What's the Future of Cursive Writing

[gbryal]

Heard on the radio today:
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/...ursive-writing

[FredRydr]

What's the Future of Cursive Writing

So long as people are willing to read my postcards and letters, there's a glimmer of hope. ;-)

Fred

[Pterodactylus]

Fortunately I do not see this tendency in Central Europe.
My son started at the end of first grade with it and now in second grade they switch completely to cursive writing.

I think writing with the hand is not only an important skill, which has also a cultural and social part, it's more, it's really important for the learning process (brain-hand relations).
Typing on a keyboard can´t replace it.
So I consider this trend in the US as bad mistake.

Btw I´m an IT guy typing all day, but writing just for the pure joy.

[VertOlive]

I've mentioned this often. When I learned that my son's school wouldn't be teaching cursive, I bought a copy of Cursive Logic and started him in 2nd grade. Now we homeschool and all of his assignments are done in cursive.

This utilitarian focus comes out of the Common Core standards the schools we had access to were using.

[An old bloke]

There is a lot of evidence that writing by hand improves memory retention and mental development. It may also help prevent dementia. Some of the research providing this evidence is mentioned briefly in The Missing Ink. There have also been a number of Internet news articles highlighting the research as well.

I suspect there may be a rebirth of handwriting in the not too distant future if enough educators see the value. Right now, conflicting demands for classroom time stand in the way.

[Sandy Fry]

I think, so long as there are people like us, cursive will go on. It will be interesting to see if the kids who don't learn cursive will be able to sign their name on a regular old piece of paper.
I am all for technology and saving trees but they make "paper" from other materials nowadays. I have heard however, that it is not very FP friendly although I have never used it myself.

David

[An old bloke]

... saving trees but they make "paper" from other materials nowadays. ...

David

There are quite a lot of other sources for fibre or cellulose being used to make bed linens now. I expect all of which could be used to paper as well. As children back in the day, we used to pull off sheets of bark from paper bark trees (Melaleuca leucadendra) to do drawings and pictures. I imagine the bark could also be soaked, pressed and dried into sheet paper as well.

[jar]

For many decades I designed cable systems and computer networks and wrote programs and the common element throughout was that all began as hand written cursive words on paper. They went through several iterations evolving from paper to blackboards then to whiteboards and only at the final stages went digital.

[inklord]

Got one girl who loves cursive writing, one who doesn't (but can when she tries). Among a number of kids there are always going to be some who will keep this skill alive, and who knows, it might just turn into a beloved nostalgic practice again...
On the paper issue: we are using more paper than ever because many a soul seems to think that any random e-document should also be printed out just to be crumpled as trash later. And I have written on sugarcane, linen, hemp, mulberry leaf and bamboo paper: all can be turned into very fountain pen friendly writing surfaces

[Wuddus]

I can remember back when we were first being taught "joined up" writing, cursive wasn't taught as a fixed form. We were shown the cursive style, but also shown other ways of forming certain letters, and we were given the space to form our own derivatives, so long as the end result was legible.

Since then, I have considered whether to refocus on my own writing, and whether to adopt a more classic hand, be it cursive or not. I decided against it. When I was looking at it with fresh eyes, I reached the same conclusions that I did several decades ago. I don't like it.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the handwriting that I see on here and elsewhere is beautifully done, but part of me instinctively rebels against the cursive form. I can read it, but I can read a more modern hand more easily. I don't like "b"s that don't close at the bottom, trying to calibrate myself to someone's hand to determine the "m"s from the "n"s. I particularly dislike the backwards "r", and "z"s with a tail. That's just damn confusing and unnecessary. We don't see that letter form in any other media, digital or print, so I don't understand the desire to retain it.

My handwriting is ugly and irregular, but is usually legible. It therefore does it's function, albeit lacking grace and consistency of form. Some would argue that my handwriting is easier to read than many people's cursive. So which is the better writing, the prettiest or most legible? Writing is about communicating, and if the other person can't understand it, that's a failure. I think there will always be people who like to retain and reproduce the more classic writing styles, but I wouldn't mourn it if it fizzled out altogether.

I don't expect many people here to side with me on this though

[azkid]

Better is whatever you define it I suppose. My opinion is legibility first, beauty second, for communication with others (or self).

Interestingly, I had similar albeit probably less intense feelings about specific letters and devised my own mashup. Normal printed z's, r's, certain capitals (H, T, F, L, Q ...), and stuff like that.

Either because it was and still is difficult for me to write the Palmer versions or I thought the cursive versions looked ridiculous. I am changing my tune now and trying to practice more. Trying to return to a more traditional hand, trying to do better than I did as a kid. Not a "should" but a "want to".

I know my handwriting is still pretty much crap. But I swear it is improving ever so slightly.

