Anybody's kids learning cursive?

Seems many schools are no longer teaching cursive writing.
How innovative.
The Declaration of Independence is written in cursive.

It'll read like a dead language soon enough.

Sad, ain't it Mark? I have to wonder how future M.D.'s will sign the perscription scripts, or how folks will simply sign their names on checks or documents.

Our grandson is going to a christian school and he is learning cursive.

My wife is teaching ours. Benefits of homeschooling.

From a person that has no kids. Home schooling is the only way to go. How would you like to have been a student the last 2 years in public school with this Covid politics and anti moral values going on. Most politicians and school teachers have put the screws to our children. Not all but enough to make the difference for children. School kids will never be the same. If you were a HR Manager for ANY Company who would you hire for ANY opening position ? Home school kids in every case. No brained. MD

My girls learn it in their school only briefly but I teach it at home. More of an efficiency thing.

No cursive writing skills in the area schools, Everything is by computer,. I don't think math is taught, the old fashioned way. Most kids carry a calculator now days.

I hated cursive writing. After 6th grade, i never used it again. There is no need for it, the pens we have today no longer leak ink everywhere when you pick up/put down the point of the pen. I would be happier if the schools focused more on spelling and sentence structure.

Any reason not to have it all?

not here in school

The Boy's teacher this year (5th grade) won't accept any work that is not in cursive. First day of school he sent home a packet of information for the parents that had several different studies showing the benefits of writing over printing. It was quite interesting.

What was quite interesting Trap Setter? Is this a public school? An individual teacher's plan?

We didn't know they didn't teach it here until I took the grandson for a fishing permit and he didn't even know what signature meant. Turns out his sister didn't either.
Another thing we figured out was he didn't know how to read a clock.

They're both now being homeschooled through a charter school.

I use it all the time!

Im teaching it....he got some in pre-k
Schools start it in 3rd here. Started again.

I teach cursive in my 3rd grade, public school classroom. It’s not required by any state or federal standards but there’s a lot of value in it. As some have mentioned, there’s historical and cultural value as well as hand-eye coordination and creativity. I know there are grades below and above us at our school that teach it too.

My son, 14, can sort of read it but can't write in cursive. I was upset when I first learned they weren't teaching it anymore. But I'm over that now. I'm not sure why I had to learn it 40 years ago.

However, he can't sign his name. I don't think Society has figured out how to solve that problem yet.

A signature is nothing more than a personalized, unique mark. My signature only has maybe one legible letter in it. Many in the Hmong community and those that don't use Roman script, simply use an X.

its still taught in public school here. Truth be told though how often is anything written out by hand rather than typed and printed on a computer? I am a one finger typer. It works but in todays world typing skills are more important than writing skill.

I am amazed by how many adults can not tell time. I wear a watch. I forget people younger than me can not just glance at it and see what time it is. Many many people have to stare at it and figure out what the time is.

Same here

I don't wear a watch or any jewelry. All because of my lifelong welding habit, the two don't mix. It ruins watches and rings are very dangerous to wear. But I can tell time.....it was taught at an early age in grade school. I can't believe all the things society see's as old fashioned! There will come a time in the future, we as a people will regret we made such stupid decisions. The brain is plenty big enough to learn both our history and about computers and such!t

The article was quite interesting and informative. It said the studies showed learning cursive and using it improved understanding of a topic as well as retention of material taught. Yes it is public school and yes it is the teachers plan as the other 5th grade teacher dosen't teach it. His teacher is "old school conservative" refuses to teach modern race theory and has a strong US history background. He is very set in his ways, a strict teacher but refuses to tell the kids his personal political views but likes discussing theirs as they are just starting to understand and explore their world views.

My daughter learned it in elementary school here in MI.

While I also like to complain about changing times, when is the last time any of you sat down and scrolled out something in cursive?

Our school teaches it a little but there are more important things they need taught too. Whenever people bad mouth schools for not teaching crap that is important to them, they fail to realize there are only so many hours in a day, and these days there are higher priorities than cursive. What would you have them cut to make room to teach something that is basically obsolete in the world? They can translate any documents in seconds on their phone FCOL. It's not the schools failing, in most cases it's the parents! You want your kid to learn cursive, put down your phone, computer, video game controller, remote or even your bible and teach them.

