Lack of Practice

[rebapuck]

For me, (64) it was "script" learned in the third grade. Cursive is a later term for me.

Obviously, it's one of many things we need to take upon ourselves to teach. That's why I suggested using a cursive font when emailing the little ones.

[jstrubberg]

Cursive is taught vey briefly, if at all. It's simply not used much anymore.

My handwriting in general has deteriorated to where I have to focus to sign my name legibly. Why? I don't write anymore. Everything these days is typed into a keyboard.

[Todah Tear]

Cursive was taught and required when I was in elementary and middle school. Then in high school I started drafting and studying architecture. My handwriting no longer even includes lower case letters.

I can at least still recognize and read cursive though.

I know what you mean. Ever since I took those drafting classes years ago, I abandoned my illegible handwritten print and began "lettering" everything that I printed. When I do write a letter to somene in cursive, I find that I throw in an upper-case printed word every now an then.

Todah

[eamarquardt]

............................ in spite of dire warnings from my teachers that perfect handwriting and the ability to diagram a sentence was the only thing that would keep me from ruin and the miserable death of an illiterate ......................

I've haven't diagramed a sentence since Jr. High School (middle school) and never once have I failed to accomplish what I set out due to my lack of interest/proficiency in diagraming. I think it's just a conspiracy to keep more English teachers employed.

I do wish that I had payed more attention in math classes.

I had no problem paying attention up until my last semester in HS. I was in a "geek only" special class and couldn't relate to matrices which were in vogue at the time. I took calculus in college an found it fascinating. No need to remember the formula for a sphere or cone as you could derive it from memory. I will confess that I've never needed either formula for either work or personal use though. Maybe if I get bored enough I'll take everything through differential equations just so my boys won't feel they have a leg up on me. In addition to their superior math skills they can also out drink me. I don't plan on challenging their lead in that field.

Cheers,

Gus

[rowerwet]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 27948.html
The common core state standards, "Educators" are always trying new fads, meanwhile we turn out thousands of high school grads who can't read their own diploma, for the thousands of dollars per pupil spent on them!
It is all part of the plan to take down/over America, John Adams said "this constitution can only work for a moral, educated, well informed people" (he wrote the MA state constitution, which predates the US one and was relied on heavily for the US Constitution)
already;
the government controls food,
the government controls the money,
the government controls education,
the government controls the (willing) media....
and increasingly large proportion of Americans are.... FAT, POOR, AND UNEDUCATED!

the similarity to how the Roman Empire fell is sickening

we home school our kids, and they are learning cursive before they learn printing. While keyboard skills are also needed, not learning how to write is as bad as all those kids not being taught math, as the teachers say "they'll have a calculator/computer to do it for them... (anybody ever hear "garbage in garbage out"?)

[wagondude]

At work, they are becoming more and more Dependant on the electronics. The system now tells not only what truck the package goes on, but what order it goes in. We don't even have to read the address label to load a truck anymore. The bad thing is, we just started this system at the beginning of the year. By the middle of summer, no one will be able to load by address when the system goes down. It is remarkable how quickly a 20 year veteran employee can forget their job. What will our kids do when the computers all crash and they can't write anything down. what about when everything is all digital media? They are used to getting instructions from the 'net. If the net is down, how will they figure out how to do anything? Writing is the basis for all of it. It isn't doom's day yet, but we are on the path.

[mustangcats]

Another thing the youth of today can't do is count money and figure change. Give them $5.02 for a $4.27 purchase and see what they do. In this example they get confused and want to give me back the 2 cents and figure the change on the $5. If they didn't have the capability of entering the $5.02 into the cash register and letting the machine "tell" them how much change to give back, they would be totally lost. There used to be a girl at the local McDonald's who used to always give out 3 dimes for 30 cents change. I don't think she knew that a quarter and a nickle added up to 30 cents!

Regarding cursive writing, my use of it has diminished over the years. My cursive has become a combination of printing and cursive combined. I guess I can blame that on email...no need to write a letter anymore. Nobody mentioned texting and how there is no longer a need to communicate in complete words and sentences. It's sad the way things have become.