[Paddler]

Cursive may just join the long list of things that are essential for a kid to learn but are not taught to everybody in school. It will be up to a parent (or the kid itself) to teach it. People are beginning to think that a high school education should prepare a student for adult life, or at least the practical everyday subjects. 'Taint so.

Does the school teach everybody:
Cooking
How to sharpen a kitchen knife
How to sharpen a lawnmower blade
How to catch a fish (chicken, rabbit, squirrel) and prepare it for the table
The difference between a light switch and a circuit breaker
How to tie a few simple knots
Simple navigation with a map and compass
How to grow a vegetable garden and how to harvest and preserve the produce
How to do the home's laundry
Simple first aid for a small cut or splinter
Simple, rough and ready sewing
How to swim
How to read music notation and play an instrument and/or sing
Kitchen arithmetic
. . . and many more subjects . . .

When I went to high school, we weren't allowed to use a slide rule for calculations in science classes. There were people in those classes who couldn't (or wouldn't) learn to use one, so slide rules were proclaimed an "unfair advantage" and their use was not taught. Everybody had to use log tables and trig tables for calculations. We, who intended to take up the sciences in college, knew that we had better learn to use the "slipstick" on our own. We did and dummied up the homework accordingly. The same thing happened when I studied electronics at university, only this time, the scientific calculator was the unfair advantage.

So tell your kids to learn to read and write cursive and quit bitchin' and complainin' about it. They will need those tools someday.

[Wuddus]

Cursive may just join the long list of things that are essential for a kid to learn but are not taught to everybody in school. It will be up to a parent (or the kid itself) to teach it. People are beginning to think that a high school education should prepare a student for adult life, or at least the practical everyday subjects. 'Taint so.

Does the school teach everybody:
Cooking
How to sharpen a kitchen knife
How to sharpen a lawnmower blade
How to catch a fish (chicken, rabbit, squirrel) and prepare it for the table
The difference between a light switch and a circuit breaker
How to tie a few simple knots
Simple navigation with a map and compass
How to grow a vegetable garden and how to harvest and preserve the produce
How to do the home's laundry
Simple first aid for a small cut or splinter
Simple, rough and ready sewing
How to swim
How to read music notation and play an instrument and/or sing
Kitchen arithmetic
. . . and many more subjects . . .

When I went to high school, we weren't allowed to use a slide rule for calculations in science classes. There were people in those classes who couldn't (or wouldn't) learn to use one, so slide rules were proclaimed an "unfair advantage" and their use was not taught. Everybody had to use log tables and trig tables for calculations. We, who intended to take up the sciences in college, knew that we had better learn to use the "slipstick" on our own. We did and dummied up the homework accordingly. The same thing happened when I studied electronics at university, only this time, the scientific calculator was the unfair advantage.

So tell your kids to learn to read and write cursive and quit bitchin' and complainin' about it. They will need those tools someday.

My school taught me cooking, sharpening, sewing, sheet music, simple first aid, navigation and swimming, plus other practical stuff. I pretty much knew the rest before I left school too. Those things are useful. Handwriting is useful. Sticking to one antiquated style of handwriting that is often less legible than others, isn't useful. Not "bitchin' and complainin'", just saying it like it is.

If people want to learn it, and decide that's the style they want to adopt, fair play to them. It's not an essential life skill though, and I really don't understand why some people get riled up about that one style of writing being so important.

[Medieval]

I was pleased to discover that some schools or universities around the world have started to encourage cursive again because people learn better when writing down notes.

[Wuddus]

I was pleased to discover that some schools or universities around the world have started to encourage cursive again because people learn better when writing down notes.

Are they actually encouraging cursive style, or just written notes?

[Medieval]

I was pleased to discover that some schools or universities around the world have started to encourage cursive again because people learn better when writing down notes.

Are they actually encouraging cursive style, or just written notes?

They said it was cursive.

[Pterodactylus]

Cursive may just join the long list of things that are essential for a kid to learn but are not taught to everybody in school. It will be up to a parent (or the kid itself) to teach it. People are beginning to think that a high school education should prepare a student for adult life, or at least the practical everyday subjects. 'Taint so.

Does the school teach everybody:
Cooking
How to sharpen a kitchen knife
How to sharpen a lawnmower blade
How to catch a fish (chicken, rabbit, squirrel) and prepare it for the table
The difference between a light switch and a circuit breaker
How to tie a few simple knots
Simple navigation with a map and compass
How to grow a vegetable garden and how to harvest and preserve the produce
How to do the home's laundry
Simple first aid for a small cut or splinter
Simple, rough and ready sewing
How to swim
How to read music notation and play an instrument and/or sing
Kitchen arithmetic
. . . and many more subjects . . .

