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I've heard some schools are reintroducing it now, but that doesn't help those that never learned.
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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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It wasn't meant to be insulting to Americans, the hate for learning to join up letters and write quickly just doesn't really make sense to the rest of us.
You know what's stupid and fucking ignorant? Assuming everyone has a laptop on them all the time. Do people really not write notes anymore? Handwriting notes is much more conducive to learning than typing and is a basic skill that aids education at all levels.
I've got a phone on me far more than I have a writing instrument, let alone paper: and I suspect that is true for the overwhelming majority of people.
I'll even just give you that cursive improves retention and learning and fine motor skills (there are studies that go either way, and my personal experience is that it did nothing at all, but fig leaf): is the benefit worth the time versus just having more time in class for the subjects in question?
If you're giving the idea that cursive improves retention and learning then I would say yes definitely.
It's a revision technique you can use for every exam, at the cost of what? a year of lessons once a week or so? (I have no idea how long cursive is learned for to be fair, I just learned to join writing in English while learning other stuff, seems like a weird thing to specifically have a lesson for to me).
My point is you're not going to learn a meaningful amount extra with that time, you're already dividing your time by 10 or so subjects, having 10% more learning in each subject for 1 year out of the 11-15ish years in education won't make a noticeable difference, certainly not more than learning an effective revision method for exams.
Just my opinion anyway. As a kid I used to argue with teachers all the time that I shouldn't have to write things by hand because I'd be typing the rest of my life anyway. That doesn't help in office meetings taking notes though and even when I have a laptop the notes are no better honestly. I feel like if I learned to write then barely did it ever again it would be so slow that it would be a genuine disadvantage.
You'll give it to me? Thanks I guess. All I've seen are studies that show the brain learns better when using handwriting over typing.
I also tend to have a smartphone on me all the time, but if I'm in a situation to take notes, I'll always bring some writing implement. I'm not taking notes in an office meeting on my phone for numerous reasons and even when I'm at a multiscreen computer I still want to take physical notes.
You can take notes without cursive. Even if it's technically faster, most people's cursive is an illegible scrawl, often even to themselves. I can scribble really fast, too, but so what?
This is somewhere between annoying and a minor problem for most things. It became downright dangerous when doctors would write out a prescription, and the pharmacist would misread the dose by an order of magnitude or more.
Also, I like using fountain pens, and I find I have to slow down anyway for the flow to be right. Modern one's don't tend to dribble ink the way an old quill pen might, so lifting it from the page is no problem.
Yeah you can also learn shorthand and take notes super fast. But that is a completely different language. Cursive is literally just joining up letters you are already learning at that point in school.
Cursive is not just joining letters, at least how I was taught. Cursive is a completely different way of writing that involves specifically no up strokes. That’s separate from “joined writing” which is a term I haven’t heard before this thread.
I would call that calligraphy, not cursive. The cursive I was taught in the US has many upstrokes and you only lift your pen at the end to cross t and x and dot I and j.
I think this may be the crux of the issue. Nobody was taught a consistent ‘cursive’. We were all taught basically different dialects, without really realizing it, so nobody can read anyone else’s cursive
I mean, that was also what I learned in the UK. We used fountain pens specifically so that it had to be no upstrokes, but the alphabet wasn't as complex and dated as some people are posting examples of.
I think "joined up" is just the trashy crude way we call it! I think I had heard of the band Cursive before knowing what it was.
Lol this is like the best example of pissing on my foot and telling me it's raining.
And if I had argued that we shouldn't need to learn cursive because everyone has a laptop all the time, this wouldn't be a completely fucking stupid argument. Alas, I did not.
I also almost never write in cursive and know how. I can count on one hand how many times in my life I was like "oh crap! I should switch over to cursive to save some time!" and I lost all the fingers on that hand in a freak grenade accident (joking).
This is especially stupid because I actually support kids learning cursive. It's just a skill that is much less important than it was 50 years ago and so I don't particularly care either way if kids learn it.
