pen or pencil. That means that some instruction in handwriting will be valuable.
That doesn't mean that teaching cursive is a good idea. People who do a lot of handwriting typically end up using a semiconnected writing style that has little in common with classic cursive. This isn't surprising; cursive was developed for dip pens and isn't needed with more modern pens.
Students should learn to write in a style that will let them take notes and do calculations easily. That's still learning handwriting.
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I thoroughly agree that we should teach cursive. One of the side benefits is the development of fine-motor coordination. The Chinese are masters at copying. Why? Examine the demands of their writing system, and it will be evident. Cursive is easy in comparison. My grandchildren cannot read my letters to them, let alone the Constitution.
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@Connecticut Grandmother Print the letters! Easy solution.
While it seems this ship has sailed, I applaud the effort to reintroduce the teaching of cursive writing in schools. I think we really lost something in the developing of children’s brains by not having them practice the hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills that it calls for. And yes, I realize that for the most part people input far more than they write. But the loss of this kind of instruction is a lost opportunity. Ok, I’m jumping off my soap box!
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