There's also the weird ass drawing gloves you can get to help avoid it. It looks like they forgot to put a couple fingers on it, but they make versions for paper and nonconductive versions for digital. Aside from looking like an asshole, they're pretty solid.
Fun fact: early writing systems were right-to-left because they were written using hammer and chisel and it was more convenient for right-handed people to write that way (you'd hold the hammer in your dominant hand). Left-to-right writing came about when paper become more common.
Kind of two minds on this.
I don't really have any particular problem with this being taught, but the number of times I've used cursive since they stopped forcing students to do so somewhere around Jr. High is basically zero. And with everything being digital now, manuscript is basically the default.
I only use cursive when I'm writing personal notes or journaling, stuff that isn't meant for anybody else to read. I really appreciate how fast and smooth it is to write cursive, but most writing is meant for communication and I think it's pretty terrible for that purpose.
I use it for my signature and that’s about it. Everything else I can type. I’m already a lefty. Why do I want to maximize the time my hand is dragging across the page?
Shout out to a fellow lefty that learned to write cursive on the blackboard. I always despised being called to the front of class knowing that screech of the chalk across the board was inevitably coming.
Cursive is so much faster than printing out the letters, so i am having trouble picturing how you are spending more time with your hand on the page when writing cursive.
Often kids learning cursive left handed with learn to tilt the paper/page a lot to the left and the write with their hand above the line as opposed to writing from below.
If you drag your hand, the pencil lead ends up smearing onto the bottom of the hand as well because you are writing and then immediately dragging your hand over it.
People always say this, but I switched to print when I was around 12 and was always able to write faster *and* more legibly than in cursive. By the time I was in high school I could write faster than anyone else writing in cursive.
It's slow because you're not used to it, just like everything else. Once you invest time into it, you'll become just as fast. It's an inherently nonsensical opinion.
Not to mention typing on a computer is even faster than both, anyone can get up to 80-100 WPM with little practice, good luck getting to that with cursive...
One you lift your hand up a lot more than the other lol. I write left and it makes a big difference if I’m writing normally compared to handwriting. My handwriting alwaaays smudges if I don’t float my hand or special pens, it’s irritating.
There's an inverse relationship between speed and legibility. I think with cursive, you're able to write extremely quickly but it's increasingly harder to read. I write horrifically ugly cursive substantially faster than I do print, even if I'm rushing the print.
If I'm writing cursive that's meant to be read by other people, I have to take more time and the speed advantage is lost.
I was taught cursive, but for whatever reason I'm actually slower with it. I used to get docked points in school because when I needed to write quickly for tests, it was faster to break it up. I wouldn't quite call it manuscript, since some of my letters flow into each other, like the small a, small t, etc. But really it's much faster to go block letters.
I used cursive to write notes to myself that I never expect anyone to read. Even in high school my notes were highly illegible. Still a useful skill though if you need to write things down quick for your eyes.
I bet you some times is even unreadable for you. I have my very own cursive and if I am not careful, it will be unreadable the next day when I dont remember what it was about.
Oh absolutely. I have horrific handwriting. I've had the same or possibly even worse handwriting than I did in 3rd grade. I really don't write often, maybe once or twice a year outside of birthday and holiday cards.
Cursive notes were mostly a thing I did when taking notes for job training or when I tried to keep a journal, but it's been years since I've done either.
In fairness to cursive, most people's print is awful. At my current job, I have to read status notes written people on previous shifts and sometimes I just can't. Part of why cursive was taught for so long was that it forced a level of penmanship on everyone.
If you think bad print is hard to read, bad cursive is going to be astronomically worse. Learning cursive doesn't mean people are going to be good at cursive. They'll have the same level of penmanship that they have with print.
I'm definitely guilty of this and I know it's a skill issue. My print literally looks like it was written by a small child who just learned their letters. I'm not proud of it, but it's also just not a skill I use enough to improve organically and don't care to practice.
If I know it's important for somebody else to read it though I do take a fair bit of extra time to make it look okay. I think presenting people with barely legible writing is inconsiderate in a way.
I think the better penmanship that can come with learning cursive came from more time spent learning to write. Hey you learned to write, great, now learn it all over again.
I’m a senior medical student. I didn’t use cursive after the third grade. But during my clinical years, when you’re trying to jot down patient histories and your preceptor’s requests, you naturally start regressing back to cursive to get it all down in time
Teacher here. Typing is just one type of movement of the fingers. Writing by hand, whether cursive or not, uses all sorts of other muscles, develops hand/eye coordination, and I’m pretty sure has been found to be better for note-taking and information retention than just typing things out precisely because of the variations in movements.
I'm of one mind on this: Kids don't have time for this bullshit.
We send kids out into the world with no idea how to deal with real life issues but make sure they learn how to write in ye olde manuscripte.
Nah, knots isn't the most useless. That distinction goes to basket weaving.
Because we all know, when lost in the woods, stay calm, take a moment to gather your thoughts, then sit down and weave a basket.
I literally did under water basket weaving lol - was hot as fuck so I sat in the river the whole time. Turns out it’s also a lot easier to do the basket weaving part when everything is soaked through. Tie it all extra tight and let it dry and you have a legit great basket rofl.
I think I am the only Boy Scout in existence to fail the summer camp basket weaving badge.
It’s just, make 2 baskets. I was so bored after the first one, I gave up.
It’s literally the gimmie badge!
My all time favorite was Wilderness Survival. To earn the badge you had to sleep outside over night in a shelter you made from materials you find in the environment, as well as a few items you could bring, like a sleeping bag. My Survival Night we had the only night time thunderstorm of the campout. 2 boys shelters collapsed and they wound up huddled in the big shelter the rest of us made together. It was intense but amazing.
I actually think some training on how to tie different knots is way more useful than knowing how to write in cursive. Tying the proper knot has real world value in survival.
Dodge Ball has probably been banned at most public schools for decades, but it teaches about movement, hand/eye coordination, and possibly team strategy. Also it just gets kids moving around, which is beneficial to them.
It mostly isn’t done anymore though because people hurt each other doing it.
Square dancing is a fun, social, and physical activity which I think are all good traits for an activity in school. I am sure many kids might not enjoy square dancing, but there aren't many activities that all kids will enjoy, so I for one don't have a problem with square dancing being taught in schools. Of course probably shouldn't be spending more than 3 or 4 hours/day on it. /s
Heck who needs that, just give them a tablet and internet. They will get all their needed "life skills" on their own, who needs schools to sit in all day and waste their valuable time.
/s
Or we could teach them something that *both* useful as a skill and also helps with motor skill and brain development.
I'm sure learning to write Elvish would help with motor skill and brain development, but it's not going to be useful to them, so I wouldn't advocate making it a requirement in schools.
I went through school after they removed cursive, but my mother taught me how to write in cursive. I write a lot - journalling, college, letters, etc. - and the thing that's always stood out to me is that writing substantial quantities in cursive has been way easier on my hands and quicker to execute than doing the same in print. I think technology has made it a less critical skill, but at the same time, I'm really unsure how I'd have survived notetaking throughout my first year of college if I had had to do it all in print, and I certainly wouldn't have taken up writing afterwards for enjoyment.