You can just admit you were wrong, its much easier than trying to pile on more nonsense to justify the ignorant insult.
I was wrong about what exactly? My facetious point about American and World views on the matter? I still think it was on point despite not being 100% serious.
It's absolutely commonplace in the UK to learn this at an extremely young age and not something that "takes up valuable learning time". It seems weird not to learn it. How about we don't learn how to paint either because most people don't have use for watercolours in their daily life?
I think the fact I'm being down voted by the Americans who don't want to learn cursive is kind of a hilarious confirmation.
There's no need to learn cursive, it serves no functional purpose that typing cannot match. Other than your signature, which... you have to learn how to do separate to cursive anyway to protect yourself from fraud by making it as unique and as difficult to replicate as possible.
Good luck typing something when you have no electronic device nearby or no power. I know we live in a connected, techno-cebtric world now, but it's wild to think that this simple skill is no longer valued at all by some.
Also, your signature being the thing protecting you from fraud is quite hilarious from a European perspective too!
Since the invention of the smartphone I haven’t been without an electronic device nearby for a single moment. And if by some chance I find myself in this incredibly unlikely scenario, a power outage that’s long enough to outlast my phone battery, and for some reason desperately need to write something down, I could just write it down in print. That is, if I can even find a piece of paper and a writing utensil. I just don’t think the few times over the course of my life that this incredibly unlikely scenario happens, will make it somehow worth it to learn and remember a second form of hand writing when the first will do.
Remember a second form of hand writing? What did they do to you in your schools??
Block letters to me are just the same capital letters I would use for cursive. They are one and the same to me and I don't get how its such a big deal to write fluidly in one pen stroke.
In America, cursive letters don’t look like block letters. Thats the point of this entire post. Kids can’t read it because it’s almost like learning a second alphabet. If they were one and the same why would anyone have trouble reading it?
In America plenty of people write regular print fluidly in one, or fewer pen strokes. But that’s not the same thing as cursive in America. Cursive is a very specific script of very extravagant, stylized letters.
I was taught to read and write cursive in grade school and now as an adult I literally can’t, because I’ve forgotten.
I think you need to look up the word cursive. Whatever traumatised you in school had a name that you didn't learn such as D'Nealian Script. Cursive is the all encompassing word for flowing joined up script.
I have a hard time comprehending why anyone would have trouble reading it in the first place.
It’s Zaner-Bloser script, and that is what Americans are referring to when they say cursive. We have joined-up script here but we don’t call it cursive, even if technically speaking, it is. And it isn’t traumatizing, it’s just a pointless waste of time, and nobody wants to actively waste their time when they could be doing something of value instead.
It’s not hard to comprehend why people can’t read it, half of the letters don’t even resemble their print counterparts. You’d have to learn the cursive alphabet the same way you had to learn the print alphabet. If you don’t do that, you wouldn’t be able to read it, especially if somebody’s handwriting isn’t incredibly clean and clear.
You’re right, that is stupid. Thats why most of us use smartphones, the fuck?
Where's the RFC for Lemmy by post office?
Yeah, it's definitely not ignorant to assume everyone in the world can afford an expensive smart phone for every child to replace a simple pen and paper...
Anyone who is actively participating in society in a first world country can afford a cheap smartphone. And if you live in the U.S. and somehow can’t afford one, the government will give you one for free. So it isn’t so much “ignorant” as it is “accurate”
Ah yes, such accuracy. Fuck everyone that's not in the US.
Having to rely on my government to give me a smart phone, so I can take notes in class, is one of the oddest things I've heard to "prove" kids should not be taught a basic skill.
That’s the neat part, you don’t have to rely on the government to give you a smart phone to take notes in class. You can still take handwritten notes without cursive. It’s really very easy. It almost sounds like you don’t even know how to write legibly in print?
Your condescension doesn't even make sense. You had the opportunity to say I was poor or didn't know how to use a smartphone or something.
