Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey Schools Abandon Cursive Writing

[Divernan]

I was bemoaning the fact that some high schools in Pennsylvania are dropping physics from their curricula, when another parent told me about dropping cursive writing. Below is one link and story on the topic. My god! Talk about a race to the bottom of the educational barrel.

http://www.metrokids.com/MetroKids/March-2011/Schools-Abandon-Cursive-Writing/

There is no standard for teaching cursive writing in schools today. Teachers who choose to teach the skill can fit it into their curriculum as they see fit, generally in the 2nd or 3rd grade. Some students don’t learn cursive at all.

Cursive writing is not required in Delaware, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Whether it is taught is up to local school districts. But with the emphasis not only on standardized testing but practicing for them, classroom time is at a premium. Particularly in secondary grades, many children, especially in middle and high school, use computers regularly, taking the place of handwriting.

With so many subjects added to the curriculum, cursive has been put on the back burner, says Sheri Pierson, a 3rd grade teacher at Signal Hill School, Voorhees, NJ. A teacher for 25 years, Pierson squeezes in about 10 minutes a day, three days a week for cursive instruction.

[HockeyMom]

1. How are you going to sign your name on a legal document?

Using a computer won't substitute for that.

[BuelahWitch]

2. Unless they assign everyone "pins" like they do SSNs

You can sign several government documents, including income tax forms, with a pin which is considered to be your signature.

edited to change title to "assign" a pin.

[eyesroll]

5. Actually, yes it will.

Facsimile signatures are legal in many jurisdictions. I've signed pleadings for electronic filing with /s/(My Name).

Even notwithstanding that, a signature doesn't need to be in cursive to be legal. It just needs to be yours.

[KamaAina]

38. I haven't seen you around in ages!

:hi: :loveya:

[msanthrope]

11. Your legal signature is whatever you want it to be. It doesn't have to be cursive.

It doesn't have to be your name.

[CarmanK]

3. REPUGS are on a roll! Deny science, corrupt reading and now savage writing!

Well the repugs have certainly done a lot of damage to our society and they just keep on giving. They are undermining public education, making it empty and full of lies and puffery, like the MURDOG MEDIA CANVAS. The old adage is teach the children: readin',writin' and rithmetic and they will learn to think and evaluate is being sabotaged to undermine people and to reduce people to dunces that plY VIDEO GAMES and watch TV. It is really getting bad out there for the middle class in AMERICA. These ideological idiots are endangering our democracy and our nation's future. The real threat to America's future is unregulated WALL STREET, peopled with SOCIOPATHS who have no souls or consciences.

[WinkyDink]

4. Cursive is meant for faster writing of one's thoughts; the "connecting" of thoughts, if you will.

The letter-by-letter approach of printing is puerile.

And no argument to the effect of "my handwriting is SO BAD THAT...." is a logical counter.

Yes, we read printed (in every sense) material, but those are thoughts already composed.

Ah, well; perhaps we will revert to pictographs, as in fast-food joints.

[MrsBrady]

6. my grandmother was a 3rd grade teacher and handwriting expert

sad sad sad

[mainstreetonce]

7. Local decision

Local school boards in NJ decide curriculum,not the state. Teaching cursive to third graders is very time consuming. Time could be better spent on more important skills. It would be simple to teach just enough for students to develop a personal signature.

We currently spend two or three years teaching children to print, then we throw that away and tell them they must use cursive. By the time they get to jr high, they throw that all away and do whatever they want. It is too much valuable time wasted.

Today's kindergartners are being handed IPads. We need to let go of the skills their grandparents needed.





(30 yr of primary teaching experience)


Someday I will master this dang IPad.

[JVS]

8. Before doing this, they should have to tell us what new awesome skill these kids will have.

Because, from where I stand it just looks like the school is relieving itself of a responsibility. Maybe if they guarantee me that nobody under age 5 will ever fuck up than amd then; they're, their, and there; and your and you're I'd be more accepting of this. Oh yeah, accept vs except would have to be on the list too.

[msanthrope]

9. Dropped from many Quaker schools as elitist. I agree. It isn't necessary.

But a short anecdote--most of the girls in my daughter's class know 'cursive' because it is 'pretty.'

They taught it to themselves. So if a student wants to know it, they will figure it out.

[chrisa]

13. Cursive is a completely necessary skill. It is needed to have a unique signature.

If it isn't taught in schools, students will not learn it.

[msanthrope]

15. Not at all. Your legal signature is whatever you decide it's going to be.

Print can be just as unique. And students can and will teach it to themselves. I've seen it.

[chrisa]

22. See #21,

and no, students as a whole will not teach it to themselves any more than they teach math or science to themselves. Some will teach it to themselves, of course, but it's a skill that all students need in order to maintain a business signature in the future.

[msanthrope]

25. A 'business signature?' Jeebus. nt

[chrisa]

26. So, you disagree?

Why?

[drumminor2nd]

17. Umm... actually...

How did the freed slaved -- whom it had been illegal to teach -- sign their names in business and at the polls? They wrote "X." It's still perfectly legal to do so on any government form (you'd be surprised how many people can't even write their own name in this country).

[chrisa]

21. Yes, any signature is legal, but cursive is an important skill for business signatures

[LynneSin]

31. Really? Where is that law written?

Computers and Books do not use cursive fonts. Signatures are unique no matter if they are printed or cursive.

I think there are better ways we can spend the time with our children then teaching them something that really isn't used that often and can easily be taught on ones own.

[chrisa]

35. It's not a law - It's just a simple statement of how things are.

Cursive handwriting is still an important skill. It allows for further expression through writing and through signatures.