[Roly Nelson]

As a joke, I often ask the server in eateries to help me with the gratuity. If the bill is 25 bucks, I ask them " what is 1 and 1/2 percent of 25 dollars, because I always have a problem figuring out the tip?" They often give me a blank stare, and reply "Gee, I don't know, I never was good in math", not knowing that I was just pullling their leg. It backfired on me one time, because the waitress never even hesitated and fired back, "19 dollars!" My daughter used to be a server, and I know that tips are very important to these gals.
Roly

[DriverOne]

I suffer through my cursive writing, only because I have never had a use of it since elementary school. I can read it, however. My handwriting is actually a form of italics, and I love my style. It's immediately discernible from all others. I've found that my dad writes in a similar way. I wonder how that is.

[angib]

I can remember my grandfather in the 1960s asking my father why he was paying for private education* when they weren't even teaching me basics like handwriting, by which he meant what I would now call calligraphy. Heck, they hadn't even taught me how to sharpen a quill pen or write from an ink-well. This would apparently prohibit me from any decent job since as soon as they saw my handwriting, they wouldn't consider my application any further.

I'm not aware my mediocre handwriting was ever a problem and at one time 20-30 years ago, I would write 100-page reports by hand and then have them typed, by people that now only exist in history, called secretaries.

In this context I am reminded that my father, a research professor, did much the same, except when his secretary of 30+ years retired, he found that it was only she who could read his handwriting - even he couldn't even read his own hand any more!

So it amuses me to hear my sister making exactly the same complaints about her son's spelling which she too feels will always mark him out as a dunce.

I welcome any old fart who can sharpen a goose quill into a decent pen with a penknife to feel free to complain about declining standards but. if you can't do that, you should recognise that you were the start of the decline you are complaining about. You with your rock 'n' roll music that dragged moral standards into the gutter.

* I write 'education' only to prove that I can spell it correctly if I have to - obviously I would normally use Homer Simpson's much nicer word 'edumacation'.

[mezmo]

In rowerwet's post:
viewtopic.php?p=992855#p992855
He gives this link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 27948.html

Here is the big crux as to why 'cursive/longhand' writing is so important. I agree
wholeheartedly with this:

" "Typing doesn't help the brain develop as much as writing in longhand, a tactile means of expression with roots in scratching on cave walls, argues handwriting analyst Michelle Dresbold. With typing, the fingers make repetitive movements rather than connect shapes, she said.

"It's a very natural process to take a crayon or a rock and make symbols with your hand," Ms. Dresbold said. "It's just bringing down things from your brain." Without that, "children are not thinking as thoroughly." "

I was always told, and I found out through experience, that if you are having trouble remembering or understanding something or a concept, that if you write it out - i.e,
writing it out in cursive longhand - it really helps immensely with both.

I've read, and have heard through various media, that one of the causes of "ADD" [if it does
exist ] is too much exposure to TV at early ages - due to the rapid/fast changes all the time in
what stimuli they are getting from the screen. The ability to focus for a longer time period on
anything never gets developed [or fully developed] due to the vast exposure to the very short term stimuli [and the volume of it] from high levels of exposure to TV [add to that computer
games and such]. That sounds more than reasonable to me.

Any skill needs to be practiced once in a while to keep proficiency in it. So WRITE out in cursive/longhand a letter or a note to some one once in a while. Write down instructions on
how to do something - e.g., a food recipe, or build instructions/directions etc., for future use,
for reference, or for passing on to someone else. To do so, makes you to have to, and in
actuality it will improve your ability to, think about such things much better. If you can express
yourself in cursive writing, you have mastered that aspect of the topic you are dealing with.
It helps YOU. And thus, by extension, helps others. [The same applies to reading.]