But no, you maintain that everyone in the world should have a smartphone at all times and are on some sort of high horse about being able to write simple letters only.
It makes perfect sense. Maybe you spent too much time in school learning cursive and not enough time learning critical thinking?
You don’t have to have a smartphone at all times if you don’t want to. You still don’t need cursive. I’m not sure what’s so difficult for you to understand. Most people do, and most people will use their phone. If you’re one of the few people on the planet who are both educated but also can’t/don’t want to use a phone, you still have the option to write by hand, and you still don’t need cursive to do that.
You speak of high horses while you insist that you’re somehow more enlightened because you know how to write a specific way that gives you some marginal benefit in situations that most people don’t even find themselves in.
We get it, you’re a very special cookie. But the rest of us are just fine without lol.
I think you need to look up critical thinking also. I'm providing links to peer reviewed studies showing the benefits and you're using your feelings to form an opinion because of how it was taught to you, and your personal experience (not) using it in adulthood.
It's not really getting on a high horse to say that kids should not get a dumbed down education specifically in an area that helps with the actual act of learning and fine motor control.
I'm fine, my kids will be fine. American children will have increasingly weak educations.
You’ve linked peer reviewed studies showing the marginal benefits in scenarios that don’t apply to most people most of the time. It’s not that there’s absolute zero benefit, just not enough benefit to keep teaching it. School is compulsory in the U.S. so it’s important that we choose subjects that stand to benefit American students the most. And an archaic writing system that the vast majority of students will never use again once leaving grade school is not a great benefit. It’s not a “dumbing down” it’s a trimming of that fat. We taught cursive in schools for centuries, and it’s just not used anymore, so why keep teaching it?
You’re still on your high horse and talk down about American education and yet here you are on Lemmy struggling to form a single coherent thought, losing track of the thread of argument, and just repeating the same thing over and over without making any real substantial point. Evidently your education wasn’t the hottest either. Probably because they have too strong a focus on nonsense like cursive script.
There has been no argument. I think kids should be taught how to write well as (and you agree) it has benefits for their whole school learning experience.
You are replying to me with moronic shit all over this post because you are adamant that time could be used for something better. Maybe an insults class? Seems to be what you want to practice the most in your adult life.
That’s the thing, we do teach kids to write well. In a script they’ll actually use. It almost feels like you feel the need to make this pointless argument just so that you can justify the time you wasted learning cursive. Like as a coping mechanism.
We just don’t have that problem. We write what we need to write in a way that works and for everything else we type. I feel for you that your students are evidently so destitute and your school system so inadequate that you don’t have basic, cheap technology available to your students and children, but that’s just not a problem we have. It’s not any kind of deficit for us that we don’t teach cursive anymore. It’s the most non-issue with our school systems anyone could possibly think up.
Ha, you revisited my suggestion for improving your insults and called me poor and tried to blame my position on a coping mechanism again.
Are you a chatbot? You talk like a chatbot.
I didn’t call you poor, you called yourself poor. You tried to argue that having access to a cellphone was some kind of privilege of wealth that is unattainable for the average person, and literally said it would be ignorant to assume otherwise. Either it’s normal in your country to be so poor that you can’t even afford a cheap smart phone, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then you admit that people have regular and easy access to a note taking device and you were just bullshitting me. I can’t answer that question, only you can.
Tell me more chatbot.
I’ll take that as you throwing in the towel lol.
Sure, the best way to win an argument, wearing the other party down with nonsense, repetition and insults.
Maybe you can teach that in your schools along with forced nationalism, Christian values and typing.
Well since your argument isn’t based in reality, you have to make it all up as you go along. I guess you just ran out of ideas. It was bound to happen eventually. Now that you mention a chat bot, I have to wonder if you were just feeding my comments into chat GPT and copy and pasting its responses. Your responses do lack the context of object reality much like chatGPT would. It would explain a lot.
Ah the old reverse uno card. You got me.