Handwriting in the Digital Age
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-28/handwriting-digital-age
A child starting kindergarten this fall might only study cursive writing in history class. A growing number of schools no longer require teachers to provide instruction in cursive. Those in favor of dropping “joined up writing” say teaching it is time consuming and can be easily replaced in a world of texting and word processing. Proponents say handwriting helps foster fine motor skills and other cognitive development -- and that taking pen to paper is not only a beautiful art form but can be a means of individual expression. Guest host, Susan Page, and her guests discuss the fate of handwriting and penmanship in the digital age.
Guests
Anne Trubek
Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Oberlin College
Kitty Burns Florey
author of "Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting"
Tracey Bailey
Director of Education Policy for the Association of American Educators and 1993 National Teacher of the Year
Karen Epstein
fourth grade teacher at Rockwell Elementary School in Montgomery County, Maryland
Comments
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NO Child left Behind and additions to curriculum have squeezed time for teaching cursive. As an elementary teacher I have enjoyed teaching cursive, but I find younger teachers do not because they don't use cursive themselves. I believe learning cursive is valuable, but ultimately the community must decide what it values.
NO Child left Behind and additions to curriculum have squeezed time for teaching cursive. As an elementary teacher I have enjoyed teaching cursive, but I find younger teachers do not because they don't use cursive themselves. I believe learning cursive is valuable, but ultimately the community must decide what it values.
Just yesterday, my husband was talking about how neither of our children could sign their own name properly. At 9 and 12 years old, they have both been advanced students, with high test scores and earned their "cursive license" in 3rd grade. They lack confidence in both reading cursive and writing in cursive.
As a high school teacher, I've noticed the same with my students. I'm afraid we're headed in the same direction as we are with clocks - this generation finds it too difficult to take the time to read an analog clock.
Now the nostalgic part.
Who saves emails for 50 or 100 years? Because electronic writing is so easy, we get verbose and casual. We use a lot of words to say very little, or we use abbreviations that are cliche's.
Who wants to save an electronic communication from their grandfather or grandmother for 40 or 50 years? But that handwritten note might survive.
Who wants a bereavement email instead of a short, personal, handwritten note? It is precisely because the author took the time and effort required to send such a personal message that makes it so appreciated.
The fact that it is easier to edit electronically has nothing to do with our "desire to edit, clarify, and improve". I personally think that authors like Grishom that wrote their first books in cursive did not mean that they did not edit their work before publishing.
Guess that journals and diaries should be discarded as well.
Like the debates over TV replacing radio, I think there is both room and a need for both keyboarding and cursive skills.
Now the nostalgic part.
Who saves emails for 50 or 100 years? Because electronic writing is so easy, we get verbose and casual. We use a lot of words to say very little, or we use abbreviations that are cliche's.
Who wants to save an electronic communication from their grandfather or grandmother for 40 or 50 years? But that handwritten note might survive.
Who wants a bereavement email instead of a short, personal, handwritten note? It is precisely because the author took the time and effort required to send such a personal message that makes it so appreciated.
The fact that it is easier to edit electronically has nothing to do with our "desire to edit, clarify, and improve". I personally think that authors like Grishom that wrote their first books in cursive did not mean that they did not edit their work before publishing.
Guess that journals and diaries should be discarded as well.
Like the debates over TV replacing radio, I think there is both room and a need for both keyboarding and cursive skills.
i guess today is lets be fake day or something because all i hear is fake panelists on the mic today. lets be real. lololol. this budget crunch has got you all about to take cursive out of school. lol. and i promise that one girl hates cursive so bad i think it makes her physically ill. lololol. that girl is a strangling for real. lol. listen to her she's about to cry for real. lol.
While teaching 5th grade, I saw students who could not read the copies of original sources in their social studies text books. This was the biggest downfall, in my opinion, of not knowing cursive writing- not knowing how to read it because you did not master how to write it. There is something very powerful about reading the Constitution as it was written, for one's self.
So now we have one more life skill to be taught at home by parents rather than the public school system.
As others have said, notes, letters, signatures, anything that is not produced on a computer (with printing capability).
Reminds me of many Sci-Fi stories decrying the atrophy of the human mind due to machine capability.
Why even bother with keyboarding skills? Just talk to the machine then edit that stream of consciousness.
No wonder the US public school system is failing...fad after fab...versus substance.
By the way, is this same anti-writing trend reflected in Europe or other countries?
(to the panelist....perhaps writing more...but clearly saying less: classic quantity vs quality. Remember Mark Twain's classic response to his editor about brevity.)
I am shocked at the cavalier attitude your panelists are taking towards a basic element of our culture. Being able to express oneself in smooth handwriting is an essence of a complete personality. Being able to read the handwriting of othes is an essence of communication. Let's not get too excited by new tecnologies, which we all know are grand and important. But losing one's culture is a serious setback for one's personality. Please think a bit about your responsbility as teachers.
Ever try typing in a sketch book? gg
Sure, a student can use a portable computer w/ the proper software in a field study (for drawing from nature). That option works (marginally) until the battery runs out.
So, teach both – keyboarding and handwriting. Just cut back on the online time to allow for the handwork.
-MU
I am shocked at the cavalier attitude your panelists are taking towards a basic element of our culture. Being able to express oneself in smooth handwriting is an essence of a complete personality. Being able to read the handwriting of othes is an essence of communication. Let's not get too excited by new tecnologies, which we all know are grand and important. But losing one's culture is a serious setback for one's personality. Please think a bit about your responsbility as teachers.
I am shocked at the cavalier attitude your panelists are taking towards a basic element of our culture. Being able to express oneself in smooth handwriting is an essence of a complete personality. Being able to read the handwriting of othes is an essence of communication. Let's not get too excited by new tecnologies, which we all know are grand and important. But losing one's culture is a serious setback for one's personality. Please think a bit about your responsbility as teachers.