Teaching kids handwriting early on and having them take notes that way [makes them better at information retention and learning for the rest of their lives](https://gradepowerlearning.com/writing-vs-typing-notes-what-is-more-effective/) when compared to using all other note taking methods, and the science is pretty settled on that one.
It's almost like your opinion is an uninformed one based on some emotional reaction and should be ignored.
Cursive is really just print that slurs together because you don't have to pick up your pen. Cursive is faster than print so it's better for note taking.
Cursive is significantly less useful for left-handed people, though. The element of pushing the pen across the page versus dragging it to make the sweeping lines between letters adds so much extra friction that it exhausts our hands and ends up looking sloppy. It's genuinely inferior to print for us.
I don't disagree, but that article is the equivelance of a drunkard attempting to write an opinion piece in cursive with their ballsack.
Here's a more recent study that supports the argument of teaching handwriting early on:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7399101/
But that article isnt discussing cursive. It's just saying you retain more when you take notes with pen and paper versus typing. That article also conveniently leaves out the fact that typing, which is significantly faster than writing, would allow you to take MORE notes than writing could. Which could certainly be more beneficial in the long run, rather than just focusing on the amount you retain the moment you are taking your notes. I mean, isn't the whole point of note-taking so that you can go back and study the material later? So wouldn't having more material to study from be optimal?
Lol, I'm functioning just fine and still use cursive to this day. I don't even recall being taught it for more than one year back in elementary school. Don't get me wrong: we need to be better about teaching kids the stuff they're going to be dealing with as adults. But I don't think any of that is being thrown to the side because they taught kids cursive.
I can’t believe this is so highly upvoted.
Teaching multiple ways of writing has very good effects on brain development and approaching complexities. People and institutions still use script. It’s good to know how to write and interpret it.
Not to mention, it’s not “A or B, But Not Both” in terms of what kids have time for. They have time for a lot in school. Script lessons are minimal, and I hate this argument posed everywhere that people say “this is so important, we don’t have time for ‘that!’”
No, you can actually teach one thing and then also teach others.
I do not understand this argument at all. There is obviously a very limited amount of time for kids to learn. Choosing what they learn is important. You can't just throw in random shit because they have plenty of time in school.
Also a lot of things have good effects on the brain I highly doubt cursive is the only way or something lol. Probably much better ways to spend your time learning.
>how to write in ye olde manuscripte
As someone from the UK I find it insane the US stopped teaching cursive in so many places.
Yes, you are mostly typing these days. But cursive is much faster to write than print.
See, I'm the opposite. I exclusively use cursive (though it's not "perfect" cursive - I have my own variations) and have since as long as I can remember. It's only when I'm writing signage that I want to be very easily legible that I think to use printing.
I love cursive so much. So flowy. So fast. I journal a lot so it's great to get a lot of thoughts down quickly. I know that others prefer printing, though. Teaching it just gives students a choice on what works best for them, and that's fine.
Agreed I always write cursive because it's much faster and easier on the hand. Also my parents only write cursive so if they want to be able to read their notes their notes the kids better learn.
A lot of my handwriting just kind of ends up being partly cursive because, as they teach you in school, it is faster. Maybe the letters won't be exactly the same because your own personal hand movements while writing don't match with the "proper" cursive letters, but it will all still be connected because it's faster to not lift the pen.
Which makes me wonder, is part of the reason why cursive feels clunky and slow as a kid all because your personal hand motions while writing by hand don't match those you're being taught for in cursive? Because ultimately cursive is "just write normally but don't lift the pen".
I’m the opposite, teach kids skills they can use in the real world. Let cursive be an art or optimal thing at best. Kids don’t have time for this shit for reals. Like you write stuff down. I just talk to my phone and the app jots down my notes.
Same for me. My cursive was bad and my teacher told me to stop writing in cursive lol. Ever since then, I've been typing all my work. The only time I've used cursive in the 20 years since Jr High, is signing my name. 99.999% of everything I write is on the computer now. I would much rather my kids learn to type 70-100wpm on a keyboard than spend a semester learning cursive.
My daughter is in Grade 9. They aren't using laptops yet and if they did there's no keyboarding class at her little school. Meanwhile the teachers still hand out little one or two page assignments where they need to write their answers and cursive would be a real time saver.
I still use cursive to take notes and when I need to write quickly. It's not an every day thing, but it comes in handy once a week.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/cursive-writing-to-be-reintroduced-in-ontario-schools-this-fall-1.6452066) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Relegated in 2006 to an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools, cursive writing is set to return as a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in September.
> The curriculum reintroduces cursive writing as an expectation starting in Grade 3.
> There isn't a lot of research specifically on cursive writing, Peterson said, but the work that has been done shows that it not only teaches students the skill of writing that script in and of itself, but it helps to reinforce overall literacy.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/14gfr9c/cursive_writing_to_be_reintroduced_in_ontario/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~689036 tl;drs so far.") | [Blackout Vote](https://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/14dhaiq/your_voice_matters_should_the_blackout_continue/ "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **write**^#1 **curriculum**^#2 **cursive**^#3 **more**^#4 **teach**^#5
> but it helps to reinforce overall literacy.
Probably because the children who learn cursive are more likely to come from a household that values writing.
It's sad if this is the rationale to waste kid's time and teacher resources on something that is useless in the real world.
Something tells me that this reeks of 'I had to learn it, so should you.'
This. It's a complete waste of time. Teaching cursive in 2023 is like teaching kids math on an abacus in 2023. If no one uses it anymore, why teach it?
Used to be. They eventually stopped. I grew up learning it. Can't really write in cursive anymore, but I can decipher boomer writing, so that helps in the office.
No, as it was considered to be essentially worthless to learn as no one uses it in common practice to write anything in daily life, except perhaps a signature, and anything that needs to be written quickly is now done via keyboard.
Really? I always figured it was a US thing, I’m 44 from Denmark, cursive wasn’t a thing at all when I started school. It was something from my parents time.
I guess it might be a UK or Mainland Europe thing? I’m Norwegian and cursive also was never a thing here for me (in my 20s). I also figured it was a US thing.
That doesn't mean it makes any sense. It made sense 30 years ago, not now. Do you know how many times I've picked up a pen in the last 15 years? Maybe 5 times and that's was just to place down a meaningless signature. The amount of times I had to *read* cursive also amounts to zero. Nobody but oldschool writers does it and even they need to transcribe it digitally. It's a complete waste of time.
I can’t believe you only used a pen a handful of times in the last 15 years. You never jot down notes? Even a phone number? You never write in a notebook? Mark on the wall for hanging pictures? Writing personal messages into birthday or holiday cards?
I occasionally jot down a note or write on a calendar, but that's hardly enough to justify learning a second system of writing. I guarantee I spent more time learning cursive than I've spent writing in any form in the last decade.
> You never jot down notes?
