What was the point of learning cursive in school?

The only letters I know how to write in cursive are the ones that make up my first and last name. What was the point of learning this absurd form of writing?

Completely agree. Why it was ever used is beyond me.

Thank goodness it's being phased out of schools. And to think for years we wasted time teaching our kids this nonsense when it could have been spent on science & math.

Back in the day I could diagram a sentence like no one's business...but yeah, I can't write in cursive anymore. Haven't been able to since like 8th grade

I believe a lot of schools are now dropping it.

I always hated it because it was always taught to this lefty by right handed people.

My mother still used it exclusively and I can barely read it.

I write a lot of notes and am often in situatons where I don't have a handy dandy lap top to type things up as they are being said. I still use cursive for my own note taking or "notes to self" kind of thing.

I can read it, not sure anyone else could. My son is actually learning it now.

I remember having it drilled into us when we were going through school, now it is a bit of a lost art. I am a middle school special education teacher and the things that scare me are our kids are not proficient spellers and their basic math skills are weak, this goes for all students not just students with disabilities. The days where we had to memorize our spelling words and multiplication facts are no longer practiced and it is a shame.

Cursive should be dropped from the curriculum. If anything cursive masks bad spelling. Since it all looks like gibberish you would assume the letters were correct and pass over them. It is nearly impossible to read something written by another human being in cursive.

Personally, I think we should in fact not teach our kids any math because computers and calculators can do it. No need to teach writing, after all word can take dictation and fix spelling and grammar mistakes(well not FD's), and well obviously reading is passe with text readers. I think we can tho' develop large spaceships, that travel aimlessly through space until we are so fat that we just slide on the ground when the geo-stabilizers give out.

Learning cursive, in and of itself isn't critical, but learning that learning takes patience and practice probably has a value that some might suggest is intrinsic, whatever that means.;)

Completely agree. Why it was ever used is beyond me.

Thank goodness it's being phased out of schools. And to think for years we wasted time teaching our kids this nonsense when it could have been spent on science & math.

The ironic thing is I usually tell people that ask why we learn "pointless" stuff in school (ie stuff we won't use in our jobs after we graduate) is because up through college you're learning how to learn. Also a lot of curriculum leading up to college help create well rounded students. Still I remember cursive was suppose to be one of those things that we were going to be able to use after school.

One of the things I've heard a lot is that computers and widespread adoption of word processing was a huge game changer. Still it's kind of funny how I look back and think of how I was required to write in cursive all the way up to high school.

I actually tried to read some of my old report cards from back in the day but the early ones were written in cursive and it took me twice as long to deduce in what ways I was disruptive in class.

But yeah, seeing as how our generation has fallen behind academically compared to the rest of the world we may have been better off spending more time on the core subjects of math and science.

I remember thinking this same thing when I was in like the 9th grade. The funny thing is our teachers back in middle school were telling us how high school and college classes would make us write in cursive. It never happened lol.

Today i don't know a single person other than the occasional old person who still writes in cursive. Other than writing my name, I don't write anything in cursive. Haven't since about 8th grade lol.