On Handwriting

[samedi]

A recent article from MSNBC came out over the weekend discussing the drop in familiarity with cursive handwriting and its future alongside courses focusing more heavily on computer-related skills. The article mentions that the American National Assessment of Educational Progress will soon have students fill in composition components via computer

Comments

[samuraibutterfl]

That makes me sad. I can understand the reasons why, but it still makes me sad.
Both of my parents are doctors and sadly the stereotype holds true. I think because they lacked it, they always told me to hone my skills. In high school, I did a lot of calligraphy. There's just something that means a lot to me when I can make something pretty.
At school I print for the kids but if it's a secret or something personal, I write it in cursive.
I don't think they really have penmanship class but I see many students running around with ink and traditional brushes so I think some study calligraphy.

[samedi]

Like you, I can understand why they'd replace time spent on cursive with other subjects (keyboard skills), but that doesn't mean I enjoy the decision. Both of my parents have fairly good handwriting and employ a combination of print and cursive, and in addition to my elementary school requirement I also voluntarily took an after-school class on calligraphy/typography.
I do have one student who enters calligraphy competitions, but I have no idea how much emphasis is placed on handwriting within a 'standard level' public school class.

[eclexys]

I really wonder how much it's changed. I actually hope it has changed a lot, because my experience was that in fifth or sixth grade, my otherwise wonderful teacher forced me to spend hours and hours working on cursive writing, to no avail. I tried and tried and the end result is no better than where I started. I print badly, too. Legible if I make a sustained effort, but even that fails after some fatigue sets in

[samedi]

My experience in elementary school seems to be a little different from yours in that we didn't spend too much time in class perfecting our writing. Most of that was presumably something that students worked on at home, or that naturally improved over time. My elementary school was in a logging town situated next to a national forest, so we didn't really get anything in the way of 'cultural experiences' outside of what was covered in class; perhaps the time we did spend on cursive was seen as part of receiving a well-rounded education