I am shocked at the cavalier attitude your panelists are taking towards a basic element of our culture. Being able to express oneself in smooth handwriting is an essence of a complete personality. Being able to read the handwriting of othes is an essence of communication. Let's not get too excited by new tecnologies, which we all know are grand and important. But losing one's culture is a serious setback for one's personality. Please think a bit about your responsbility as teachers.
Wouldn't you rather receive a beautifully hand-written love letter than a typed one?
To say that because only 15% of students who took the SAT "chose" to write their essay in cursive is incorrect. We are already not teaching our students cursive. Perhaps they begin to learn to write in cursive in elementary school but by middle school, and certainly high school, they are no longer expected to use cursive therefore by the time they take the SAT they probably do not feel comfortable enough writing in cursive to even attempt an essay in anything other than print. In fact, I work with students who do not even know what each letter of the alphabet would be in cursive.
How can we not expect our students to know print, cursive and keyboarding? Why do we have to exclude any of it? It seems we expect less and less of our students as technology grows.
Now the nostalgic part.
Who saves emails for 50 or 100 years? Because electronic writing is so easy, we get verbose and casual. We use a lot of words to say very little, or we use abbreviations that are cliche's.
Who wants to save an electronic communication from their grandfather or grandmother for 40 or 50 years? But that handwritten note might survive.
Who wants a bereavement email instead of a short, personal, handwritten note? It is precisely because the author took the time and effort required to send such a personal message that makes it so appreciated.
The fact that it is easier to edit electronically has nothing to do with our "desire to edit, clarify, and improve". I personally think that authors like Grishom that wrote their first books in cursive did not mean that they did not edit their work before publishing.
Guess that journals and diaries should be discarded as well.
Like the debates over TV replacing radio, I think there is both room and a need for both keyboarding and cursive skills.
I am in awe at the refusal by some of the panelists to acknowledge the value of learning cursive. This seems to be a very ethnocentric view when the majority of the world still communicates without the use of a word processor or keyboarding.
What happens when the power goes down, your battery goes dead, or your computer breaks? Having the option to communicate with pen and paper will always be available to you.
Katie
No VA
As a parent of a special needs student in Indiana who has had issues with writing, I'm glad this change has been made. I had many very long case conference meeting where I fought with the teachers about which is more important writing or learning material like nouns and verbs. I've had teachers that refuse to take assignments done on the computer. When I consider how much cursive I do at work and in life, it just doesn't make sense why my daughter needs to know more cursive than what it takes to sign her name.
she's crazy dogg. she's nuts. she hates cursive for real.
When I learned cursive in school, I was told that writing in cursive would be faster than printing, because all the letters were connected. Cursive was taught after you learned to print because the perception was that it was more difficult to learn than printing. I agree that I write much faster when writing in cursive......Perhaps, we should stop teaching print and only teach cursive.
Also, keep in mind that you can teach key boarding to a first grader, but a childs hands are not the right size for the keyboard until they are about in fifith grade. Making children solely use a keyboard too soon, teaches them to not learn typing properly, which down the line, hinders a person's ability to type at a proper speed.
I'm an English instructor and I believe children should be taught cursive. Your guest insists handwriting isn't needed with todays computers--but I'm struck by the fact that simply losing power from failure of the power grid knocks us into a third world nation. It doesn't matter how much we archive--if we don't upgrade the power grid we won't be able to use our technology reliably.
MORE writing doesn't mean better writing...just compare any of those amazing letters written by civil war soldiers, for example, and compare them to anything written by soldiers these days...faster, yes, more convenient, definitely, but that's about it.
fcattorney wrote:
"So please explain what happens to a persons signature? How does aperson sign a legal document or a check?"
I've printed my signature on legal documents for 30 years. It's as stylized, distinctive and unreproducible as my cursive signature.
I'm an English instructor and I believe children should be taught cursive. Your guest insists handwriting isn't needed with todays computers--but I'm struck by the fact that simply losing power from failure of the power grid knocks us into a third world nation. It doesn't matter how much we archive--if we don't upgrade the power grid we won't be able to use our technology reliably and will need cursive to communicate.
Please consider the practical aspect of handwriting. I'm a journalist who regularly covers meetings and events. There's nothing more irritating than to sit next to a colleague who bangs away at a laptop keyboard during a meeting or an event taking his or her notes.
I'm an English instructor and I believe children should be taught cursive. Your guest insists handwriting isn't needed with todays computers--but I'm struck by the fact that simply losing power from failure of the power grid knocks us into a third world nation. It doesn't matter how much we archive--if we don't upgrade the power grid we won't be able to use our technology reliably and will need cursive to communicate.
If kindergarteners today can feel the same focus and clarity in front of a computer that I feel sitting down with pencil and paper, then that's great for them. All I know is that as a college student today, having grown up typing and using computers, the hardest thing about writing an essay is keeping myself from goofing off on the internet long enough to actually write something. I have to think that young students today will face this same problem, and if using computers in school from an early age can help them with that, then they'll be doing better than I am.
Here, here. Thank you for speaking up for those of us who, despite hours of practice and drilling, still have atrocious handwriting. The advent of computers was such a God-send for me and I was finally able to focus on the idea of the composition not the appearance. I always felt it was a language assignment, not an art project.
It seems we're only considering practical uses. We don't tuly know what cursive accomplishes- it takes concentration, fine motor skills, but it also involves creating something they can be very proud of. We're losing the idea that creating -- which I'm sure the writers on the show are proud of their creative skills --is a very important and valuable thing.
What about the connection between the brain and the hand - I seem to think there's an important connection that occurs that we are not considering. It's not just about the result that lands on the page= it's also the process.