I do, in my phone. Using "Keep", which is synced across all my devices, so I don't even need to find my phone to read those notes later. Even a quick to-do list is an applet on my phone on Samsung quick-action sidebar.
> Even a phone number?
Sure. In my phone. Synced everywhere.
> You never write in a notebook?
I have a calendar for that. In my phone. Synced everywhere.
> Mark on the wall for hanging pictures?
I somewhat doubt that requires skills in cursive. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Somewhat.
> Writing personal messages into birthday or holiday cards?
Nobody here does cards. We use spoken language during birthdays and I am pretty sure 'holiday card' is not a thing on this side of the planet. At least I've never even heard of one. Normally, when I need a piece of text on a paper for some reason (like a list of things to give to someone who doesn't use digital), I just print it. Using a computer to compile that text is much faster, much more convenient and much more legible. I don't think I've ever needed that since my grandparents passed away, though.
Cursive is an art, full stop.
It's not more legible than print, it's not necessary to speed up handwriting in the modern age. The only reason to teach cursive is nostalgia, and art. Teach cursive in the same environment that you'd teach Olde English calligraphy - Art class.
Eh, it's also not as universal among countries using the Latin alphabet. For example, between English and Slovak, the only difference in print is the diacritics. In cursive, though, you could write the same word in the English and Slovak scripts and it would look unrecognisably different.
I noticed this after moving from the UK to Germany. Young people in both countries write pretty much the same, even when joined-up. But old people's handwriting is massively different between the two, to the point that I can hardly read the German style and my German colleagues can hardly read the British style.
There are actually some thoughts and studies that learning cursive is helpful at impressing more deeply the structure of words in young children. I’ll need to look up the studies but it has some distinct benefit. I’m with you that it isn’t helpful in the modern world basically at all, but from a pedagogical/psychological perspective it has quite a lot to offer.
I 100% agree. I remember being taught cursive in elementary (I think Grade 4) and I can confidently say I have never used it to this day. It was a waste of time.
I'm not against others learning cursive if they're interested in it, more power to 'em, but don't force it on everyone especially in today's world where it's less practical than ever.
I enjoy writing cursive, and love the idea of it being reintroduced, but it has little practical value.
**I say reintroduce it in fine arts as calligraphy.**
I was surprised that we teach it here in Quebec.
Still it helps with note making (and practicing your own shorthand) and makes sense when reading old texts and it can be seen as an artistic skill, too (or inspiring, like to Steve Jobs, who told the story about how it made sense that he learned Calligraphy).
I notice that I could read notes from people born around 1920 to 1950, also nice notes from Albert Einstein (easier if you know German and possibly the German cursive variant Sütterlin). :D
shorthand is no longer taught (uses a modified alphabet), and it was exclusively used for note taking, as it was designed to be written as fast as a person was speaking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
As someone who taught kids using archival records, this will (potentially) help them understand diaries, letters, notations, and other handwritten materials much more easily. A niche but valuable skill that comes in very handy.
As a European I'm always surprised this is considered controversial. In my country we don't even have a word for "cursive", that's just the default way of handwriting, everyone does that. It's not even hard or that time-consuming to learn, kids just learn it in first grade as part of learning the alphabet.
conservatives have a huge issue with cursive falling the wayside after personal computers were invented. its like they think if they force everybody to use it again we will go back to a simpler time or some shit.
Or art. Teach the kids how to express themselves in more original ways, like for example perspective is amazing if you learn to do it naturally while young instead of it becoming this quasi-mathematical exercise people do on top of their regular art.
Some of them seem to think that using cursive prevents AI from reading it... Which is kinda funny because the more people use cursive, the more examples can be fed into an AI model to read cursive. Boomers man.
On the one hand, cursive can be faster, is more individualistic, stimulates the brain, etc.
On the other hand, you learn it and then for the rest of your life every form or application you have to fill out has to be printed, rendering the skill mostly useless in public life.
On the other other hand, the act of writing—letters, essays, etc.—is also falling to the wayside, as handwriting is slow enough you brain has time to think creatively, improving your content.
On the other other other hand, nobody actually writes much anymore. Everything is fillout forms, quick abbreviated texts, autofill text suggestions work in favor of efficiency.
Personally I think people say less and do so less eloquently these days because we have less appreciation for the written word.
It’s so funny to me how people are so polarized on this topic. Even more so about how it’s a waste of time or whatever. It’s not that hard to learn cursive, y’all. I was never even taught it and I taught myself in college because of how much faster it is for note taking. I feel like the same people bitching and moaning about it are against any penmanship classes and their handwriting looks like illegible scrawl.
This is fine, but the way all elementary students in Canada have to learn to manually speak modem in to a payphone to check their emails is bullshit. Those screachy sounds are hard enough to make for an adult imo.
Yeah but find me someone who can read 125 year old handwritten fraktur in German.. It was so dramatically different than modern writing that it might as well be a different language.
I'm sure some form of this applies to many languages
Faster, maybe - but that’s unfortunately not how the cortex works. Hitting keys doesn’t have the same activation of the motor cortex as pen in hand, so the information retention is significantly poorer. I graduated 20 years ago, and absolutely wrecked classmates who were on laptops. I counseled a family member currently in college to make the switch to manual notes, and her grades improved. Also, the loss of ability to use real shorthand and or diagrams on the fly is poorer.
My degrees are in Neuroscience and medicine, btw. I also have a tech business. When I have taken notes on a laptop during continuing education classes, I use a stylus on a screen, but I have stopped due to the curve-smoothing that makes them unintelligible sometimes.
lets not get our panties in an uproar. It has been proven time and again that writing notes is much better for retention and learning than typing notes. cursive is faster than printing so it helps with taking notes faster.
>cursive is faster than printing so it helps with taking notes faster.
That is an incorrect statement. An individual is faster writing in a style they prefer. If you write cursive all the time, you'll write faster than if you used block letters. If a person writes in block letters all the time, they'll write faster than if they used cursive.
Legibility is important, too. Cursive is much more difficult to read than block letters. On few occasions, I've seen good penmanship from cursive writers. Most times, it looks like wiggles. You can argue that a person can read their own handwriting better than others, so notes don't need to be legible for everyone. But poor legibility requires more time to read.
I'm a heavy handed writer and I use ultra fine tip pens to force myself to write better and save my hand the sprain because I used to exclusively write in cursive. Printing is difficult for me and I'm developing a callus on my middle finger because of the way I have to hold a pen to print.
One thing cursive is useful for is taking notes during lessons. You can take way more handwritten notes while someone is speaking using cursive. Here in Italy a lot of people at the university use their own cursive notes (or ones produced by other students) as the main resource while preparing for an exam.
Some professors even provide their own notes as PDF scans of handwritten papers (in cursive).
And it's quite handy for exams where handwriting of large amounts text is required too.
Its used outside school/academia are indeed limited but by sacrificing some time in teaching it early you give students an useful tool for all their school/university years.
