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.
I just don’t see the point? I had to learn cursive in elementary and haven’t used it at all since then. There has to be more valuable things these kids could be learning.
The point is the culture war. Populism. “Reverting to a better yesterday.” Fascism, writ tiny.
It’s clever, no one can really object to it like they can to removing things from the curriculum. But it serves the same purpose as whipping up anger over sex ed or CRT, just low key.
It can be useful to learn for the purpose of knowing how to read it. There’s still a large population of cursive writers about. I doubt cursive usage will grow anymore, even teaching it, as everything is computer based these days.
Honestly, I don’t see an issue with this? It’s an interesting way to think about writing and it keeps the electorate happy.
I would prefer my kids learn things that will be useful.
It’s great that you had good experiences but I think if you dig through a few threads on the topic, you will see a LOT of people reporting very bad memories and even trauma around how cursive is taught. Not everyone can learn cursive and even if we had the resources to identify the large number of students who will never be able to write cursive, it is still alienating and degrading to de-stream them. And in the end, there is no significant benefit to merit the tens or hundreds of hours spent drilling letter forms. That extremely valuable time could have been spent doing something useful.
Bad experiences around bad teachers will exist regardless of whether cursive is taught, though. Teachers aren’t perfect.
I didn’t say anything about bad teachers. My criticisms are still valid even if assuming teachers are perfect.
Was this something specific to cursive?
I’m not surprised that kids would’ve had awful experiences, especially because this is a skill that takes time to develop, and time is often the thing in the shortest supply when it comes to teaching kids.
But you wrote your post like there was something particularly unique to the awful experiences had with learning cursive writing. I wasn’t expecting that. Does it have to do with how you can ‘get away’ with messing handwriting in math or even in English, but when you’re being graded on the appearance of cursive letters, any fine motor skills a child is struggling with gets piled on?
No, it has to do with the fact that ability to acquire fine motor skills vary a great deal between individuals and many students simply cannot learn to write at what educators consider an acceptable level of quality, no matter how many hours you force them to do lines, no matter how many times you tell them they are sloppy, or lazy, or stupid. They simply cannot do it, any more than a one-legged student can do the triple jump. But unfortunately these students and their unique needs are hard to detect and mostly they are just stigmatized as slow or difficult.
I don’t know if you understand how harmful and undermining it is to be set up to fail like that. It’s cruel. Once upon a time, it might have been worthwhile overall that some students had to suffer that, but it no longer is.
We just do not have the facilities to address the unique needs and very common disabilities of children, we’ve gutted all of that. If you want to teach cursive, how about we first start supporting students with disabilities. That’s something parents SHOULD be upset about. This is just bullshit distraction, because it’s designed to be a bullshit distraction.
Sorry I took so long to reply! I’m still not used to Lemmy. :P
That was an excellent answer. I imagine it’s further compounded by how kids are sorted into grades, with someone being born very late to the grade’s cut-off having a disadvantage to someone born many months earlier/at the start of the cut-off.
From what you wrote, I’m almost persuaded to think that it’s something kids should be taught in school, but far later. I’m back on the boat of having calligraphy classes offered in high school as electives. The trouble is, once I suggest that, I feel like it’s setting myself up to be argued into having it at a much younger age and as a mandatory part of education, which puts us right back into the problems you listed out. :(
I personally write almost exclusively in cursive. Printing always felt so much more unnatural to me given that it requires lifting your pencil far too often. All of your time is spent lifting and resetting your pencil.
Having said that, I know my feelings on this are outside the norm. And I know for many it is seen as having a steep learning curve.
There is nothing wrong with you enjoying cursive. It should be an optional class like any art.
I personally enjoy wood working using only hand tools, however if someone needed to learn basic carpentry, I’d be showing them how to use power tools.
I agree with your overall point but not the metaphor. Printing is more like using hand tools than cursive is, given it is slower and less mechanically efficient.
Cursive is fun to write but make it part of an elective art class.
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It seems like the studies are about how it helps with fine motor skills and other development, rather than it being a useful skill
So it seems reasonable to introduce a few other options that have the same benefits, so that kids can choose the elective that’s best for them
Even if there are any benefits for cursive it’s outweighed by lazy/illegible cursive.
I feel personally attacked.
My handwriting was normal printing, but as soon as I learned cursive it turned into this mishmash of cursive and not-so-cursive. It’s legible, for the most part… depending on how I’m feeling or if I’m tired.
I write in a hybrid printing-cursive style usually, but what forced me to revive my cursive was getting into fountain pens. They are designed to write cursive and perform beautifully when done properly. Unfortunately, my cursive writing is not nearly as wonderful as my lovely writing implements, but people tend to see the pens and not my butchered penmanship thankfully.
That being said, I would never impose cursive on someone. Just as someone can learn a new calligraphy style, cursive can be learned too if the interest is there.