Cursive?

I had to un-learn it when I got learned how to be an engineer. The language of engineering is the drawing. All hand lettered back then in all capital letters, everyone using the exact same font. Obviously, the goal is never to have any character misunderstood. Yeah, even signatures were often printed and verified with an embossed stamp.

If one does not know Cursive , How do they sign their name or read another signature

My daughter is homeschooled through a charter school. Her teacher requires her students to learn it, so my little one is learning it.

My wife said she would make her learn it even if it wasn't required.

Mike

I don't know the current plans; but:

Unfortunately, cursive is no longer a basic life skill. A basic skill now days is downloading apps and keeping up on social media. I can't/won't do either. I have received several invitations and Thank you's from recent hs grads. The new "Thank You" is a picture of the kid that says "Thank You". Nothing written, no personalization. I blame the parents as it is just a cop out for both kids and parents to not take the time and write a 3 sentence thank you for the cash they received. Its a joke. Modern day parents are wimps and very few hold their kids accountable for anything.

Several of these invitations had the stamp in the upper left corner. Another example of how kids, graduating HS Seniors, are lacking basic life skills. Sad.

I haven't communicated in cursive for years, other than a signature. I guess I disagree with a lot of you regarding its value in today's society. When my 16-year-old daughter was in grade school, attending a private Christian school, she spent hours and hours honing her cursive skills. I wondered how much her teachers actually wrote in cursive themselves. I'm aware of the studies that claim other benefits other than cursive handwriting that supposedly occur from cursive handwriting. I would propose those benefits could be achieved by plenty of other activities as well.

My daughter homeschools now and it is the greatest thing ever for her. It affords us time to teach skills we feel they don't adequately get in schools, such as entrepreneurship, the American Dream as we see it, the power of positive thought, discovering and pursuing personal passions, personal finance and investing, etc. Gym class can be horseback riding or personal defense. We can even include handgun defense in that. But I sure as heck don't ever ask her to write in cursive!

We now winter in the horse country of Florida. During our stay there, our daughter can attend as many classes at the College of Central Florida as she wants. She takes full credit classes and her tuition, materials, and books are all free because she is a "dual enrollment" student. In other words, because she is a homeschooler. She can take classes all day. I'm sure other colleges around the country have similar programs. It is a game-changer for homeschooling. I encourage anyone with homeschooled kids to look into that.

Our Grandson too.

My kids are both older so I have no idea what schools here teach now. Got a niece teaching 4th grade guess ask here next time see her. Really not sure what my daughter does. I know my 37 year old son prints and is easier to read that than his writing.
I as a student struggled to write decent at least according to my teachers..Looking at my writing now I do pretty good compared to most. My wife was taught by Nuns so her writing is actually artistic.
I know when I was in high school I took typing class. I really only wanted to learn the key board. So much of the grade was based on speed and spelling words per minute. Every time I typed at the rate teacher wanted I had so many type-oos. So that class for me was a D grade as I recall.
I do believe learning key board and using the computer and spell check, grammar check has made me a better speller.

I had a guy worked with used to mess with me signing my time slip. Guy would put an X on time card on line where supervisor thought he should sign. It didn't matter I checked with secretary.. I'd see the X sign my name on time card on line by X. Supervisor come with card hand it to me with the line whited out make me sign on line above..We drove him nuts with that for couple months until he blew valve chew my arse.. Don't ever what see that again!! I of course said sorry didn't look just signed by X like do documents at bank..
Anyway after he blew up.. I changed the way I sign my name so that there is now an X as first letter.. When supervisor tried to call me on it. I just told him was a tribute to my blood brother and Asian friend, who's last name is Xiong.

The End

Mac :-)

For me. cursive is much more useful for note taking if you're taking extensive notes during lectures, demos...anyone remember shorthand? I never used shorthand but my mom still has a bunch of old shorthand and medical shorthand books. Hard to write fast in block lettering. Of course you do need to write in a way that you can still read at least read every other word lol.

The school my granddaughter goes to still teaches cursive.

More are doing just that by pulling their kids out of public schools and home schooling as our kids are doing or enrolling them in private schools like a popular one here, a Mennonite school.

