Do you think it's important that the schools teach cursive or do you think it's a waste of time?

I think that it is a waste of time. Ideally one should have the choice of what to learn instead of the cookie cutter education that helps no one. In my school system you didn’t get a say untill junior high school of what options to take like art or French ect.

How will they sign their names?

A printed name is as legally binding as a name printed in script, @chyna. My son has always signed contracts, etc. with his printed name.

Elementary school focuses on the basics. Which of the basics should a child be allowed to opt out of? Reading? Math? English?

As they faze cursive out, we older people will have a written code so to speak,that young people won’t be able to read.

They’re teaching it in 3rd grade this year – my grandkid was showing me just yesterday.

AND they teach kids to read analogue clocks in 3rd grade too.

@SQUEEKY2 I haven’t written in cursive since the early 80s.

@Dutchess_lll Not too phase out, but to have a commom basic core ,with the freedom to go deeper on free time. In elementary school I didn’t do the required book reports. Yet I read most of the forgotten realms and dragonlance novels because I enjoyed reading them.

I think it’s still important. So much is written in cursive that they would never be able to read easily. I realize books and other literature are not, but…I have letters and so many other things written in cursive by my ancestors, I would be really sad not to be able to read them. And I still use cursive whenever I write. For my brain it’s easier and faster.

Free time in elementary school is recess. If the kids want to skip recess to work on math they just need to ask the teacher.

I have not written in cursive since I was forced to in primary school.

@Dutchess_lll Yes. I did that
In grade 6 I stayed in from most recesses, and focused on the vocab quizzes. I got 236% in the language arts extra assignments. I did cheat. Which is weird because earlier I wouldn’t have given a dam about school enough to skip recess for it. Let alone to cheat on any thing.

I think it’s important to learn. No need to dumb kids down any more…

I once found a piece of paper that my mom had written on in short hand. No clue what it said. So, thanks to the internet I was able to find someone who could read short hand.
I forget what she wrote tho.

@Dutchess_lll I don’t think we should have to rely on the internet to decipher the love letters our grandparents wrote to each other during the war.

Maybe they should learn Russian Cursive

@kritiper should they go back to teaching Latin too?
And remember, schools can teach the right way to do things until they’re blue in the face but the children will almost invariably follow the examples the parents set for them.

@ragingloli looks like somebody made trump write “I will stop acting a fool,” 200 times.

If I had love letters between my Grandparents they’d be in cursive…and in Dutch. :[

@Dutchess_lll

Aside from Catholic schools, what school ever taught Latin?

As to the question: yeah, I think some some value in learning cursive.

Oh you got me Darth! I do not know. It’s just something I have heard. But doing some checking it was required for certain degrees like a Doctorate. But they dropped that requirement in the 60s.

I think cursive is good to know. I use it often, writing notes to myself and coworkers.

I use a combination of printing and cursive in the rare occassions I actually write something down.
At work I just sent an email rather than ferrying a Post It note to some one.
And I send myself emails. And texts.

I send emails and texts all the time too.

I just answered the question that I think cursive is good to know, and I said that I still use it. It’s not saying I don’t text or email.

@Dutchess_lll Geez! Why don’t we jump from one subject to an unrelated extreme? I never said anything about Latin, which they didn’t teach me when I was in school…

It’s a complete waste of time. And it’s becoming more obsolete, with every second.

It doesn’t help, that there are so many different types of cursive characters. The way I was taught to draw a capital cursive “f” is different from many others that I have seen. Given such inconsistencies, it makes little sense in almost any format…

I think it’s important to learn cursive because it teaches craft and patience while reinforcing phonics and an understanding of letterforms. Later, in learning software, students are introduced to fonts and even basic typography. Serif fonts, sans-serif fonts, and script fonts (cursive) have different visual “personalities” and thus work best in certain circumstances. Having experience creating these letterforms by hand (along with good, neat printing) allows students to appreciate and understand there fonts more later on.

It is worth spending time on learning a system of writing that is allows a person to quickly write something that is readable. I am not convinced that traditional cursive writing is the ideal system. It might be best to do a combination of print and cursive.

I think it is unnecessary but should be an elective. No one really writes anymore, its all keyboards, texts, etc.. To me, its gone the way of phone booths and hope chests-no longer necessary.

And I never even touched an Abacus.

I think it should be taught in 4th or 5th grade for a few weeks, maybe even older in middle school instead.

I learned it in 3rd grade while it was still challenging to copy letters. Maybe because I was a year ahead it might have been harder for me. In 6th grade they timed our ability to write what was dictated to us, and just those two weeks of practice I became much faster at writing. Huge help in school for taking notes as I got older.

Children today might not use cursive regularly, but I think they should get a few weeks of learning it so they can read it, and for those students who take to it well, it usually is faster to write in cursive than to print.

Don’t you think if you had never seen cursive before, and you are a teen or an adult, and someone spent a few days going over the basics, you would easily be able to read it, even if it was a little slow, stumbling over remembering the capital I or G. In English we can read a sentence full of typos and letters missing and still read it fairly easily and fast.

