Indiana to drop handwriting requirement

Personally I think handwriting is a necessary skill. What do you think?

Indiana is the latest US state which will not require its schoolchildren to learn joined-up, or cursive, writing.

 

How can children develop a signature if they're never taught handwriting? Print should never be a valid signature because it's so easy to duplicate.

 

I can hardly write a legibly complete sentence anymore because of computers and the way we communicate but it's a good thing to know as hand printing is way more laborious than cursive writing. I guess it's the sign of the times that we rely on gadgets more than our own basic skills. It'll sure save them time and money in their school budgets.

 

Anyone want to buy a fountain pen, broad nib of course. rolleyes

 

Oh, is that one of those pens that can work in water like you find in a fountain?

 

Teachers are so busy teaching student how to not fail tests they do not have time to teach Reading Writing and Arithmetic.

You should see some of the society members fresh out of High School trying to learn how to fill out a Job Application at the Umemployment office. Sad.

 

I never learned how to write and can only print.

It has only been an issue twice in my 41 years on this planet and both times, I pretty much walked away.

I think that it is just fine if kids are never taught to write. I find it really hard to read.

 

Pity! Going a similar route as math. In the old school we had to learn to add, subtract etc. the hard way = using our brains.

Yes, I don't like handwriting anymore because I got a bit too impatient doing it manually. What would happen though if there would be no electricity for a while.... ? Everything to a standstill, even handwriting?

 

So kids should spend a good portion of their lesson time being taught skills in case of nuclear war?:-D

If you had to choose just one skill to take into adulthood,advanced courses in handwriting or advanced courses in Microsoft word,advanced courses in Microsoft word would easily be more beneficial.

I can write in joined up writing 'as we say' but only when I'm writing notes to myself as no one else can read it:confused If I have to communicate with another humans I use block capitals.

Math is no different than it used to that's a myth,the difference now is as well as learning manual math kids have to also learn calculator math,as I did at school,the syllabus was split 50-50.

People who get a masters in math now have to learn and be able to apply twice as much information as someone who got a masters 20-30 years ago.

 

BAH Rikky! No one has mentioned PHD candidates yet. You must have seen some atrocious posts here and elsewhere, spelling wise. Where are they going to get that learning then? Google? Spellchecker? In through one ear and out the other eh?

At least give the kids the basics. Why is it so much harder now than back in the 50's and 60's to properly fund and educate kids? I don't get it.:confused

 

No one has mentioned cutting spelling from the curriculum either?

Well what are the basics? All kids have to learn to add,subtract,multiply,take away all kids have to learn to spell and punctuate even if you use a spell checker,actually I think a spellchecker helps you learn faster if you use it right.

The only difference is where kids would spend ages ferreting away working out large numbers they now do it with a calculator.

For the time they aren't working out huge sums they aren't doing nothing,they're learning all the new maths techniques that have appeared since the invention of the calculator,things that aid in the design of things like CPU's or understanding the universe.

My point is the amount of class time hasn't gone down so they must be learning something in that time 'in all classes' that people didn't have to learn during the days of just pen and paper.

And that's why education is so much harder these days also,there is so much more information to assimilate its tough to teach everything in the amount of class time they have,even when I was in high school there was that much information we had to specialise when we were 13,yup we had to drop either history or geography and decide which specialist subject to learn.

This was unheard of 10-20 years before.

If that trend continues kids will have to specialise earlier and earlier,we may see things in the near future like English lit being dropped completely in high school in favour of advanced math and vice versa or english lit being dropped and exchanged for extra classes in web page design or HTML. Just off the cuff examples,I've used english lit as an example because when I was in high school we all had to use it and the only thing it helps with in later life is if you become an english lit teacher,study or enjoy books.

 

This is off topic but germane.
My wife works for a large corporation in the Virtual Learning department. (On-line in-house classes for training purposes on the technologies used.)
Instructors create the classes and tests and my wife vets and gets the classes into the system and online.
The number of grammatical and spelling errors is astounding to me when these instructors put their classes in the queue for vetting.
Supposedly these are individuals with the knowledge to teach their areas of expertise but they can't be bothered to even use spell-check or proof-read their work.
Of course, I only hear about the most egregious mistakes but if you are paid to be a professional in your work you should be able to communicate, whether written or typed, in the correct manner.
(OK, so I'm anal about spelling and grammar but, jeez louise, these are horrendous mistakes.)

OK back on topic. Rant over.

 

We had a major blackout in August 2003 which lasted several days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 The only way to get info on the happenings was with a portable radio.
One doesn't need a nuclear war to experience blackouts. :-D Anyways, have you ever used a non-electrical typewriter such as the pic below? Well, I did and learned to type on one similar to one of these old clunkers and realized that handwriting was much faster than using a monster like that.

 

My daughter (high school) has told me that our school district has dropped PE completely from the grade schools. There's already only a librarian at any given school only 2 days a week, and not all day at that. Her music teachers job was axed when she left middle school and the music teacher from the high school now goes to the middle school part of the day. Sports have been impacted too, so you can't say that they're cutting other stuff in lieu of that. Also the math that my daughter was taught was that new math. She tries to explain it to me and basically it's so wishy washy it's no wonder kids don't know their multiplication tables.

My father in law is a teacher in another district. Teaches math in high school. He says that teaching to the test is fine (the first 3/4s of a school year is just prep for the state wide test) but the problem is that in the last 6 years the test standards have changed 5 times. None of it is the new math that my daughter was taught, at least it has that going for it.

 

I can write cursive. It is cursive. Calling it 'joined up writing' is just stupid. Really a sign of the further dumbing down of America.

Do I ever use it? Very rarely, when I need to jot something down fast.

 

I can write cursive. It is cursive. Calling it 'joined up writing' is just stupid. Really a sign of the further dumbing down of America.

Do I ever use it? Very rarely, when I need to jot something down fast. Have I ever signed for anything with it? Once, when the UPS guy needed a signature.

New math?

 

Exactly. That's been bothering me as well.

Me, I use cursive all the time. But then my position as recording secretary kind of requires that I write a lot of things down, and printing in all capital letters takes too darn long. :-D

 

Look at college kids these days, they can't spell if they're life depended on it and schools just keep passing them on to get them out quicker. Is this quality schooling? uke

Like I said before, they're just cutting costs. I get local American TV and you should see the wrangling over school budgets, people don't want their taxes increased but they want quality schooling, it ain't gonna happen!

 

My brat has just turned thirteen. She studies in a very private school on the International Baccalaureate (IB) board.

One thing is certain the ICSE board I studied in was ten times more educational on all fronts.

She's going into class nine in a month, doubt she would have passed yr7 on the ICSE board. Math, sciences, even English are of a much higher standard. Forget Shakespeare we had accountancy, as a additional subject not to mention Chem, Bio and Physics in yr7.

Legible writing was paramount as one wrote pages upon pages in class work, Home work exams etc.

As mentioned its all printed out now.

Cheers..

 

Gees, I'm sure she's not a Brat.

Of course kids should be taught cursive writing. It's a basic skill that anyone with basic education should have.

I don't use it much and I find that when I do, it's a mix of cursive and print.

Think about this. If you were to receive a personal note from someone expressing care or concern for you
or someone close to you, which would convey a greater feeling of warmth and personal contact,
a handwritten note or a computer printout?