Unless you work in education, I’ll be you didn’t know that cursive writing had become a thing of the past.
The Georgia Department of Education is entering in to a new set of literacy standards during the upcoming school year, which reintroduces cursive handwriting for upper grades students in elementary schools. Prior, it was implied that cursive could be taught, although most avoided it since “it wasn’t on the state test”.
I used to argue a good bit that it was necessary for students to still learn cursive writing. My kids have learned it and I see them use it from time to time, though the digital age has moved everything to typing instead of writing, so it’s a dying practice and skill.
Is there still a point to it? What argument would you make that knowing cursive writing is still a necessary skill, or against it? Have at it in the comments.
There are older documents written in cursive, even personal items such as birthday cards from Grandma. Students benefit from being able to read them.
The Constitution also comes to mind for me.
Well now that you point that out, they’ll definitley not teach it…
When I was representing juveniles in court and needed to communicate with my client by writing on a legal pad I learned that I had to first ask if they could read cursive. They didnāt have to write it themselves, just read it. Why did I want to communicate in cursive? Mainly because itās much faster, and I have good penmanship. Iām not talking about young kids; Iām talking about mid to late teens. It wasnāt a universal problem – some could read cursive, but just werenāt comfortable writing it. You do need enough cursive skills to scrawl a signature sometimes.
Oh, my bad, always thought curseive was what mine grandfather or even my dad said after cross threading a kitchen sink plumbing fixture or getting a flash of 120 volts while screwing around with loose wiring in a light fixture…GO DAWGS!!
You’re not wrong. See also: the scene in ‘A Christmas Story” where Ralphie extols Dad’s art in profanity.
That’s cursive in the spoken form. Did you notice how the syllables kind of flowed together?
There used to be a poet laureate on here that spoke in cursive named Ranger Russ
I miss that fucker…
I second that emotion….
Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the all time greatest, the undefeated repeat champion, the Sistine Chapel, of profanity:
https://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2007/10/27/georgiaflorida-a-summary
If we were all writing in cursive, somebody would criticize us for not printing enough. There’s no winners in this argument.
My father was an architect – long before CAD, and I envied the print lettering he could do by hand. My wife’s cursive is done so well it borders on artistic. I’m cool with any handwriting option as long as I can read it.
Cursive is of great importance! Especially for athletes. You can’t have a cool signature if you don’t know cursive!
I remember sitting on the floor of my room as a kid looking through all my baseball cards and studying the players signatures that were printed on the front of many of the Topps cards. I practiced how my signature would look on my baseball card and worked to be able to sign it quickly for when I would need to sign baseballs when I got older and would be walking along the crowd after batting practice…lol.
Haha! Yes, we used to practice our autographs when we were kids. Funny, my “cursive” signature now looks like an autograph, i.e. you can’t read it.
The only need I see for it anymore is for signing your name. Otherwise, it’s pointless. If someone wants to study old documents, they’ll need to learn it, just like they’d have to learn another language if it was in that language. But for the general public, it’s borderline useless.
There’s a decent argument that clear expression in writing helps clear thinking. Whaddaya think?
Are they going to make everybody go down to the CVS or Rite Aid (it was Eckerds in 1963) and buy a Sheaffer cartridge fountain pen? I could make some messes with those things.
Cursive is a lost art. I admit I still take notes in meetings by hand, and cursive is a faster way to write than printing (or for me, it is).
I do think it is a discipline that every student should have.
I wonder if a generation of teachers that navigated their career paths by learning how to “teach the test” know cursive well enough to even teach it; and how much of a waste of time it ends up when they remove the requirement in four years. And, add it back in eight. Then remove it, then re-add and so on.
There’s a reason that many forms such as doctor’s offices have two lines. One says sign and the other says print. Many people sign with a business signature therefore the reason for the print line.
I think it should be taught. Hell, we’ve dumbed down our education system enough in the past couple of decades.
I’mnotvtrying to be too critical, but if that’s the case, why spend time on cursive writing when the kids, can be working on STEM subjects?
Iāve got one better, why does the state require 2 years of foreign language but not drivers Ed? How many people do you hear speaking another language in your daily life vs how many bad drivers do you interact with?
I believe the 2 years of foreign language is related to the college prep requirements to get the Georgia “college prep” diploma. You have no shot of getting into most of the Georgia public universities without 2 years of foreign language direct from high school.
Driver’s ed has practically been outsourced to the driving schools today. Some of them are even allowed to administer the road test to students.
Facts. To be considered ācollege readyā for admission you have to take foreign languages. Kids are also taking high school courses in middle schools and lots of other things while continuing to minimize CTAE/non-college pathways. Weāre creating book smart kids that have no identifiable soft skill set to survive the real world. And why they got rid of drivers Ed who knows, but the insurance companies are making bank charging for a new driver (1100 a month more even with discounts).
