When I was in grade school, at some point I realized that I was starting to forget how to print. I preferred printing to cursive, so that pissed me off. I stopped writing in cursive. If my teachers wanted to read my writing, they got it in print or type, and that was that. Some of them whined, but none of them ever stuck with that for very long. I was stubborner than all of them. I can write in cursive, but I almost never do it.
My school had a strict cursive requirement from 3rd through 6th grade. Some teachers were so anal about it that if you turned in something in manuscript, it was an instant failure. Unread. after one indecent in which I wrote a five-page paper in manuscript and the teacher gave me a zero on it based on my lack of cursive (because I knew that if I'd written in cursive, she wouldn't be able to parse the content of the paper, so I made a 10-year-old judgment call) my mother came in and lobbied for me. We had to take it to the principal, who told me to type the paper and made the teacher grade that. My mother then purchased a used typewriter at goodwill, and I learned its care and operation. We got a computer when I was 12. I switched back to manuscript for work done at school and for note taking as soon as I was allowed to. (I also stopped taking notes at all when I was in college, upon the epiphany that -no one was making me do so anymore- and my GPA skyrocketed)
I had a few teachers try that. They all gave up after a few rounds. I think they figured out how imbecilic it would look to pretend that someone wasn't doing the work who could easily prove that it was all done. Doesn't work in every school, necessarily, but stubbornness has gotten me through a lot of walls that were supposedly impassable.
Cursive was only ever relevant in getting my "pen licence" in year 4, and after that I don't think the teachers ever cared whether you wrote cursive or what. (Also everyone got their pen licence by the end of the year anyway.)
Also in my experience the most illegible handwriting comes from people who write in cursive.
I was acceptably legible in manuscript as a child of 8, and would probably have gotten perfect if I'd been allowed to practice an expand my skill in an organic manner. But at 9 I hit up against the cursive wall hard and could not hack it, then retreated to typing anything and everything at the first opportunity. Hence, today, my handwriting (which is manuscript - I can't even remember how to write in cursive) is...about where you'd expect an 8-year-old's to be.
"...who wants to send their teenager to college printing? Cursive is simply more efficient for notetaking!"That's hilarious, because no, no it's not. As a college student who was taught both printing and cursive in school, and who primarily used print from about seventh grade onto college, I am _significantly noticeably slower_ when I write in cursive
( ... )
With me, they even got on me about printing incorrectly. Apparently I write the numeral two backwards. You know, if you're writing it with a bottom-to-top stroke instead of a top-to-bottom stroke, it doesn't matter whether it is clearly recognizeable as a two or not, it's still wrong. Trufax!
Nowadays my customary handwriting is an unholy amalgam of cursive and print. Cursive where it suits me, and print everywhere else...often in the same word.
Lols, Overland Park. That's where I live. When a lot of 8-10 year olds come up to me saying they can't read enough to find a video game on the wall, maybe they should realise cursive shouldn't be on their list of priorities.
Anyway, I wasn't able to learn cursive at school, because we moved to England where we don't have it. We have joined up writing, but he's a lot different. To this day, I can't really read cursive. My dad writes that way, and it's always given me trouble. I thought about learning it, but with my hands cramping up after I write a lot, I changed my mind. As long as your writing is legible, it shouldn't matter how you form your letters.
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Also in my experience the most illegible handwriting comes from people who write in cursive.
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Nowadays my customary handwriting is an unholy amalgam of cursive and print. Cursive where it suits me, and print everywhere else...often in the same word.
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Anyway, I wasn't able to learn cursive at school, because we moved to England where we don't have it. We have joined up writing, but he's a lot different. To this day, I can't really read cursive. My dad writes that way, and it's always given me trouble. I thought about learning it, but with my hands cramping up after I write a lot, I changed my mind. As long as your writing is legible, it shouldn't matter how you form your letters.
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