I don't want to hijack the subject, but I am a HUGE advocate of quality trade school education at the high school level. Teach a kid to be a plumber or electrician, along with some entrepreneurial training to give them some thoughts on self-employment, and you are giving a kid a huge leg up. Not every kid is going to go to college. I do not believe public high schools in general, put enough emphasis on vocational training.

My high school diploma never provided any benefit to me, but my trade school education provided me with a lot of opportunities.

When on the computer, everything is in print form. There are some software that you can use what looks like cursive.

They don't teach it in schools here, at least not when my kids went to school.



X2

Depending on the school, that could be a good or bad thing. There are a lot of important life skills that can be learned in school that are missed out on at home (no one will ever convince me different),,,, but if someone is in a bad district it may not be worthwhile.

Funny to read all this as if it's gone altogether.

Even when filling out applications to most places especially any type of secure atmosphere there is usually a box at the end of the whole thing that says sign your signature here. People should at the very least be able to sign their own name, I mean really how many ways can you make an X !!

I learned how in the 3 grade and schools would not allow printing to turn in your work, cursive was very well regulated and beat into you. You could learn your own slant or style but, man, it had better be able to be read or you did the whole thing over.

Schools don't teach it as it's to time consuming to do for those not used to doing anything with their hands or mind to hand control, they are more interested in teaching ideals and goal oriented prizes for good behavior, Teachers have no time to struggle through a cursive lesson, when they can put ideas into kids heads for their own personal gain. Computers have taken a lot away from teaching to speed things up, typing is still taught but most kids know that already from using computer key boards.

People talk of home schooling as if it's different as well, in some ways it's no different, some still indoctrinate ideas and thoughts into their kids like thats the way it is, until the kids get out in life and see it's not that way, there are useful things in both, but parents still need to be involved in schooling, sadly thats not happening much anymore with both parents working when there are two parents in the home, even thats not a regular thing any more !

Our 3 granddaughters attend public schools and all three have had cursive writing classes. All three however do prefer to print versus write.

Bryce

My wife teaches 7th and 8th grade and about once a week there is a cursive writing lesson.

The only C I got in high school was in writing. I hate it with a passion.

Each time I hand write a check which is not often. I sign 40-70 paychecks a week plus checks to pay company bills. Probably gonna have a signature stamp made as my signature has become not much more then a straight line when I sign.

Our public highschool also offers dual enrollment. One of my daughters recently graduated highschool with an Associates degree. But she used the pandemic (and lack of sports) as an option to double down on college classes.

Pretty sure we learned to curse long before we learned to write.

So, what is the importance of cursive, anyway?

To write fast?

If that is true, it is self defeating. I learned cursive in grade/elementary/lower school. I learned well, and had great handwriting. After a half dozen of taking class notes in cursive, I couldn't even read my own writing. That is from stupidly scrambling to try to take down every word of lecture. Stupid!

Instead of writing fast, a person needs to listen harder. Take few but legible notes in outline form.

IMO, cursive is overrated. It was pretty much predictable that it would go the way of shorthand.

My buddy's kid learned Cursing on the 'Puter at home?

My family regularly writes hand written letters to keep in touch with each other. They are written in cursive and sent snail mail. Guess were old fashion.
Letter writing is beginning to be a lost art form. Replaced with shortened sentences and emoji.
Yes I know it's ironic to type out a printed response like this.

My homeschooled kids aren't learning it. I just don't see a need for it. If they want to learn it's we'll teach them, but otherwise no. As far as the constitution being written in cursive, it's available in print form too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvSyQDu49pI&t=217s

I didn’t realize it until last Christmas when I wrote a letter to each of my boys and my DIL…she’s the only one that could somewhat read the letter.

It's kinda funny but I think cursive parallels trapping in some ways. Both are a dying art that have benefits beyond the simple act of doing them. They're both part of our national heritage.

I tend to agree with that. I would also add whatever you are smoking to the list.

Difficult to read historic documents if you don't have the ability to write in cursive. Reading and writing cursive go hand in hand.

I even make sure my electronic signature is the same as my hard copy signature and my initials are always written in cursive.

Writing in cursive is not outdated the same as the documents written in cursive are not outdated.