Posted on 03/15/2014 10:41:36 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Kids can text on tiny keyboards, convey their thoughts in 140 characters or less and use numbers for prepositions, but some states fear they soon may not be able to sign their own names.
In this digital age of Internet acronyms, like “LOL,” and emoticons, Tennessee is the latest state pressing for legislation that mandates students learn cursive writing in school. Lawmakers in the state are pushing for passage of House Bill 1697, which would require all public school students to learn how to read and write in cursive, preferably by the third grade.
The bill, authored by state Republican Rep. Sheila Butt, is meant to prevent a decline in students’ ability to read handwritten notes and sign their own names as well as interpret historical documents in their original form, like the Declaration of Independence.
“Cursive writing is timeless because it connects us to our past,” Butt told FoxNews.com. …
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Imagine the what our government will do when no one can translate the constitution
I had not considered this but the fostering the inability to read “historical documents in their original form” may have been a goal of the people who managed to quash the use of cursive in government schools.
Jeantel is deeply saddened
My homeschool kids are certainly learning how to write cursive. It never occurred to me that public school kids didn’t know how.
Can’t read cursive, but can hear grass!
It is stupid to make laws requiring cursive.
Being left-handed, teachers screwed me up and I never have been good at it, but now after decades of typing I really have to concentrate on it when I have to sign something.
Kids 100 years ago knew how to ride horses but we didn’t pass laws forcing them to keep doing so after cars came along.
The federal gummint requiring anything in schools is stupid.
Don’t see the correlation, with all due respect.
And this is Tennessee AFAICS rather than the federal government.
Rachel J. agrees.
When I was in 8th grade, I had a science teacher who used to write copious notes for us on several blackboards. He wrote in all caps — big and little caps.
I loved his class, and really admired him as a teacher. So naturally, I decided to emulate his writing (which I thought looked really cool) — so much that I decided to abandon cursive altogether. From then on, I have written (i.e printed) exclusively in big and little caps.
And you know what? I sign documents all the time. In the 50 years since I started writing this way, no one (including the effing IRS) has questioned the validity of my signature. Not ever.
I’m all for making sure our kids can read the Constitution, but there are enough printed versions of it available that if they never read it in cursive, it really wouldn’t be a big deal.
I haven’t written in cursive in 50 years.
Sadly it appears that many FReepers are about as bright as the rest of the general population.
Who cares about old timey writin? Pawn Stars is on.
A third grade teacher in public school told me that the time formerly used for learning cursive is now taken up by the preparation for state-mandated testing.
Getting rid of curisve writing is a regressive step back toward the days when only the nobility knew how to read.
As a genealogist I see lots of crazy script, and the fancy cursive is the hardest to read of all! While I make sure my homeschooled kids can read basic cursive, I trust cheat sheets for their future, much like the ones I use for Early American and English script.
And while Rep. Butt fights for this for nostalgia’s sake, others have argued cursive is faster than printing - an equally bad argument given that efficient printers are faster and easier to read.
Typing replaced it.
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