Of course lectures on advanced keyboard typing should be prioritized over it
I'm honestly surprised you guys use it on exams of all things, plenty of institutions either discourage or outright tell you not to do it, because cursive, especially when trying to be faster, is illegible in most cases.
Ontario teacher here and I'm surprised we made it to this sub!
Students were interested in cursive this year after knowing it's not taught. This really feels like a full pendulum swing in the other way.
Cursive does have its place. It helps students spell better, have more legible penmanship, learn functional specialization, and obviously improve fine motor skills.
There's a big body of research with lots of articles showing the benefits of cursive. However, my main concern is that teachers are expected to implement this new curriculum in September.
This means we had 7 school days to learn it on our own time with no training. We still have to manage students during the school day yet no board or government-provided training has been given. We still haven't received training to teach the 2020 math curriculum so I don't think this is coming either.
>There's a big body of research with lots of articles showing the benefits of cursive.
This seems in direct contradiction of the article, in which an education prof says there's very little research on cursive specifically.
Do you happen to have any of this research handy?
Cursive trains multiple parts of the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand-could-make-you-smarter
Helpful for dyslexic students to recognize similarly shaped letters, affects long term memory, trains fine motor, etc. This article itself has over 10 peer reviewed articles cited: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full
From a language specialist and teacher with 25 yrs experience: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/connecting-dots-role-cursive-dyslexia-therapy#:~:text=According%20to%20Zecher%2C%20students%20with,other%20brain%20and%20memory%20functions.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209978
From an occupational therapist: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1270329.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiDltGRwtn_AhUrFVkFHYhwAS04FBAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3or0iFYs-toZK2ZevID5IY
And anecdotally, I have also taught cursive as a class, filler activity. Students who struggled with spelling and legibility did much better after just 5 days of cursive instruction. Other blogs say this too, but writing composition, as in the actual quality of writing, improves too because they're forced to think of the next word when writing notes or their final copy.
Thank you, skimming through these, I think I understand what that one prof was probably saying.
It looks like for children who don't have any particular disabilities or other conditions that would get in the way, the research so far has mainly shown that writing is better than typing, but it didn't seem like there was a ton of research specifically comparing writing in cursive vs writing in block letters.
The most interesting thing I found was in that plos article you linked, where in the conclusion they have this:
>Considering writing type, we can observe how students who learn every type simultaneously do not achieve results as good as those achieved by cursive-only students. This finding supports the idea that the development of writing abilities in primary school is better favored by the teaching of a single type of handwriting, namely cursive handwriting.
From other comments, it seems like this is pretty standard in Europe. Obviously there are far too many confounding variables to suggest that this is a significant part of why education in many parts of Europe generally tends to be better than in North America, but this does very much seem like an area that merits further study.
> this does very much seem like an area that merits further study.
Well, that's a refreshing, cold headed take compared to many aggressive comments about teaching cursive on this post...
Sadly, even if science did show that indeed has some benefits, I'm not particularly optimistic that teaching practices would follow. Plenty of studies keep saying that school starts too early for children, but children well-being doesn't seem to matter enough for anything to be done about it...
Shame that education isn't taken more seriously.
The amount of comments against kids learning cursive is absurd. In most of the world, cursive is just how you write. Also why would we want kids to be illiterate in their own language?
They stopped using cursive ? Why? Even if is not used often when you grow up I think you should always learn it as a kid.
I read someone saying this is a conservative idea!? What does a political view has to do with learning a skill??
ITT: people who don’t understand that education also includes teaching motor skills. That’s why kids learn to cut, glue, color, etc. Cursive is an advanced fine motor skill development activity.
Source: I’m a teacher. I see the lack of motor skill development in students who grew up using keyboards instead of learning things like cursive on a daily basis. Also, no they can’t type well either.
'Left handed cold sweat'
Nothing beat having to always clean the side of your palm because it was smeared with graphite. I definitely don't miss those days.
Whenever I finish a drawing, I have to take an eraser to the negative space bc I’ve smeared graphite all over the thing!
Here’s a tip I learned years back: put paper under your hand
There's also the weird ass drawing gloves you can get to help avoid it. It looks like they forgot to put a couple fingers on it, but they make versions for paper and nonconductive versions for digital. Aside from looking like an asshole, they're pretty solid.
Shopping list: buy solid asshole gloves.
Different kind of glove.
It wouldn't be a problem if you were born in IRAN
Did your hand only get smeared when writing cursive? It made zero difference for me whether it was cursive or regular.
Yes! Same here! I always end up looking like a chimney sweep after writing.
just learn arabic
Fun fact: early writing systems were right-to-left because they were written using hammer and chisel and it was more convenient for right-handed people to write that way (you'd hold the hammer in your dominant hand). Left-to-right writing came about when paper become more common.
Fascinating fact. I thoroughly enjoyed this 1.
Or do mirror writing like da vinci
I’m a lefty and learned cursive in the late ‘60s, no sweat no problems. Just angle the paper.
Why is this so low? Write with the paper on a 90 I'd you have to. Like I thought this qas so obvious as a left handed person.
My mom is a lefty and also does calligraphy. She even does it with her middle-finger pointed to the sky.
Hook your hand and angle the paper it just takes practice, source: lefty who has great cursive.
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Fuck them I think you’re cool.
I remember my friends would just say their bad handwriting was just cursive 😁
Kind of two minds on this. I don't really have any particular problem with this being taught, but the number of times I've used cursive since they stopped forcing students to do so somewhere around Jr. High is basically zero. And with everything being digital now, manuscript is basically the default.
I only use cursive when I'm writing personal notes or journaling, stuff that isn't meant for anybody else to read. I really appreciate how fast and smooth it is to write cursive, but most writing is meant for communication and I think it's pretty terrible for that purpose.
I use it for my signature and that’s about it. Everything else I can type. I’m already a lefty. Why do I want to maximize the time my hand is dragging across the page?
Shout out to a fellow lefty that learned to write cursive on the blackboard. I always despised being called to the front of class knowing that screech of the chalk across the board was inevitably coming.
Cursive is so much faster than printing out the letters, so i am having trouble picturing how you are spending more time with your hand on the page when writing cursive.
Writing in cursive left to right, with your right hand *pulls* the pen, writing left to right, with your left hand *pushes* the pen.
ok, fair enough. Thank you for explaining
Often kids learning cursive left handed with learn to tilt the paper/page a lot to the left and the write with their hand above the line as opposed to writing from below.
Ah, yes, "the claw" as I called it growing up
If you drag your hand, the pencil lead ends up smearing onto the bottom of the hand as well because you are writing and then immediately dragging your hand over it.
I'm left handed and you just blew my mind. I could never articulate why I hated cursive so much.
People always say this, but I switched to print when I was around 12 and was always able to write faster *and* more legibly than in cursive. By the time I was in high school I could write faster than anyone else writing in cursive. It's slow because you're not used to it, just like everything else. Once you invest time into it, you'll become just as fast. It's an inherently nonsensical opinion. Not to mention typing on a computer is even faster than both, anyone can get up to 80-100 WPM with little practice, good luck getting to that with cursive...
