That’s the question taken up at Wired’s GeekDad blog. My third-grader gets weekly “homework” which is supposed to teach her cursive writing. I am sure that a lot of time is being wasted. But I am not sure that it’s cursive that should go. Handwritten text is losing its practical purpose, so if we are going to retire something, perhaps the fancy stuff should surive.
Top Posts
- The Urinal Game As An Introduction To Sociology
- How To Open A Bag of Charcoal
- Obsessively Checking Email, Feel Free To Profit From This Idea
- The Peacock's Tail
- Jeff's Intermediate Micro Course
- Pricing Bareback
- Why Does the Fastest Swimmer Anchor a Relay?
- Why Is It A Crime To Park Facing The Wrong Way?
- Is It Just Your Imagination or Do All Radio Stations Play Ads at the Same Time?
- Prisoner's Dilemma Everywhere: Amazon Source
Tags
art art of office politics banana seeds blog books boston california chicago coffee computers crime current events decision-making economics education evolution family financial crisis food and wine friends funny game theory incentives iPhone kludge language law marriage maths movies music obama politics psychology publishing sandeep has bad taste sanitation sport statistics suicide teaching terrorism the web tomatoes travel TV vapor mill war winter writingSubscribe via RSS
Jeff’s Twitter Feed
- RT @retsoor: an eternal guitar solo the dogs begging to be let back in the town moving so the boys can't find it a lawsuit against the p… 1 week ago
- RT @retsoor: an entire mall pounded into fine sand & left exactly where it was 2 weeks ago
- RT @fermatslibrary: Inertia: A beautiful visualization of the physics of inertia using a net and leaves 🍂 https://t.co/a39kuFiaGn 2 weeks ago
- Free entry themorningnews.org/p/brown-bears-… 2 weeks ago
- Shouldn't it be Fewest Squares? 3 weeks ago
Join 2,153 other followers
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 27, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Dane Carlson
We’re homeschooling and are wondering the same thing. I hadn’t thought of it your way though.
It might actually make more sense to retain cursive, especially if it requires a higher level of mastery, than block printed letters if you’re going to get rid of one of them, though — especially if all children learn exactly the same style of cursive. My biggest problem growing up was the inconsistency between everyone’s cursive made some much harder to read than others.
October 27, 2009 at 2:27 pm
egl
If you Google for Getty Dubay handwriting, you will see the rationale for something between block letters and cursive.
October 27, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Kevin
Cursive should not be taught. It’s 2009 – teach your kid to type accurately and quickly. At no point during the workday does anyone hand me a hand-written note. Neat printing is better for interpersonal communication anyway.
I was taught cursive in 3rd grade 20 years ago – I couldn’t read or write it now to save my life. I’m saddened to hear the elementary school system has not adapted to the 21st century. The problem is that the world has advanced far more from 1990-today than from 1970-1990.
October 28, 2009 at 6:40 am
valter
What about note-taking skills?
Writing block letters is too slow, stenography is too hard and esoteric. Some form of joined cursive writing seems like a good middle option for when we don’t have a computer at hand.
October 29, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Lyle_s
Who out there doesn’t sign their name in some sort of cursive? Don’t steal our individuality!