What was the point of learning cursive in school?

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

F cursive.

So pointless.

I don't know if the pun was intended but I found calling it pointless quite hilarious.

[skinsguy]

You have to remember, a lot of historical documents were written in cursive, so it's still important to at least teach kids how to read in cursive. They may find reading these documents would be like trying to read something in a foreign language.

It has also been proven that children with learning disabilities or certain intellectual disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, have benefited greatly from learning to write in cursive. The cursive writing seems to help develop fine motor skills, and has helped those children to understand better how words are formed (since cursive letters are written together) than writing individual letters.

Even though I am in Computer Information systems, I would never want to be a slave to the technology - and I think we are starting to teach ourselves and our children to be just that. That is why I don't buy the excuse that we're doing more and more "writing" on computers which makes cursive obsolete. What about writing signatures? While, yes, we don't always use perfect cursive to write our signatures, cursive does help to establish our identities when it comes to our signatures. It's a heck of a lot easier to copy someone's signature that is written mostly in print than it is a cursive signature. Even though we might be moving into the point of replacing hand written signatures with passwords and thumb prints, you still have to fall back to the good ol' fashion hand-written stuff if your computer system goes down.

So, I'd say even though cursive may not be as important to learn as say math or science, it still serves a very useful purpose in our society.

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by Monkeydad

I bet my teachers would be irate that I write in ALL CAPS all of the time.

Always.


Why? I work in finance and a lot of Government forms require it, plus it helps cut down on errors in interpretation.

Also, it looks neater.

I started doing it in my first accounting job out of college, for a construction/prop mgmt company in MD. The owner actually asked I use only CAPS and it's become a way of life for me.

My handwriting is neater than most peoples', as it needs to be when you're working with numbers and money.

ONE OF MY BIGGEST PET PEEVES IS TRYING TO READ SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS. It’s horrible.

I agree with dirtbag that part of the reason we learn stuff is so that we learn how to learn stuff. I also agree with everything skinsguy says. Ill add that cursive probably falls under the arts category and while I probably place the arts as the least important subject taught in school I think its important everyone gets an opportunity to be exposed to as many different subjects as possible.

Im a firm believer that everyone has different natural talents and strengths and that people who excel in one particular thing should try and develop that skill as much as possible. Everyone needs to be well rounded but if youre naturally bad at math it’s a waste of time to try and become a mathematician.

[Monkeydad]

When it's typed in all caps, I agree with you, but written...it's very legible and when you're dealing with codes and crap on forms...it helps it never to get mis-read.

I've just done it so much at work, it's carried over to the rest of my life. I guarantee my handwriting is more legible than 99% of people.

I CAN write in cursive if I need to. I'll usually save it for when I want to hang up a sign at work and don't want anyone to know it was me who wrote it...ha. Works every time, they know my writing but when they see the cursive...I'm never suspected because it looks like a woman wrote it.


I used to do Calligraphy when I was young, still do occasionally for special crap. However, cursive in everyday matters...unnecessary.

[firstdown]

I can write in cursive but it does not hide my spelling mistakes and poor grammar. For that reason why take Algebra? Never helped me sell insurance.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

You have to remember, a lot of historical documents were written in cursive, so it's still important to at least teach kids how to read in cursive. They may find reading these documents would be like trying to read something in a foreign language.

It has also been proven that children with learning disabilities or certain intellectual disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, have benefited greatly from learning to write in cursive. The cursive writing seems to help develop fine motor skills, and has helped those children to understand better how words are formed (since cursive letters are written together) than writing individual letters.

Even though I am in Computer Information systems, I would never want to be a slave to the technology - and I think we are starting to teach ourselves and our children to be just that. That is why I don't buy the excuse that we're doing more and more "writing" on computers which makes cursive obsolete. What about writing signatures? While, yes, we don't always use perfect cursive to write our signatures, cursive does help to establish our identities when it comes to our signatures. It's a heck of a lot easier to copy someone's signature that is written mostly in print than it is a cursive signature. Even though we might be moving into the point of replacing hand written signatures with passwords and thumb prints, you still have to fall back to the good ol' fashion hand-written stuff if your computer system goes down.

So, I'd say even though cursive may not be as important to learn as say math or science, it still serves a very useful purpose in our society.

And I guess we can't transpose historical documents into text to be stored on CPUs? And I guess we can't find other ways to develop the fine motor skills of certain kids?

Cursive's usefulness diminishes with every passing day. Our society makes progress so we don't have to continue doing things that are a complete waste of time.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by firstdown

I can write in cursive but it does not hide my spelling mistakes and poor grammar. For that reason why take Algebra? Never helped me sell insurance.

Sell insurance? Probably not, because a monkey could do that. But to calculate what the term life premium should be on a 45 year old man who smokes and has heart disease? You need algebra and then some.

[SmootSmack]

Was what Firstdown does for a living just blasted here?...welcome to my world FD

[Daseal]

Less time posting more helping the 4 letter network come up with ways to keep this skins down!

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

And I guess we can't transpose historical documents into text to be stored on CPUs? And I guess we can't find other ways to develop the fine motor skills of certain kids?

Cursive's usefulness diminishes with every passing day. Our society makes progress so we don't have to continue doing things that are a complete waste of time.

Sure, you could transpose those documents, but being someone who enjoys history, I absolutely hate the idea of everything being stored on some CPU. I personally like the idea of being able to read every word of the authentic document. To me, it's empowering.

And, in this day and age where our country should think in terms of fiscal responsibility, why should we spend millions of dollars on alternate therapies for motor skills when we already have a cost free solution? My point is, to say cursive is a complete waste of time is sorely an incorrect statement to make.

[SirClintonPortis]

CPUs do not store things. Their "storage" are stuff like the L1 and L2 caches, which only assists them in processing info, not storing them long term.

[SirClintonPortis]

Although I haven't written in cursive except for maybe a page or so a couple weeks ago, I say it is much easier on the hands than print. Now, I must have a fine memory because I know how still write every word in cursive(and adhere strictly to the the cursive on the worksheets they gave out).

That said, word processing has supplanted cursive a long time ago.

[Daseal]

My absolute favorite is when someone (always over the age of 50) sends you an e-mail in a cursive font. I normally either delete it before reading or let them know the next one will be. Shit kills my eyes.

[htownskinfan]

I love cursive,its so much faster than the other way.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

Was what Firstdown does for a living just blasted here?...welcome to my world FD

Suggesting algebra is unnecessary is about as ignorant as a comment can get. The blast was deserved.