{"id":138625,"date":"2019-04-17T18:55:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T00:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=138625"},"modified":"2019-04-17T19:01:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T01:01:19","slug":"cursive-folioed-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/17\/cursive-folioed-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Cursive! Folioed again!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-138627\" title=\"cursive palmer method\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-650x395.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-650x395.jpg 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-150x91.jpg 150w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-300x182.jpg 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-768x467.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method-1200x730.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a>I am sure there might be good reasons for kids to learn cursive that aren&#8217;t &#8220;Because I did, dammit!&#8221; but they aren&#8217;t among those in the attached article (about revanchist efforts, mostly by political conservatives, to push cursive training back into schools).<\/p>\n<p>Among the reasons given:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>People who don&#8217;t know how to write in cursive won&#8217;t seem educated.<\/em>\u00a0&#8212; That seems very &#8230; subjective. Once upon a time people who couldn&#8217;t decline in Latin and Greek didn&#8217;t seem educated, but we seem to have gotten over that.<\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;Part of being an American is being able to read cursive writing&#8221;<\/em> &#8212; Um &#8230; that seems even more subjective, and, yeah, I really don&#8217;t buy it.<\/li>\n<li><em>The Founding Fathers all knew cursive, as demonstrated by John Hancock in that quintessential document, the Declaration of Independence.<\/em> &#8212; The Founding Fathers wore wigs, too (and, as noted previously, had learned Latin and Greek).<\/li>\n<li><em>Knowing cursive helps you read prominent historical texts in their original handwriting.<\/em> &#8212; Only if you don&#8217;t trust the printed transcriptions. Also, there are a lot of prominent historical texts that require knowledge of, dare I say it, Latin (e.g., the <em>Magna Carta<\/em>). Actually, Louisiana passed a bill requiring cursive education because, in part, the Magna Carta was written in cursive &#8212; while not also mandating Latin education. That strikes me as a bit &#8230; uneducated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_138626\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-138626\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-138626\" title=\"Magna Carta\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta-650x311.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta-650x311.jpg 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta-150x72.jpg 150w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta-300x144.jpg 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta-768x368.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Magna-Carta.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-138626\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Magna Carta, from the Bodleian Library. Does knowing cursive help you read and appreciate it?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Signatures are important and require cursive.<\/em> &#8212; Most people&#8217;s signatures are unintelligible scrawls, and the need for signing stuff continues to dwindle every year.<\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;Your cursive writing identifies you as much as your physical features do&#8221;<\/em> &#8212; And your non-cursive writing doesn&#8217;t, too?<\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;The fact that American kids couldn\u2019t do cursive made us vulnerable to the Russian menace.&#8221;<\/em> &#8212; We still managed to beat &#8217;em. Maybe it&#8217;s because we use a Latin alphabet instead of a Cyrillic one.<\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;It\u2019s a lifelong skill that is part of a well-rounded education. Why leave it out?&#8221;<\/em> &#8212; Because there are only so many hours in the educational day, and it&#8217;s unclear that&#8217;s a more important &#8220;part of a well-rounded education&#8221; than math, science, reading, writing, art, music, theater, PE, or all the other demands on kids times. Hell, we&#8217;ve already carved out vast swathes of time to teach kids to do well on standardized tests &#8212; none of which require cursive &#8212; that eating into the remainder to teach how a second way of forming letters that most people will find of minimal practical application in their life seems goofy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The article does note that there are some studies that seem to indicate that learning and using cursive may have some interesting positive effects in brain development and the like. Of course, it also appears that some of those studies come from &#8230; companies that sell cursive handbooks and the like.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t particularly object to cursive. I just want people to be honest that they are pushing for it because they think it&#8217;s cool and since they had to learn it they want their kids to, too. Dressing it all up in dubious patriotism or incomplete cultural pedagogy only discredits the argument.<\/p>\n<p>My personal preference, though, may be showing through. I dropped handwriting almost as soon as I was allowed to do so, evolving a block script that served me just as well. (My actual cursive is exquisite, as I never learned any bad habits over years except with my scrawl of a signature.)<\/p>\n<p>That said, 99% of the writing I do, I do at a keyboard. I&#8217;d rather kids were getting solid training on that before we bother with cursive.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you want to know more?\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/04\/13\/education\/cursive-writing.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytnational\">Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment. Now It\u2019s Coming Back. &#8211; The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The return of cursive handwriting might have good reasons, but mostly bad ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[108,46,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-school-daze","category-writing-and-language"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cursive-palmer-method.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9913,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/11\/dis_cursive.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":0},"title":"Dis-cursive","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Oct-06 7:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"Is handwriting -- cursive -- going the way of the do-do and elocution lessons? Maybe so. The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;School Daze&quot;","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39718,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/14\/cursive-foiled-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":1},"title":"Cursive! Foiled again!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Nov-13 3:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There may be some arguments in favor of teaching cursive handwriting, but some of the ones advanced here are ... um ... kind of desperate.1. 'They further argue that scholars of the future will lose the ability to interpret valuable cultural resources\u2014historical documents, ancestors' letters and journals, handwritten scholarship\u2014if they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13290,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/28\/cursive.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":2},"title":"Cursive","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Jan-09 10:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's an interesting coincidence that (a) Katherine is learning cursive in school, and (b) Les is posting about how teaching handwriting is declining in the US. Learning to write...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;School Daze&quot;","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/cursive.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4812,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/12\/30\/the_write_stuff.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":3},"title":"The Write Stuff","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 30-Dec-03 11:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"So, is there still a need to teach cursive handwriting? Based on this story, the question is up in the air. Kids today are more fluent on keyboards, and national...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;School Daze&quot;","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12121,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/11\/12\/lets_get_corporate.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;Let&#8217;s Get Corporate&#8221;","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Nov-07 8:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"I can appreciate the need to update one's corporate image now and again -- but, honestly, Holiday Inn is making a huge mistake with their abandonment of the funky...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/holiday_inn_logo.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20586,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/28\/unblogged-bits-mon-28-mar-11-1730.html","url_meta":{"origin":138625,"position":5},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Mon. 28-Mar-11 1730)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 28-Mar-11 5:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Profits at gas pump sputter for many Colorado retailers - The Denver Post - I'll confess (if confession is needed) that I buy almost all my gas from the local Safeway station, usually at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comics &amp; Comic Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comics &amp; Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138629,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138625\/revisions\/138629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}