(Ind.) Schools no longer required to teach cursive beginning this fall

[ensho]

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-cursive-writing-schools-no-longer-required-to-teach-cursive-beginning-this-fall-20110630,0,7533627.story


Schools are still free to teach cursive as a local standard but they are equally free to stop teaching it altogether.

-snip-

"The Common Core State Standards do not include cursive writing at all. Instead, students are expected to become proficient with keyboarding skills," the DOE said in a memo sent April 25.

-snip-
-----------------------

not good

they should be proficient in both keyboard and cursive

[slackmaster]

1. Bunch of fucking goddamned shit if you ask me. When I was a kid we learned cursive on the streets.

You mean cursive HANDWRITING?

Oh, that's different.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. Yeah, my mom slapped me for my cursive.

Made it worse when I told her I learned it from her and dad.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Great, now ALL kids will be able to write as well as doctors.

Illegibly.

[Le Taz Hot]

4. Good!

Just one more skill this Boomer has that the youngin's won't have. Seriously, as a past educator I think this is tragic. And the dumbing down of America continues.

[KittyWampus]

26. Someone mentioned cursive engages a different side of the brain than printing.

I wonder if that is true.

[Le Taz Hot]

34. Of course, I had to look this one up

but I think I found what you're referring to:

Intelligence and the Art of Cursive Writing


Children are taught to print the first few years of grade school, and depending on the school, either they stay with printing throughout their academic careers, or, as with some school handwriting programs, they are also taught cursive in second or third grade. I tend to side with the latter and recommend cursive handwriting as a strategy to stimulate brain synchronicity — that is, to coordinate the right side of the brain or visual, with the left side or verbal and linear areas of the brain. According to some researchers, the debate is a little like comparing the act of printing versus cursive to dot–to-dot painting by numbers versus the flowing rhythmic brush strokes of a “true artist.”

<more>


http://www.davidsortino.com/intelligence-and-the-art-of-cursive-writing/

[Shandris]

5. Another in the long list of things current kids won't be able to do.

Now they can block print their applications and sign with a Snoopy stamp or a big X.

Better hope nothing ever happens to the keyboard.

Also, this marks the beginning of the end for proper spelling, although it won't completely pass away for a while. I saw someone on an online game using the word 'uvcorse' the other day. Uvcorse, thaz bcuz itz fstr tht way or sumthn.

[Iggo]

9. Congrats on post #666.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kT37eIkaY

[phleshdef]

6. Why is proficiency in cursive even remotely important?

I learned it in school. I stopped using it as soon as the teachers would allow me to because my print was a hell of a lot neater. I've never used it since. I have a college education, a decent job earning a decent middle class salary. I never needed to know cursive for any reason whatsoever. As long as people can read and write, I couldn't care less what style of writing they use to do it.

[Le Taz Hot]

23. 1) Cursive is much faster becauese you don't live your pen and

2) although people may be able to read your writing, you won't be able to read others' writing should the write in cursive. And I ALWAYS write in cursive. When I REALLY want to confuse the youngin's, I use shorthand. :evilgrin:

[yawnmaster]

38. This generation will never need to write anything significant with a pencil/pen. Dump the cursive..

They are being raised in a less-paperfull society.

[1monster]

7. They haven't been teaching cursive in this school district for at least fourteen years...

And this school district is NUMBER ONE in the state...

[femrap]

17. So no one knows how to

sign their name? Can they read something in cursive?

I'm stunned by this. America has become #1 in being Dumbed-down. It all started with Raygun.

[1monster]

22. You should see how my nineteen year old signs his name... It is basically printing with

the letters sort of hooked together...

[Springer9]

8. 50 years to late

I think I still have the welts on the back of my hands from Sister Beatrice's ruler!

[ChrisBorg]

18. Did she also try to teach you the difference between "to" and "too"?

[fascisthunter]

10. I Think this is Sad

I consider cursive an art form, yet an art form that isn't a necessity for todays info digital age. I look at old documents from the founding of our country and drool over how beautifully some wrote. Oh well...

[Speck Tater]

11. I haven't used cursive since 1958 or there abouts.

It's time to put it on the scrap heap along with hieroglyphics and cuneiform.

[ensho]

13. so you print everything? - even when you sign your name

nt

[Speck Tater]

25. My signature, like many people's signatures

is more a stylized, hard to imitate symbol than actual cursive writing.

As for what it's worth, I know a couple of people who print their signatures in very unique, distinctive, and hard to imitate ways that certain qualify as "signatures" without being cursive.

For example:

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1052&bih=632&q=signature

At least 25 to 30% of those signature images of famous autographs are meaningless squiggles that are not, strictly speaking, cursive writing, or writing of any kind for that matter.

[jberryhill]

12. Most of them can't make a decent quill pen

[kestrel91316]

14. It means they won't be able to read it either. And lots of people

DO use it.