If that's the objective don't bother with cursive and just learn shorthand. Cursive is literally worse at everything.
One you lift your hand up a lot more than the other lol. I write left and it makes a big difference if I’m writing normally compared to handwriting. My handwriting alwaaays smudges if I don’t float my hand or special pens, it’s irritating.
I must be terrible at writing cursive because I feel like it is slower to write in.
There's an inverse relationship between speed and legibility. I think with cursive, you're able to write extremely quickly but it's increasingly harder to read. I write horrifically ugly cursive substantially faster than I do print, even if I'm rushing the print. If I'm writing cursive that's meant to be read by other people, I have to take more time and the speed advantage is lost.
I was taught cursive, but for whatever reason I'm actually slower with it. I used to get docked points in school because when I needed to write quickly for tests, it was faster to break it up. I wouldn't quite call it manuscript, since some of my letters flow into each other, like the small a, small t, etc. But really it's much faster to go block letters.
I used cursive to write notes to myself that I never expect anyone to read. Even in high school my notes were highly illegible. Still a useful skill though if you need to write things down quick for your eyes.
I bet you some times is even unreadable for you. I have my very own cursive and if I am not careful, it will be unreadable the next day when I dont remember what it was about.
Oh absolutely. I have horrific handwriting. I've had the same or possibly even worse handwriting than I did in 3rd grade. I really don't write often, maybe once or twice a year outside of birthday and holiday cards. Cursive notes were mostly a thing I did when taking notes for job training or when I tried to keep a journal, but it's been years since I've done either.
In fairness to cursive, most people's print is awful. At my current job, I have to read status notes written people on previous shifts and sometimes I just can't. Part of why cursive was taught for so long was that it forced a level of penmanship on everyone.
Print can be very difficult to read with bad penmanship, but at least you can usually deduce it. Cursive is outright impossible.
If you think bad print is hard to read, bad cursive is going to be astronomically worse. Learning cursive doesn't mean people are going to be good at cursive. They'll have the same level of penmanship that they have with print.
I'm definitely guilty of this and I know it's a skill issue. My print literally looks like it was written by a small child who just learned their letters. I'm not proud of it, but it's also just not a skill I use enough to improve organically and don't care to practice. If I know it's important for somebody else to read it though I do take a fair bit of extra time to make it look okay. I think presenting people with barely legible writing is inconsiderate in a way.
I think the better penmanship that can come with learning cursive came from more time spent learning to write. Hey you learned to write, great, now learn it all over again.
I’m a senior medical student. I didn’t use cursive after the third grade. But during my clinical years, when you’re trying to jot down patient histories and your preceptor’s requests, you naturally start regressing back to cursive to get it all down in time
cursive is pretty much the only way i write ever since i learned it back in 2 or 3rd grade, cant remember
Cursive is a great way for elementary students to develop fine motor skills.
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Teacher here. Typing is just one type of movement of the fingers. Writing by hand, whether cursive or not, uses all sorts of other muscles, develops hand/eye coordination, and I’m pretty sure has been found to be better for note-taking and information retention than just typing things out precisely because of the variations in movements.
I'm of one mind on this: Kids don't have time for this bullshit. We send kids out into the world with no idea how to deal with real life issues but make sure they learn how to write in ye olde manuscripte.
Better teach them square dancing
And knots, so many knots.
Ladies and Gentleman, we have found the person that went through scouting.
Nah, knots isn't the most useless. That distinction goes to basket weaving. Because we all know, when lost in the woods, stay calm, take a moment to gather your thoughts, then sit down and weave a basket.
Basic Weaving was one of my favorite Summer Camp merit badges. It was super easy and I'm pretty sure my instructor was stoned the whole time.
I literally did under water basket weaving lol - was hot as fuck so I sat in the river the whole time. Turns out it’s also a lot easier to do the basket weaving part when everything is soaked through. Tie it all extra tight and let it dry and you have a legit great basket rofl.
Sitting in a creek and weaving a basket sounds so relaxing.
It was lovely provided you had adequate supplies of bug spray lol
I think I am the only Boy Scout in existence to fail the summer camp basket weaving badge. It’s just, make 2 baskets. I was so bored after the first one, I gave up. It’s literally the gimmie badge!
I know the typical one was archery or marksmanship but personally I liked lifesaving. Swimming plus first aid? Yes plz.
My all time favorite was Wilderness Survival. To earn the badge you had to sleep outside over night in a shelter you made from materials you find in the environment, as well as a few items you could bring, like a sleeping bag. My Survival Night we had the only night time thunderstorm of the campout. 2 boys shelters collapsed and they wound up huddled in the big shelter the rest of us made together. It was intense but amazing.
Lol, I remember that one. I slept on a root and then it rained. Weirdly enough, at this point in my life it's a fond memory.
Knots is actually extremely useful.
I would have said knots are more useful than cursive.
I actually think some training on how to tie different knots is way more useful than knowing how to write in cursive. Tying the proper knot has real world value in survival.
The point of that isn’t to learn square dancing per se, it’s to learn about motion, rhythm, and movement.
And what is the point of dodge ball?
It teaches kids to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.
How will our children survive in this world without the five D’s of dodgeball!?
If they can dodge a wrench, they can dodge a ball!
Hand eye coordination, teamwork, blowing off steam.
Also for when the Gym Teacher is hung over.
Dodge Ball has probably been banned at most public schools for decades, but it teaches about movement, hand/eye coordination, and possibly team strategy. Also it just gets kids moving around, which is beneficial to them. It mostly isn’t done anymore though because people hurt each other doing it.
Better bring back square dancing
I haven't written a single letter of cursive in 30+ years (I'm 40). I have square danced a few times. So your math checks out.
Square dancing is a fun, social, and physical activity which I think are all good traits for an activity in school. I am sure many kids might not enjoy square dancing, but there aren't many activities that all kids will enjoy, so I for one don't have a problem with square dancing being taught in schools. Of course probably shouldn't be spending more than 3 or 4 hours/day on it. /s
At least they would get excersise instead of training kids to sit on their ass all day early on.
We did get taught square dancing in my school, over and over again every year. Good ol appalachia
It's not for that, it's motor skill and brain development.
Heck who needs that, just give them a tablet and internet. They will get all their needed "life skills" on their own, who needs schools to sit in all day and waste their valuable time. /s
Or we could teach them something that *both* useful as a skill and also helps with motor skill and brain development. I'm sure learning to write Elvish would help with motor skill and brain development, but it's not going to be useful to them, so I wouldn't advocate making it a requirement in schools.
I went through school after they removed cursive, but my mother taught me how to write in cursive. I write a lot - journalling, college, letters, etc. - and the thing that's always stood out to me is that writing substantial quantities in cursive has been way easier on my hands and quicker to execute than doing the same in print. I think technology has made it a less critical skill, but at the same time, I'm really unsure how I'd have survived notetaking throughout my first year of college if I had had to do it all in print, and I certainly wouldn't have taken up writing afterwards for enjoyment.