I use cursive all of the time, like when, for example, signing checks or signing resume cover letters.

[LynneSin]

37. No it's a simple statement of what you want

I learned cursive too but when I do write I prefer printing.

It's a choice - that's all it is

I have never had any business or resume rejected with my badly printed signature.

[Tom Ripley]

40. The more important skill is being able to read and understand the contents...

of those documents requiring "business signatures"

[LynneSin]

30. Unique signatures can easily be done in print

My printed handing writing does not look like anyone elses.

[chrisa]

32. Yeah, but you need cursive writing for business signatures.

As well as other signatures. Cursive signatures are more accepted.

[LynneSin]

34. Can you please point out where the rule is that written?

I mean I bought a house with my semi-printed signature. (what isn't printed is barely legible)

So I'm curious if this is written in law somewhere or just your personal opinion.

[chrisa]

36. See #35

And honestly, everything I write here is my opinion.

[Le Taz Hot]

10. Good news for Boomers.

Just one more skill designated as "outdated" (but still needed and expected in the work place).

[Old and In the Way]

12. My cursive handwriting skills have really, really deteriorated over the years.

I've reverted to block lettering just about all of my notes that I do write by hand. I can still, of course, write my signature cursively, but that's from many years of continued practice. Most certainly, the vast amount of my written communication is computer based, so there's little reason to write down stuff, pen to paper. I'm curious if others have had the same experience. I suppose I could write a cursive style with deliberate 3rd grade precision if I needed to, but I do find the exercise of writing cursively and quickly to be really a difficult task.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

18. Mine too..

I could have written your post. :(
Lately I've been transcribing old records online so my skills in deciphering handwriting has improved at least. Will be handy in the future when I'm trying to read my own. :D

[dixiegrrrrl]

39. Same here.

I am left handed and at the best of times, my handwriting is bad.
Now that I seldom write more than grocery lists and signatures, it is very bad.

However, I am convinced that there is a hand/brain connection with writing that can be important, and writing should be taught.
But then, now days, SO much should be taught in schools that is not, IMHO.

[ladywnch]

14. soon all semblance of grace and elegance will be replaced with

crass and boorish, bland and boring.

People already dress like bums everyday. And I'm not talking wearing jeans and t shirts. I'm talking sloppy, ill fitted, mismatched, dirty, wrinkled, slovenly. Today, dockers and a polo shirt are 'dressed up'. Now, we need to get rid of cursive writing.....it is clearly too elitest...to fancy.

Language will be soon to follow this sad path......my high school senior has all As and Bs and the vocabulary of a middle school student........and both kids signatures look like 3rd graders who are writing their signatures for the first time....like it was being drawn

Honestly, how much time does this really take in the class room?

JUst a thought, how at they going to read cursive if they can't write in it? you know, like the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence. Although, those are old quaint documents......any old docs still written in cursive certainly have no relevance in today's America. Anything written in cursive is now just obsolete I guess.

[msanthrope]

16. Should we get off your lawn, too?

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953)."

Bartleby.com
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html

[ladywnch]

20. only if your killing my lawn. n/t

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. Is that the reason so many young people just print?

I wondered if they just didn't write things anymore. The kids around here just seem to use a form of printing and it's a lot slower than writing.

[one_voice]

23. I went to Catholic school..

during my elementary years, so of course I learned cursive. Both my kids learned in school as well. My daughter, while she writes beautifully in cursive, I've never seen anyone print as nicely as she does. It's almost like an art form with her. And she prints much faster than writing in cursive.

Weird how that worked out.

As far as cutting out cursive, if I had to choose I'd much rather keep the sciences and math (tougher courses) than cursive.

[robdogbucky]

27. I can't believe anyone can print faster than cursive writing

that is amazing.

I also attended Catholic schools until end of HS.

As I recall it in grades 1-8 we always had the cursive alphabet right up there above the blackboard with the printed block letter alphabet.

I did take Mechanical Drawing in HS, as it was one of the easiest classes to add to a full load of language, math, science, history and religion we were always required to take. I found the block lettering we learned to use on drawings to be helpful later in life when sign-making or when labelling, etc.

But what really got me was a pizza job I started once in college. The first night I was assigned to cleanup in the kitchen, washing trays, bowls, knives, etc. It got busy and they needed help manning the phone orders, so I was asked to help out for a while on the phones that first night. When the night was finished and the mgr. was totalling out the phone orders, he came to see me in the kitchen and asked,

"You went to Catholic school, didn't you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because yours is the only handwriting that was consistently legible on these orders tonight and that really helps us. Tomorrow, you are on the phones to start and then will help us making pies."

I thought to myself, what a weird way to have my Catholic education pay off.





Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[LynneSin]

33. I have to agree with you on that one

Books and Computers all use non-cursive fonts. I'd rather focus on teaching our children how to read the books and use the computers.

[Lucian]

24. I'm still pretentious enough to do all my handwriting in cursive.

[robdogbucky]

28. Anyone remember the underground comics of the '70s?

"1999" It was part of the Heavy Metal Comix series I believe.

The one that mocked the death of language skills, with everyone reverting to crude slang, short-hand words and mispronounced short-cuts and acronyms?

It was prescient.

I know, half of you all will have to look that word up.

I have to run now, don't want to be strung up for being elitist.




Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[LynneSin]

29. Maybe it's me but I'm not getting too upset over this one. Why would we need cursive?

Books are not writen in cursive

Computers do not use cursive

No one said a signature has to be written in cursive. Heck mine is nothing more than a giant L M S with illegible squiggly lines in the middle.

This is a computer age, I think time could be better spent then teaching cursive writing - use that for more reading comprehension.