I am trying to imagine my niece's fancy Indian wedding invitations hand addressed in printing rather than my sister's lovely cursive, or worse yet, paper computer-printed labels stuck on. It's not what I want to see.

Pathetic. People will more be semi-literate than they already are.

[femrap]

16. I remember being so excited to

learn cursive in the 2nd grade. It's a lot faster way to write than printing.

It's just all part of the American Dumb-Down.

I wonder what they're teaching instead...how to deep fry potatoes?

[badhair77]

20. sadly, they're teaching

strategies for taking standardized tests

[badhair77]

19. That's right, they won't be able to

read cursive writing. My HS students have had trouble with this for awhile and seem to think the burden falls on the shoulders of the individual who handed them something written in cursive. Everything should be typed or printed for them. I wonder if they'll find the rest of the world changing to fit their needs.

[KittyWampus]

27. Will people be able to sign their signatures any more? I guess they'll just print their names.

[yawnmaster]

39. Many are dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. But here we are. eom

[yawnmaster]

40. "If we get rid of the horse and buggy, our children won't learn how to ride the horse!"

A quote heard early last century.
another...
"the horse is such a beautiful animal. I can't imagine traveling to a friends party in one of those cold, ugly, auto-whatevers"

[sunnystarr]

15. So this is the end of handwriting analysis and makes it

easier to forge documents in the future. Can't wait for the day when one of our future presidents signs important legislation with the printing of a 3rd grader lol.

[NNN0LHI]

28. I am guessing printed handwriting is just as unique and analyzable as cursive is

I don't see a problem there unless some handwriting expert has said something different.

Don

[xphile]

21. So does this mean they're so busy teaching to the test that they can't make time to

teach cursive?

[kath]

35. Egg-zackly - they don't want to bother with ANYTHING that's not on the test.

[jmowreader]

24. Here's a knee slapper

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/106583.html

According to this article, in Texas they decided to opt out of the government's Common Core Standards and Race to the Top because (and read this as "->" = "leads to")

National standards -> national assessments -> national curriculum -> teachers' salaries tied to students' test scores -> teachers teaching to the test each and every day ->national indoctrination of our public school children -> national database of all students and educators.

Okay, this comment would be kinda Orwell-like if it came from any state except Texas--you know, the state that approves textbooks at the state level rather than the national one, and that buys so many textbooks every textbook out there is written to conform to Texas policy. IOW there have been de facto national standards for quite a while, but they're set in Texas rather than Washington.

I checked the date on this article: 1/27/2011. I have this weird feeling that if it would have been written in 2003 or whenever Shrub put through NCLB, they'd be so happy.

[Obamanaut]

29. Man! No picking teams at recess, no dodge ball, and now this! Soon,

rifles in racks in the windows of pick-ups won't be allowed either. Oh, wait...

[brooklynite]

30. I learned cursive in school - I NEVER use it...

...with the exception of signing my name. I can write with a pen quickly and legibly when I have to.

Education should change with the times. Cursive writing doesn't need to be part of it.

[Shandris]

33. I'd be willing to bet that a vast number of 'those who never use cursive'...

...are simply overlooking the times they DO use it via a perception bias. It's like the number of people who say they 'never' use math or basic algebra. Then you point out all the various things related to both math and algebra in the real world, and they're like 'well, yeah, except for all that stuff I guess'.

Now while not nearly as common as basic math...I'm willing to bet there's a lot more cursive in use than most people remember. Signatures require it, and while that restriction may be lax NOW, it wasn't always so. Checks, invitations, scratch notes...virtually everything.

As for 'getting with the times', not everyone has a handy-dandy printer laying around when they want to make a scratch note of something. And storing them all on a computer, are you kidding me? Most people can't find a file that isn't saved in My Documents or the Desktop to begin with!

[brooklynite]

36. No, seriously...

I am well aware of what cursive is and what it is not. I write with pen a fair amount, and other than my signature, I do NOT write cursive. I have a note-taking hand-writing style in which each letter is written in separated Caps letters (30 years ago, I hand-wrote my Senior Thesis this way before typing it -- pre-word processing). I have a separate hand-writing style using Caps and lower case letters, ALSO separated, for greeting cards et al. I don't write in any other form (fwiw - I just TRIED to write cursive, and ground to a halt trying to remember how the letters linked together).

[Pryderi]

31. Cursive writing in the 21st century is a useful as knowing esperanto in the last one. n/t

[LeftinOH]

32. Thif if outrageouf! The founding fatherf ufed curfive writing, fo fhould the ftudentf!

[yawnmaster]

37. If we are going to stop putting 2 spaces after a period, we may as well get rid of cursive, too. eom

[Sgent]

41. Bleh

Not to say I never use it, but other than my signature (which isn't even as big a deal today), I don't need it for anything I do.

Most of my handwritten notes are in print, with the occasional cursive thrown in. My numbers are all computer fonts.

The only reason to learn it these days is to be able to read it, but even that will decrease in time.