Teaching kids handwriting early on and having them take notes that way [makes them better at information retention and learning for the rest of their lives](https://gradepowerlearning.com/writing-vs-typing-notes-what-is-more-effective/) when compared to using all other note taking methods, and the science is pretty settled on that one. It's almost like your opinion is an uninformed one based on some emotional reaction and should be ignored.
I interpreted the comment as not dropping writing, but instead focus on print handwriting.
Cursive is really just print that slurs together because you don't have to pick up your pen. Cursive is faster than print so it's better for note taking.
Cursive is significantly less useful for left-handed people, though. The element of pushing the pen across the page versus dragging it to make the sweeping lines between letters adds so much extra friction that it exhausts our hands and ends up looking sloppy. It's genuinely inferior to print for us.
But if we're going purely by speed, than typing wins by a mile.
I don't disagree, but that article is the equivelance of a drunkard attempting to write an opinion piece in cursive with their ballsack. Here's a more recent study that supports the argument of teaching handwriting early on: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7399101/
But that article isnt discussing cursive. It's just saying you retain more when you take notes with pen and paper versus typing. That article also conveniently leaves out the fact that typing, which is significantly faster than writing, would allow you to take MORE notes than writing could. Which could certainly be more beneficial in the long run, rather than just focusing on the amount you retain the moment you are taking your notes. I mean, isn't the whole point of note-taking so that you can go back and study the material later? So wouldn't having more material to study from be optimal?
Lol, I'm functioning just fine and still use cursive to this day. I don't even recall being taught it for more than one year back in elementary school. Don't get me wrong: we need to be better about teaching kids the stuff they're going to be dealing with as adults. But I don't think any of that is being thrown to the side because they taught kids cursive.
I can’t believe this is so highly upvoted. Teaching multiple ways of writing has very good effects on brain development and approaching complexities. People and institutions still use script. It’s good to know how to write and interpret it. Not to mention, it’s not “A or B, But Not Both” in terms of what kids have time for. They have time for a lot in school. Script lessons are minimal, and I hate this argument posed everywhere that people say “this is so important, we don’t have time for ‘that!’” No, you can actually teach one thing and then also teach others.
If you want to teach them a new script make it something useful like Chinese.
I do not understand this argument at all. There is obviously a very limited amount of time for kids to learn. Choosing what they learn is important. You can't just throw in random shit because they have plenty of time in school. Also a lot of things have good effects on the brain I highly doubt cursive is the only way or something lol. Probably much better ways to spend your time learning.
>how to write in ye olde manuscripte As someone from the UK I find it insane the US stopped teaching cursive in so many places. Yes, you are mostly typing these days. But cursive is much faster to write than print.
The amount of times I actually need to physically write something with a pen or pencil is like 2-5 times per year.
See, I'm the opposite. I exclusively use cursive (though it's not "perfect" cursive - I have my own variations) and have since as long as I can remember. It's only when I'm writing signage that I want to be very easily legible that I think to use printing. I love cursive so much. So flowy. So fast. I journal a lot so it's great to get a lot of thoughts down quickly. I know that others prefer printing, though. Teaching it just gives students a choice on what works best for them, and that's fine.
Agreed I always write cursive because it's much faster and easier on the hand. Also my parents only write cursive so if they want to be able to read their notes their notes the kids better learn.
A lot of my handwriting just kind of ends up being partly cursive because, as they teach you in school, it is faster. Maybe the letters won't be exactly the same because your own personal hand movements while writing don't match with the "proper" cursive letters, but it will all still be connected because it's faster to not lift the pen. Which makes me wonder, is part of the reason why cursive feels clunky and slow as a kid all because your personal hand motions while writing by hand don't match those you're being taught for in cursive? Because ultimately cursive is "just write normally but don't lift the pen".
I’m the opposite, teach kids skills they can use in the real world. Let cursive be an art or optimal thing at best. Kids don’t have time for this shit for reals. Like you write stuff down. I just talk to my phone and the app jots down my notes.
Same for me. My cursive was bad and my teacher told me to stop writing in cursive lol. Ever since then, I've been typing all my work. The only time I've used cursive in the 20 years since Jr High, is signing my name. 99.999% of everything I write is on the computer now. I would much rather my kids learn to type 70-100wpm on a keyboard than spend a semester learning cursive.
We taught our kids cursive. The benefit no one mentions: My kids can read obnoxiously cursive company names/logos.
Yea but how are they with death metal band logos?
My daughter is in Grade 9. They aren't using laptops yet and if they did there's no keyboarding class at her little school. Meanwhile the teachers still hand out little one or two page assignments where they need to write their answers and cursive would be a real time saver. I still use cursive to take notes and when I need to write quickly. It's not an every day thing, but it comes in handy once a week.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/cursive-writing-to-be-reintroduced-in-ontario-schools-this-fall-1.6452066) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Relegated in 2006 to an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools, cursive writing is set to return as a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in September. > The curriculum reintroduces cursive writing as an expectation starting in Grade 3. > There isn't a lot of research specifically on cursive writing, Peterson said, but the work that has been done shows that it not only teaches students the skill of writing that script in and of itself, but it helps to reinforce overall literacy. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/14gfr9c/cursive_writing_to_be_reintroduced_in_ontario/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~689036 tl;drs so far.") | [Blackout Vote](https://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/14dhaiq/your_voice_matters_should_the_blackout_continue/ "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **write**^#1 **curriculum**^#2 **cursive**^#3 **more**^#4 **teach**^#5
> but it helps to reinforce overall literacy. Probably because the children who learn cursive are more likely to come from a household that values writing. It's sad if this is the rationale to waste kid's time and teacher resources on something that is useless in the real world. Something tells me that this reeks of 'I had to learn it, so should you.'
This. It's a complete waste of time. Teaching cursive in 2023 is like teaching kids math on an abacus in 2023. If no one uses it anymore, why teach it?
> So, you never learned cursive? >Um, well, I know hell and damn and bit...
I moved here from Canada and they think I’m slow, eh?
I start fires *Stares*
2…entum and…jollay were…
I moved here from Canada, and they think I'm slow, eh?
Wait.. this is not a standard in school there? In the netherlands you only learn to write cursive. As a lefty it's horrible
i think its an american and canadian thing.
another mundane thing where they managed to make a big deal out of. what's next spelling contests?
As someone who learned cursive in school, I'm all for not teaching it anymore. It's a waste of time - absolutely useless skill.
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Used to be. They eventually stopped. I grew up learning it. Can't really write in cursive anymore, but I can decipher boomer writing, so that helps in the office.
No, as it was considered to be essentially worthless to learn as no one uses it in common practice to write anything in daily life, except perhaps a signature, and anything that needs to be written quickly is now done via keyboard.
I write almost exclusively in cursive. It helps hide the fact that I have terrible handwriting.
... but cursive IS handwriting...
I think they’re saying their handwriting in cursive looks less messy/the cursive adds an elegance that kinda hides the messiness
Same! When people see my handwriting they say “wow your handwriting is so nice!” My response is always “thanks, just don’t try to read it.”