Eliminating cursive/longhand instruction is a HUGE STEP in "dumbing down" the populace,
and handicapping their ability to think for themselves. Illiterate people are vulnerable people,
and soon, if not already, ignorant people. Ignorance has nothing to do with intelligence.
It is the lack of knowledge. Preventing a source or method of obtaining knowledge is
deliberately advocating/causing the increase of ignorance. That is not the way to help anyone
deal with the modern world, with its exponential increases in knowledge since the early
20th century. It is a direct threat to an informed populace, thus a direct threat to all of our's
freedom.

Cheers,
Norm/mezmo

[jeff0520]

My job includes a lot of hand written paperwork, and the company specifies all upper case, block letter printing on all paperwork. I was certianly taught cursive, and I can read it, but after 20 years of block printing in upper case, I really have to think about it to write in it.

[rowerwet]

I do have to admit that despite the good education my parents paid for at Christian day schools, I so rarely used my cursive writing that when I got a job at UPS and had to fill out a complete handwriting sample including lower case printed, upper case printed, lower case cursive, upper case cursive alphabets I had to guess on many of the letters. I actually scribble in a mix of upper and lower case cursive and printed letters.
I feel sorry for the poor FAA inspector stuck reading my logbook entries, I know they can't read my signature, they can only figure out who I am by my certificate number.

[Jacquie]

I write in cursive and my third grade teacher, a nun, burned in my mind how it should look. She did not like my left-handed script. I do find that it is really easy to write fast with. I go to a lot of meetings that require note-taking so I'm glad I can write in cursive.

[jstrubberg]

In rowerwet's post:
viewtopic.php?p=992855#p992855
He gives this link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 27948.html

Here is the big crux as to why 'cursive/longhand' writing is so important. I agree
wholeheartedly with this:

" "Typing doesn't help the brain develop as much as writing in longhand, a tactile means of expression with roots in scratching on cave walls, argues handwriting analyst Michelle Dresbold. With typing, the fingers make repetitive movements rather than connect shapes, she said.

"It's a very natural process to take a crayon or a rock and make symbols with your hand," Ms. Dresbold said. "It's just bringing down things from your brain." Without that, "children are not thinking as thoroughly." "

I was always told, and I found out through experience, that if you are having trouble remembering or understanding something or a concept, that if you write it out - i.e,
writing it out in cursive longhand - it really helps immensely with both.

I've read, and have heard through various media, that one of the causes of "ADD" [if it does
exist ] is too much exposure to TV at early ages - due to the rapid/fast changes all the time in
what stimuli they are getting from the screen. The ability to focus for a longer time period on
anything never gets developed [or fully developed] due to the vast exposure to the very short term stimuli [and the volume of it] from high levels of exposure to TV [add to that computer
games and such]. That sounds more than reasonable to me.

Any skill needs to be practiced once in a while to keep proficiency in it. So WRITE out in cursive/longhand a letter or a note to some one once in a while. Write down instructions on
how to do something - e.g., a food recipe, or build instructions/directions etc., for future use,
for reference, or for passing on to someone else. To do so, makes you to have to, and in
actuality it will improve your ability to, think about such things much better. If you can express
yourself in cursive writing, you have mastered that aspect of the topic you are dealing with.
It helps YOU. And thus, by extension, helps others. [The same applies to reading.]

Eliminating cursive/longhand instruction is a HUGE STEP in "dumbing down" the populace,
and handicapping their ability to think for themselves. Illiterate people are vulnerable people,
and soon, if not already, ignorant people. Ignorance has nothing to do with intelligence.
It is the lack of knowledge. Preventing a source or method of obtaining knowledge is
deliberately advocating/causing the increase of ignorance. That is not the way to help anyone
deal with the modern world, with its exponential increases in knowledge since the early
20th century. It is a direct threat to an informed populace, thus a direct threat to all of our's
freedom.

Cheers,
Norm/mezmo

I absolutely could not disagree more with this rant. We don't make buggy whips anymore either, or muck out horse stalls to keep the family transportation healthy.

Ignorance is not recognizing that knowledge is cumulative, not repetitive. We move on, we learn new things, we don't continue to repeat the same thing over and over again.