To get a license at 16 or 17, you have to have taken a driverās education course ā¦ the question is whether that course is handled at school. Hereās the Georgia DDS requirements to get a license:
https://dds.georgia.gov/joshuas-law-requirements
Hell with a 17 year old at home and paying through the nose for insurance, I know. Problem with the shift to taking an approved course, kids today think they just have to take the three day, six hours driving course and theyāre ready to roll. The other hours in Joshuaās Law are on the honor system. We did it with ours but had to fight with her constantly because she wanted to drive like her friends did. It helped that most of her friends got into some sort of fender bender within their first months of driving. But also shed light on why our insurance is higher than our mortgage right now.
Foreign language to be college ready is bullshit. Just like UGA only cares about 10+ AP classes to get in.
Now make them learn to drive stick shifts and change their own oil and they will be orders of magnitude less helpless than they are now.
Waste of time IMO, unless it is a short bit on how to read it. Learning to write cursive is pointless.They all communicate with each other in shorthand via text anyway. Not sure if keyboarding is mandatory but it should be. I am amazed at how many boomers and gen z’s who hunt and peck with two fingers on a keyboard.
Took two years of typing in high school and to this day I can still type like a wild man. We didn’t have phones back then. Today’s youth are speed typers on phones but don’t ask them to type on a regular keyboard.
I’ve always liked it, both reading and writing. I inherited my Great Grandmother’s diaries starting in 1957 until she passed away in 2002. These are written in cursive (the hand is fairly poor) and would be impossible for me to decipher if I hadn’t been well exposed to it.
An aside, these diaries are a very poignant look at life a rural Georgia farm during that period. She’s brutally honest and it’s an eye opener for me… turns out things weren’t quite as rosy as my elders made it out to be.
Enjoyed the various views & comments.
I am 80 & my high school algebra teacher, who was also the basketball coach, could write in Old English.
Like the horse & buggy, afraid it is a thing of the past.
Those that can do it well, is art.
Why can’t we discuss something like this on the playpen?
I can do both cursive and print but it doesn’t matter I have a poor handwrite either way.
Sorry, didnāt mean to be political. Someone suggested a while back having a āmiscellaneousā thing to talk about during the offseason, thought it was an interesting topic to discuss.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Anon but I think they were referring to the usual Playpen topics.
Regardless…The Playpen tomorrow ought to be lit!
I hate it, but I think its too late to rectify cursive writing. I have twins who are 26 and they were never taught it. Don’t see us going back.
Cursive actually is good for the brain. There are types of print that transfer easier to cursive like DāNealian verses the old ball and stick that we were taught to print using. We expect the schools to do so much these days. They added keyboarding which is what pushed our cursive. Keyboards are not made for smaller hands so I wonder if they will end up with problems with their hands later. Teachers have limited time and we tie their hands with so many restrictions and state and federal mandated rules.
*out not our. I should have proofread.
In my childrenās school in Belgium, they learn cursive firstā¦ then 2 – 3 other languages!
There is a radio DJ in Brussels and she is from Fairhope, ALā¦ her redneck french is next level on the classic rock station.
I took French in Athens. My classes were taught by a French exchange student not much older than us. We had a young lady in one class from deep south Georgia. When she would say ‘Bawn-joooor’ the poor teacher would just stare at her like ‘WTF?’ It was hilarious.
Had three years of French in High School with Madame Suzanne Kohn who was a tough but fair teacher. I wasn’t a very good student, but I could pronounce words well enough that it didn’t hurt her ears. Every year she put on a “french” play and when I was a Junior she asked me to be in it and hinted that if did that I would get at least a B in her course. Here is how tough her course could be – when I came to UGA as a freshman I had scored well enough on the AP test to get into the 200 level French class. The book we had was the exact same book that we used in her class when I was a sophomore in HS. UGA French was a piece of cake.
I did the same thing with Biology, Algebra, Chemistry and Literature.
I took 2nd level Biology, Algebra, and entry level Psychology my first semester at UGA. I also took the “Introduction to Alcohol” lab. To call it a debacle would be putting it mildly.
Le Sack sourit Ć Toulouse avec ses āDawgsā franƧais! cāest magnifique!
Et ces “Dawgs”!!
I donāt know why kids have to show their work in math anymore? When are we not going to have access to a calculator going forward? And if youāre on a deserted island do you really need to know how to do advanced math by hand? Youāre just dividing coconuts at that point. They donāt teach them to divide tne same way in school anymore either. Iām completely lost and canāt help my kids do homework. Iām probably not smarter than a 5th graderā¦in mathš!