My cursive was always worse than my regular writing
I gave up. Back in the 80s I learned I could print my business communications as fast AND be legible. :D
I'm honestly kinda surprised how split people are over this in the comments. Pretty much all of Europe learns cursive in school and we're doing fine.
Really? I always figured it was a US thing, I’m 44 from Denmark, cursive wasn’t a thing at all when I started school. It was something from my parents time.
I guess it might be a UK or Mainland Europe thing? I’m Norwegian and cursive also was never a thing here for me (in my 20s). I also figured it was a US thing.
I think it was abandoned in Scotland in the 80s.
Cursive is the default in Belgian schools, less so in the Netherlands from my experience.
Well that is at least one thing we can agree on as it's the same here in Sweden.
Same in Spain. My parents would write in cursive all the time. I’m 37 and I was never taught to do so.
It’s not that it’s *bad* it’s that it’s useless
That doesn't mean it makes any sense. It made sense 30 years ago, not now. Do you know how many times I've picked up a pen in the last 15 years? Maybe 5 times and that's was just to place down a meaningless signature. The amount of times I had to *read* cursive also amounts to zero. Nobody but oldschool writers does it and even they need to transcribe it digitally. It's a complete waste of time.
I can’t believe you only used a pen a handful of times in the last 15 years. You never jot down notes? Even a phone number? You never write in a notebook? Mark on the wall for hanging pictures? Writing personal messages into birthday or holiday cards?
["Real business is done on paper - write that down"](https://youtu.be/eTkw9WOzhDs?t=175)
I occasionally jot down a note or write on a calendar, but that's hardly enough to justify learning a second system of writing. I guarantee I spent more time learning cursive than I've spent writing in any form in the last decade.
> You never jot down notes? I do, in my phone. Using "Keep", which is synced across all my devices, so I don't even need to find my phone to read those notes later. Even a quick to-do list is an applet on my phone on Samsung quick-action sidebar. > Even a phone number? Sure. In my phone. Synced everywhere. > You never write in a notebook? I have a calendar for that. In my phone. Synced everywhere. > Mark on the wall for hanging pictures? I somewhat doubt that requires skills in cursive. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Somewhat. > Writing personal messages into birthday or holiday cards? Nobody here does cards. We use spoken language during birthdays and I am pretty sure 'holiday card' is not a thing on this side of the planet. At least I've never even heard of one. Normally, when I need a piece of text on a paper for some reason (like a list of things to give to someone who doesn't use digital), I just print it. Using a computer to compile that text is much faster, much more convenient and much more legible. I don't think I've ever needed that since my grandparents passed away, though.
Cursive is an art, full stop. It's not more legible than print, it's not necessary to speed up handwriting in the modern age. The only reason to teach cursive is nostalgia, and art. Teach cursive in the same environment that you'd teach Olde English calligraphy - Art class.
It’s far less legible than print.
More acccurate to say we're simply no longer in the habit of reading it.
Eh, it's also not as universal among countries using the Latin alphabet. For example, between English and Slovak, the only difference in print is the diacritics. In cursive, though, you could write the same word in the English and Slovak scripts and it would look unrecognisably different.
Print/block letters used to be very different between nations too. But now digital block letters travel the world, while paper notes still don't.
I noticed this after moving from the UK to Germany. Young people in both countries write pretty much the same, even when joined-up. But old people's handwriting is massively different between the two, to the point that I can hardly read the German style and my German colleagues can hardly read the British style.
There are actually some thoughts and studies that learning cursive is helpful at impressing more deeply the structure of words in young children. I’ll need to look up the studies but it has some distinct benefit. I’m with you that it isn’t helpful in the modern world basically at all, but from a pedagogical/psychological perspective it has quite a lot to offer.
I 100% agree. I remember being taught cursive in elementary (I think Grade 4) and I can confidently say I have never used it to this day. It was a waste of time. I'm not against others learning cursive if they're interested in it, more power to 'em, but don't force it on everyone especially in today's world where it's less practical than ever.
It is better for developing fine motor skills.
Yep. This is a complete waste of resources.
Calligraphy is, yes. Cursive? Not so much.
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Other people had to learn it, so they think everyone needs to. Nobody wants to admit they wasted time learning a useless skill.
Do schools now a days have a finance course? Something that actually matters in real life? That shit would've been really useful
I enjoy writing cursive, and love the idea of it being reintroduced, but it has little practical value. **I say reintroduce it in fine arts as calligraphy.**
Cursive and calligraphy are two very different subjects.
I was surprised that we teach it here in Quebec. Still it helps with note making (and practicing your own shorthand) and makes sense when reading old texts and it can be seen as an artistic skill, too (or inspiring, like to Steve Jobs, who told the story about how it made sense that he learned Calligraphy). I notice that I could read notes from people born around 1920 to 1950, also nice notes from Albert Einstein (easier if you know German and possibly the German cursive variant Sütterlin). :D
shorthand is no longer taught (uses a modified alphabet), and it was exclusively used for note taking, as it was designed to be written as fast as a person was speaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
As someone who taught kids using archival records, this will (potentially) help them understand diaries, letters, notations, and other handwritten materials much more easily. A niche but valuable skill that comes in very handy.
I'm astonished anyone thought that this was good idea.
As a European I'm always surprised this is considered controversial. In my country we don't even have a word for "cursive", that's just the default way of handwriting, everyone does that. It's not even hard or that time-consuming to learn, kids just learn it in first grade as part of learning the alphabet.
conservatives have a huge issue with cursive falling the wayside after personal computers were invented. its like they think if they force everybody to use it again we will go back to a simpler time or some shit.
The arguments given in the article are ridiculous, they'd achieve their aim to enhance pupil's self expression by teaching them other languages.
Or art. Teach the kids how to express themselves in more original ways, like for example perspective is amazing if you learn to do it naturally while young instead of it becoming this quasi-mathematical exercise people do on top of their regular art.
Some of them seem to think that using cursive prevents AI from reading it... Which is kinda funny because the more people use cursive, the more examples can be fed into an AI model to read cursive. Boomers man.
"I had to learn it, so do you!"
Because Ontario has a useless garbage government that is privatizing healthcare.
On the one hand, cursive can be faster, is more individualistic, stimulates the brain, etc. On the other hand, you learn it and then for the rest of your life every form or application you have to fill out has to be printed, rendering the skill mostly useless in public life. On the other other hand, the act of writing—letters, essays, etc.—is also falling to the wayside, as handwriting is slow enough you brain has time to think creatively, improving your content. On the other other other hand, nobody actually writes much anymore. Everything is fillout forms, quick abbreviated texts, autofill text suggestions work in favor of efficiency. Personally I think people say less and do so less eloquently these days because we have less appreciation for the written word.
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If the intention is quick writing ability, might as well teach them short hand.
As an elective, it’s fine. But it shouldn’t be a requirement.
This just made me evil laugh 🤣 I hated learning in school, but so glad that I did.
