Yet Another Article On The Demise Of Cursive Writing

Hi,
They teach something called "keyboarding" in school now. I imagine there is some typing to be learned there, but wouldn't bet on it.
I went to a college prep technical high school in Chicago (Lane Tech 62) and took a year of typing and aced both semesters. I was shocked. My point is, that skill served me extremely well for the rest of my life. I cannot imagine not being able to type......

I agree mobilman. I (reluctantly) went to my high school reunion a couple of years ago. One highlight was being able to tell my typing teacher, now retired of course, how my one year in his class has paid off. When I type now, without looking at the keyboard, it amazes my coworkers, like it's a party trick or something.
On the other hand, there is some concern (in articles I've read) how the demise of cursive writing is changing how we learn and think. It uses a different area of the brain, and some wonder whether this will be a positive or negative in the future. Digital methods of learning and information retrieval seem to have both positive and negative effects on our brains. I guess only time will tell.

Hi

When I went to school in New England (Maine) we had Penmanship classes in grades 1 to 4. In everyone's "pencil box" we had to have a nib pen (holder and points) and a pen-wiper. The school supplied ink which was in inkwells that was in in every desk.

We spent hours making circles and lines and writing the alphabet and our names. If you wrote an essay you were not only marked on content and grammer but penmanship also.

As far as learning to type, those classes were for girls. If a guy signed up for typing the kidding was relentless. I never did learn to type but I can type a document with 2 fingers almost as fast as a typist.

For those youngsters who do not know what a nib pen is look at these images:
http://www.google.com/search?q=nib&...1016&bih=541

Then came Engineering school where the professors wanted everything printed so they can read what you wrote. Ever since then I have been printing. However, I can still write legible cursive.

Jerry B

Just came across this French advertising postcard that fits into the topic of discussion:



Rough translation: "You'll never know write! Do not care I have a Monarch!"

(sorry it's sideways)

This one should be good for a couple of laughs, too:

He he he... :) Great examples

I must confess, I always had terrible handwriting. Never really worked on it and always told girls had better handwriting anyway. I found later on in college that I write better with fine point pens.
Recently, on a splurge, I bought some of those ink pens with nibs, two types. Now I feel like practicing, my handwriting is dramatically better with those traditional pens than the medium point bics. No wonder I never tried and just accepted my handwriting as bad, they're terrible. If only I was trained that way.

I stopped using cursive writing long ago except for my signature due to legibility problems and because it just seems too fussy and for me was labor intensive. I could never read my own cursive anyway. I use a cross between printing and cursive which is far more legible (to me) and less effort. My grade-school-aged children have learned some cursive in school, but frankly they have a ton more things to learn than I ever did, so cursive seems something fairly expendable in my opinion. The important thing is they are writing (printing or typing) pages and pages of stuff - more than I even did - and composition is far more important that the method used to get the words on the page.