When I went to high school, we weren't allowed to use a slide rule for calculations in science classes. There were people in those classes who couldn't (or wouldn't) learn to use one, so slide rules were proclaimed an "unfair advantage" and their use was not taught. Everybody had to use log tables and trig tables for calculations. We, who intended to take up the sciences in college, knew that we had better learn to use the "slipstick" on our own. We did and dummied up the homework accordingly. The same thing happened when I studied electronics at university, only this time, the scientific calculator was the unfair advantage.

So tell your kids to learn to read and write cursive and quit bitchin' and complainin' about it. They will need those tools someday.

My school taught me cooking, sharpening, sewing, sheet music, simple first aid, navigation and swimming, plus other practical stuff. I pretty much knew the rest before I left school too. Those things are useful. Handwriting is useful. Sticking to one antiquated style of handwriting that is often less legible than others, isn't useful. Not "bitchin' and complainin'", just saying it like it is.

If people want to learn it, and decide that's the style they want to adopt, fair play to them. It's not an essential life skill though, and I really don't understand why some people get riled up about that one style of writing being so important.

As I wrote 1,5 years ago writing with the hand continuously, fluently, analog (cursive) is beside it‘s other functions important for the learning process and can’t replaced by typing on a keyboard or printing.
We are analog creatures, not digital ones.
Writing cursive is neither antiquated nor outdated.
It allows us to write much faster than printing, helps to keep up with our mind, and is a much more natural way (brain compatible) to write than printing.
It can never be replaced by what you would call more modern ways to write (and what means modern? Machine compatible?)
Printing was a necessity for making writing possible for machines (letterpress), and not because it had an advantage over cursive.
I can‘t see your only and several times repeated disadvantage.
For me cursive is not less legible, it is a natural thing supporting the hand-brain link.

If you have so much troubles with cursive you might have a deficit you should work on.

I also had a deficit several decades, as I was forced as left handed person to write with my right hand as a child.
Something which I see as cruel physical assult against children, and from which I suffered a really long long time.
I hated writing for decades, but finally I found my way to overcome it.

And beside all practical things writing cursive is also an art form, a way to express the own personality, something unique and personal (which printing never can be).

[VertOlive]

In his new school in Texas (which also doesn't teach cursive), my son was expected to submit two projects which had to be typewritten or hand printed.

Whereas I thought the "Keyboarding is King" thinking ruled in this school, I was surprised to find that keyboarding isn't taught either. So this summer, I guess we learn some typing...

[Wuddus]

As I wrote 1,5 years ago writing with the hand continuously, fluently, analog (cursive) is beside it‘s other functions important for the learning process and can’t replaced by typing on a keyboard or printing.
We are analog creatures, not digital ones.
Writing cursive is neither antiquated nor outdated.
It allows us to write much faster than printing, helps to keep up with our mind, and is a much more natural way (brain compatible) to write than printing.
It can never be replaced by what you would call more modern ways to write (and what means modern? Machine compatible?)
Printing was a necessity for making writing possible for machines (letterpress), and not because it had an advantage over cursive.
I can‘t see your only and several times repeated disadvantage.
For me cursive is not less legible, it is a natural thing supporting the hand-brain link.

If you have so much troubles with cursive you might have a deficit you should work on.

I also had a deficit several decades, as I was forced as left handed person to write with my right hand as a child.
Something which I see as cruel physical assult against children, and from which I suffered a really long long time.
I hated writing for decades, but finally I found my way to overcome it.

And beside all practical things writing cursive is also an art form, a way to express the own personality, something unique and personal (which printing never can be).

As an art form, I can accept it. There is certainly an aesthetic to it which is absent in my own hand. That said, I probably lack the coordination to ever do it as artfully as yourself.

My own handwriting is partially joined when I am writing neatly, and would probably be best described as a hybrid than true to any one teaching style. I can commit things to paper fast, but the legibility suffers and anyone other than me might struggle with reading it if I'm really scribbling it down.

If I was wanting to merely write faster, I would probably opt for a shorthand form, rather than cursive longhand, and for legibility, I would probably be better sticking with what now comes naturally. As such, I'm not left with any feeling of deficiency that needs working on, as I am neither striving to adopt a cursive hand, nor conforms to anyone else's standards of classic handwriting. I saw no need of cursive in the classroom aged 10, and still see no need for me to adopt it now.

As to the legibility, maybe I am just less practiced at reading cursive, and most people that I've crossed paths with in my adult life haven't used it. Different people have incorporated various elements into their own hand, such as the cursive "s", but few have used what I would deem true cursive. I have worked with a few people who had a true cursive hand, and their handwriting was horrendous, and confounded others a few decades older than me, so it was not a generational thing. I would say that a non-cursive handwriting style is more forgiving of loss of form through fast writing, and I would struggle more reading a rushed cursive hand than one of the more "modern" styles.