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.
I learned cursive but never practiced beyond 5th grade so it never developed...
Instead in high school and university when I was doing a lot of handwritten notes I ended up creating my own version of cursive which is just visually schwa'ing some letters. My writing and typing has always been a mess so it doesn't matter much.
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.
The argument isn't that cursive is useless, but rather it isn't useful enough to warrant spending the amount of time that is required to drill the muscle memory into children. Learning to read cursive is relatively easy and can be done easily on one's own if they happen to be exposed to cursive writing and need to read it. But no one has a meaningful need to write in cursive because we don't use feather quills anymore.
I spent a considerable amount of time being forced to do something that ultimately my disabilities will never allow me to do. I was degraded and humiliated because I couldn't write cursive. I was punished and told I was lazy and careless and then forced to do it even more than the other students. I still carry shame with me. And it was all essentially pointless; we even knew it at the time!
Shit like this is just about grinding down children and making them good worker units.
It can also be nice to learn as an art form! But in the same way I wouldn’t expect mandatory calligraphy lessons - even though that seems like the more logical thing to introduce if we’re talking about developing fine skills and learning how to read or write cursive - I don’t really see the point of mandatory cursive lessons.
The option seems reasonable to have as an option. But kids are already so overworked in school, with homework and tests having increased exponentially over the last two decades, that getting to remove one thing off of their curriculum seemed like they were finally getting a break.
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.
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. :(
It's sad how the whole world is going through a conservative nationalist phase, this isn't just a Canada thing but I've seen it in my own country and many other European countries and American states.
“A return to phonics and, for example, cursive writing is another example where the government is leaning into the evidence and following the voice of many parents who wanted us to really embrace those practices that for generations have worked.”
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.
Reading between the lines here, I get the impression that this change is red meat for a boomer base who thinks things were perfect when they were kids and don't see why kids in the modern era ought to be doing things any differently. I'm 39. I did learn cursive in school and about the only time I've ever used it since is my signature. Yet I could blow any boomer out of the water with regards to hand eye coordination. You know why? Video games and touch typing.
I'm older than that, but yes, I agree. I rarely use cursive. OCR works better with printing, I type most of the time, and even my crappy printing is better than my cursive. I was a little surprised my kids weren't taught cursive, but think the only real loss is the exercises. I think it would be good to be familiar enough to read cursive, but that isn't worth even a semester.
“The research has been very clear that cursive writing is a critical life skill in helping young people to express more substantively, to think more critically, and ultimately, to express more authentically,” he said in an interview.
What research? This sounds pretty far fetched to me.
You can google it pretty easily. Learning to write cursive develops various brain components as well as fine motor skills. I was skeptical as well but just a brief scan of the research shows significant changes in how children think just by learning to write differently.
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.
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.
“A return to phonics and, for example, cursive writing is another example where the government is leaning into the evidence and following the voice of many parents who wanted us to really embrace those practices that for generations have worked."
You'd think if it was important to them they might try to teach their kids themselves. Or have we defaulted to we can only learn things in school already?
The same people that rallied the New Brunswick premiere to “Make NB Great Again” and issue new rules that force teachers to deadname trans kids and report them to their homophobic parents.
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.
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...
I am talking about doctor-note(/chicken scratch) stuff that may take considerably more latency/effort to decipher (or worse, may cause a misunderstanding), also loopy signatures that have 1 big letter with a scribble behind it (at which point you may be better off drawing a doodle like the cat face guy and maybe add some of your name or even initials).
Also I get the not-so-cursive thing, particularly when some letters have odd rules or just look too similar especially if it is not controlled enough (and I think that depends on what letters are connected/how you connect them too). As in the easier/faster idea doesn't really work out most of the time. (and let's face it, the lifting-of-the-pen thing is probably silly especially in the case of straight-line print letters vs more-complex-shaped cursive letters where travel shape also now matters)
also loopy signatures that have 1 big letter with a scribble behind it
Why you gotta call me out like that? Haha. But seriously, I had a proper signature until I got a part time office job at 17 that required me to sign a lot of things (for packages, receipts, witness acknowledgement, etc) every day - that's on top of initialing things. I worked there 5-6 days a week before doing that same job full time for a few years and
eventually continued part-time for a few more years when I was in another career. Anyway, the point was that it was a fairly busy job and the extra few seconds my full, proper signature I had developed wasn't an option and I slowly morphed my signature into a bastard hybrid between initials and signature that has remained some 20 years later. Also, I ditched the loopy first letter.
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.
I was thinking they're just in a rush (well, most of the time), but I'd imagine they think it is a lot more legible than it is or will even think that the problem isn't their sloppiness but "they don't teach cursive these days!"
I mean yeah it probably doesn't help that cursive is thought of as efficient and high-class, plus that it's required for document signage.
I absolute hated learning cursive in school and I never write cursive now. My son has even more fine motor-control issues than I do and I'm glad he didn't have to deal with this as well.
“The computer will not take that over.”
The 1980's want their opinions back.
I actually don't disagree with the idea that some of the fundamentals that have been taught for decades were and are the right way to teach. We don't always need new ways to learn reading, writing, math, etc -- the old ways are tried and tested. But introducing something like this, which basically completely unnecessary in modern times, based on some unresearched benefits is no better.
What seems more the problem is the assumption that there’s one best way for kids to learn something.
Reading showed us that insisting that one method be used exclusively - whether phonics, sight word memorization or whole language - will not be successful for everyone.
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