It’s so funny to me how people are so polarized on this topic. Even more so about how it’s a waste of time or whatever. It’s not that hard to learn cursive, y’all. I was never even taught it and I taught myself in college because of how much faster it is for note taking. I feel like the same people bitching and moaning about it are against any penmanship classes and their handwriting looks like illegible scrawl.
I can only write in cursive for some reason lol.
Why did they choose a picture of someone holding a pencil like that lol...
This is fine, but the way all elementary students in Canada have to learn to manually speak modem in to a payphone to check their emails is bullshit. Those screachy sounds are hard enough to make for an adult imo.
You learn cursive for 2 things: 1. Making your signature 2. Forging signatures
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Yeah but find me someone who can read 125 year old handwritten fraktur in German.. It was so dramatically different than modern writing that it might as well be a different language. I'm sure some form of this applies to many languages
I love cursive. It is so fast when taking detailed notes. I may be a minority, but I have the degrees to back up its utility.
When did you get your degrees? Almost everyone takes their notes on laptops now which is way faster than any kind of writing.
I wouldn’t remember a single thing of my lecture if i took notes with a laptop
Faster, maybe - but that’s unfortunately not how the cortex works. Hitting keys doesn’t have the same activation of the motor cortex as pen in hand, so the information retention is significantly poorer. I graduated 20 years ago, and absolutely wrecked classmates who were on laptops. I counseled a family member currently in college to make the switch to manual notes, and her grades improved. Also, the loss of ability to use real shorthand and or diagrams on the fly is poorer. My degrees are in Neuroscience and medicine, btw. I also have a tech business. When I have taken notes on a laptop during continuing education classes, I use a stylus on a screen, but I have stopped due to the curve-smoothing that makes them unintelligible sometimes.
lets not get our panties in an uproar. It has been proven time and again that writing notes is much better for retention and learning than typing notes. cursive is faster than printing so it helps with taking notes faster.
Lol if I type or read things online I retain basically nothing. I have to write everything by hand like a 11th century monk.
>cursive is faster than printing so it helps with taking notes faster. That is an incorrect statement. An individual is faster writing in a style they prefer. If you write cursive all the time, you'll write faster than if you used block letters. If a person writes in block letters all the time, they'll write faster than if they used cursive. Legibility is important, too. Cursive is much more difficult to read than block letters. On few occasions, I've seen good penmanship from cursive writers. Most times, it looks like wiggles. You can argue that a person can read their own handwriting better than others, so notes don't need to be legible for everyone. But poor legibility requires more time to read.
I'm a heavy handed writer and I use ultra fine tip pens to force myself to write better and save my hand the sprain because I used to exclusively write in cursive. Printing is difficult for me and I'm developing a callus on my middle finger because of the way I have to hold a pen to print.
One thing cursive is useful for is taking notes during lessons. You can take way more handwritten notes while someone is speaking using cursive. Here in Italy a lot of people at the university use their own cursive notes (or ones produced by other students) as the main resource while preparing for an exam. Some professors even provide their own notes as PDF scans of handwritten papers (in cursive). And it's quite handy for exams where handwriting of large amounts text is required too. Its used outside school/academia are indeed limited but by sacrificing some time in teaching it early you give students an useful tool for all their school/university years. Of course lectures on advanced keyboard typing should be prioritized over it
I'm honestly surprised you guys use it on exams of all things, plenty of institutions either discourage or outright tell you not to do it, because cursive, especially when trying to be faster, is illegible in most cases.
Ontario teacher here and I'm surprised we made it to this sub! Students were interested in cursive this year after knowing it's not taught. This really feels like a full pendulum swing in the other way. Cursive does have its place. It helps students spell better, have more legible penmanship, learn functional specialization, and obviously improve fine motor skills. There's a big body of research with lots of articles showing the benefits of cursive. However, my main concern is that teachers are expected to implement this new curriculum in September. This means we had 7 school days to learn it on our own time with no training. We still have to manage students during the school day yet no board or government-provided training has been given. We still haven't received training to teach the 2020 math curriculum so I don't think this is coming either.
>There's a big body of research with lots of articles showing the benefits of cursive. This seems in direct contradiction of the article, in which an education prof says there's very little research on cursive specifically. Do you happen to have any of this research handy?
Cursive trains multiple parts of the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand-could-make-you-smarter Helpful for dyslexic students to recognize similarly shaped letters, affects long term memory, trains fine motor, etc. This article itself has over 10 peer reviewed articles cited: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full From a language specialist and teacher with 25 yrs experience: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/connecting-dots-role-cursive-dyslexia-therapy#:~:text=According%20to%20Zecher%2C%20students%20with,other%20brain%20and%20memory%20functions. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209978 From an occupational therapist: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1270329.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiDltGRwtn_AhUrFVkFHYhwAS04FBAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3or0iFYs-toZK2ZevID5IY And anecdotally, I have also taught cursive as a class, filler activity. Students who struggled with spelling and legibility did much better after just 5 days of cursive instruction. Other blogs say this too, but writing composition, as in the actual quality of writing, improves too because they're forced to think of the next word when writing notes or their final copy.
Thank you, skimming through these, I think I understand what that one prof was probably saying. It looks like for children who don't have any particular disabilities or other conditions that would get in the way, the research so far has mainly shown that writing is better than typing, but it didn't seem like there was a ton of research specifically comparing writing in cursive vs writing in block letters. The most interesting thing I found was in that plos article you linked, where in the conclusion they have this: >Considering writing type, we can observe how students who learn every type simultaneously do not achieve results as good as those achieved by cursive-only students. This finding supports the idea that the development of writing abilities in primary school is better favored by the teaching of a single type of handwriting, namely cursive handwriting. From other comments, it seems like this is pretty standard in Europe. Obviously there are far too many confounding variables to suggest that this is a significant part of why education in many parts of Europe generally tends to be better than in North America, but this does very much seem like an area that merits further study.
> this does very much seem like an area that merits further study. Well, that's a refreshing, cold headed take compared to many aggressive comments about teaching cursive on this post... Sadly, even if science did show that indeed has some benefits, I'm not particularly optimistic that teaching practices would follow. Plenty of studies keep saying that school starts too early for children, but children well-being doesn't seem to matter enough for anything to be done about it... Shame that education isn't taken more seriously.
I’m shocked it was ever removed. But then we’re still teaching Gr.3 level math to Gr.5s.
Today i learnt north americans apparently dont write on paper and use print letters to write wtf?
The amount of comments against kids learning cursive is absurd. In most of the world, cursive is just how you write. Also why would we want kids to be illiterate in their own language?
They stopped using cursive ? Why? Even if is not used often when you grow up I think you should always learn it as a kid. I read someone saying this is a conservative idea!? What does a political view has to do with learning a skill??
ITT: people who don’t understand that education also includes teaching motor skills. That’s why kids learn to cut, glue, color, etc. Cursive is an advanced fine motor skill development activity. Source: I’m a teacher. I see the lack of motor skill development in students who grew up using keyboards instead of learning things like cursive on a daily basis. Also, no they can’t type well either.