Cursive Writing

I've haven't cursive written in my professional life ever. I'm pretty sure if I did, people would start asking me to stop - and my cursive's pretty awesome.

Many wont think its needed but this is just another way for our society to dumb down our children. IMPORTANT historical documents are hand-written in cursive. If our children do not know how to read and write in cursive, then they will only know what "text books" say are on those documents.
Most text books in schools are 45% or more inaccurate to begin with... but thats discussion for another thread.

Fox news just had a segement about Cursive writing .. The discussion was about the consideration of REMOVING teaching cursive writing to our children ... On the premise that the way technology is now a days (texting , tablets , laptops etc) how often do our children actually sit down and write something long hand like that other than in school ... Is the time spent teaching them this skill wasted and better used elsewhere? Personally I feel that it is a skill that should remain.. There are plenty of times where a handwritten letter is FAR more appropriate than something formal and typed ...

Thoughts ??

Let's dumb down education even more - shall we?
We've already fallen way behind the rest of the civilized world when it comes to math and science, and now writing?
They should just teach kids how to get fat and play games....:frown:

Cursive = joined up writing right...(sorry I'm a brit) why WOULDN'T they teach it!?
Loads of people in the uk still use joined up writing...I don't understand wh it "takes time" to teach...it's just handwriting, they need to learn to have legible handwriting, and then once they get older they can decide for themselves whether or not to join the letters up... Surely all schools should teach have to teach legible handwriting...unless I'm very mistaken, children still have to write at school as they don't always have a laptop infront of them...right?

I can understand their point if the time spent teaching cursive would truly be spent educating children on another aspect of English. I truly believe, that the English written language as most of us know it will be a completely lost art/language in the years to come. While the use of cursive may not be necessary, it did promote attention to detail, fine motor skills, coordination, all combined with the need for effective use of grammar/punctuation. Accurately produced cursive script looks very nice and it also is a reflection of the individual utilizing it.

The thing is, they say the effort will be placed elsewhere but I doubt that it will spent on other language areas and that saddens me. I am amazed when looking at billboard signs, advertisements, kids facebooks pages, emails from coworkers, etc. at the decline in spelling/grammar among the general populace.

At any rate, I suppose their argument of "we don't really use it" could hold true for many things. I still don't see a need for learning Trigonometry or complex algebra personally, but I'm sure there are people who would be shocked me saying so.

I remember being young and seeing my mother writing in cursive writing (before I had learned) and feeling like she was writing in a foreign language. If kids don't learn how to write it, will they at least learn how to read it?

It's not just about learning to write that way -- the very act of writing on paper, and practicing handwriting imprints the letters, and the letter sounds, on a kid's brain. It also helps with fine motor skills, and coordination. Whether you use it later in life or not, you're getting something out of the process, and you don't even realize it.

My kids go to a Montessori school here, where everything abstract they learn also has a physical component -- they are actually performing some action with their hands, even for math. Believe me, if I had learned some things this way when I was younger, I'd have understood things faster / sooner / better than when everything was abstract.

There's a lot of intangible benefits to these kinds of processes, even when they seem (on the surface) to be pointless. The further away from "hands on" we get (keyboards, tablets, etc.) the more we lose the breadth and depth of the learning process, and a true understanding of things. IMHO.

I work in IT right now, so I get that technology is a great thing...but if you do away with the basics in early education, we're all doomed. There's plenty of opportunities for kids to get their hands on keyboards, and no 10 year old will grow up without understanding a computer, even if they don't see one in school until they're 12. The other stuff you can't get anywhere else, so it needs to STAY.

OK...educational rant over. :flowerforyou:

I think it needs to be taught. However I disagree when teachers focus so much on STYLE, rather than legibility. How many of us write in a textook style of cursive? We develop our own style, which as many of you say, is a combo of print and cursive. Or even combinations of different formal cursive styles... I know mine is a blend of legible and illegible! Not such a good thing! ;-)

But, we are already taking too many shortcuts with kids' education, so let's not settle for another!

I agree with many other posters: it has its uses! Besides being faster to write than print letters, the fact will remain that other people will use cursive. At the very least we all should be able to recognise it, and that takes learning it ourselves. It's also a lovely way to represent oneself in letters or on cards. It's a skill that not everyone necessarily uses but will be handy. Besides, I think most adults have some kind of print/cursive blend in handwriting, so I think it helps to express individuality!

this is hard for me to wrap my head around. i mean, not teaching a kid to write cursive sounds ridiculous, but if i think about it, they really don't need it all that often, and even now - when I write things out, i usually print and not cursive.

that said, does a kid need to know cursive to read cursive? I mean, there are some historical documents written in cursive that i would want my chile to be able to read and not rely on a "translation" from cursive to print.

This is my argument. I did genealogy when I was in 4-H. If I had been unable to read cursive and old style loopy cursive I would not have been able to follow my family history very far at all. 3/4 of the documentation I gathered was hand written. I never valued history before because it is in the past who cares but the older I get the more value I see in it. I want my children to be able to read cursive! Our school has already stopped teaching it through the regular curriculum. We had a couple of teacher's and parent volunteer's start a cursive club to help.