I agree with @KNOWITALL. Typing was an elective in my middle school and cursive was mandatory in elementary school. Typing should be mandatory and cursive the elective.

I would propose a required course titled “Typographic Communication”. Half the year cursive, half the year typing/keyboard skills, with light history of the printed word sprinkled in (cuneiform to calligraphy to the printing press).

Teach it around 5th grade and again in middle school (intro and advanced).

Cursive actually activates more neural pathways than typing. And reinforces fine motor skills.

It is very important not to lose that skill as when the power goes off no one could communicate on there cell phones etc
One day all our electricity will shut down, then how will people communicate over long distances?
Cursive is a personal way of writing and each person has a unique writing style that cannot be seen using text or print as well.

I don’t care one way or other except that it seems that they just chopped it off at one point. My friend’s son is 18 and those who chose to give him a birthday card with a cash gift didn’t get a thank you because he couldn’t read the signature enough to know who it was from. I find that a bit sad. They should have phased out the inability to read cursive.

@Inspired_2write I have no idea what you just said. “It is very important not to lose that skill as when the power goes off no one could communicate on there cell phones etc” What does that have to do with cursive?
What does communicating over long distances have to do with cursive?
Each printing style is as unique as cursive.

@SEKA why didn’t his parents read the names to him? I can’t see that as an excuse not to extend a “Thank you for the money.”

That time would be better spent learning something more useful like Morse code.

LOLL! Or how to shoe a horse.

@Dutchess_III I was being semi-serious

What should be mandatory is 2 to 3 years of culinary school.

I learned a little Morse code in school. I don’t remember it. We learned SOS and a few others.

Everybody know Morse for SOS!

@Dutchess I think I learned as a child, cant remember though. .-. ??

I think I learned it through a Hardy Boys book. Or a Nancy Drew mystery.

@Inspired_2write I have no idea what you just said. “It is very important not to lose that skill as when the power goes off no one could communicate on there cell phones etc” What does that have to do with cursive?
What does communicating over long distances have to do with cursive?
Each printing style is as unique as cursive.
@Dutchess_lll
I meant if only relying on devices such as computers,iphones etc That writing by hand either print or cursive is important to communicate on paper.
One day people will regret not teaching there children as Grandparents have left personal messages via letters, notes,writing on old photographs etc Even now Sanskrit is taught in University to archaeologists to try and understand the lost messages of a time long gone. Are we leaving anything in the way of legacy to our prodigy?

I want to take this a step further,then why teach adding and subtracting we all have a cell phone on us 24/7 that has a calculator on it my flip has one as well why not just use that?
Why teach history when 98% of us can google any history question 24/7 as well?
Or any other question as well, so all we really need to teach kids is how to use a computer or smart phone.

Well, it’s not like they are going to quit teaching reading and writing in the schools altogether, @Inspired_2write. They may be phasing out cursive is all. We can still communicate with pencil and paper if necessary.

What legacy we leave to our prodigy depends mostly on the parents.

They still teach cursive in our school district.

@SQUEEKY2 You are comparing apples and oranges. We are not suggesting that anyone should stop teaching kids how to read and write just because they have audio books and computers to type on now. We’re talking about eliminating an archaic form of penmanship that is almost obsolete now.

@raum, they still do here, too. But I have heard whispers of phasing it out. It sure gets people riled up, though!

Also, math is evolving too. They teach “common core” math, which a lot of people are uncomfortable with because it isn’t the way they were taught.

People get riled up here too when there is talk about phasing out cursive.

But a lot of the people who are arguing in favor of keeping it often use the argument of tradition or craft.

And sadly, those arguments don’t have much of an impact on things nowadays. :/

I’ve taken calculus in college.
But Common Core boggles my mind.

We really don’t have time in the school day to waste on antiquated things, just because it’s a tradition. We have a lot more to teach the kids than we had to learn.

You don’t like common core because you don’t understand it. If you learned it, I think you’d quite appreciate it.
What it is is someone figured out what tricks people who are good at doing math in their head use. They’re trying to teach those tricks to ALL the students. Being kids, with developing brains, they really gobble it up.

I didn’t say I didn’t like Common Core. I said it boggles my mind.

I haven’t really sat down with it long enough to have an informed opinion.

Actually I’ve found that a lot of autistic adults prefer Common Core. They say it makes a lot of sense to them and is similar to how they break down math equations in their head.

Exactly. We adults, including me, are the only ones having any real problem with it. The kids get it instantly. But it’s harder than hell to teach if you don’t fully understand it. As a sub I get, maybe, 5 minutes to figure it out! HA!
Actually, I put one of the brighter kids in charge of the lesson and I just pay attention.

If you google “Is teaching cursive important” you’ll find a lot of articles and links for and against.

I am only interested in the opinions of you Jellies.

I liken cursive, to calligraphy.

Exactly. The Constitution was written more in a style of calligraphy than modern cursive.