Why the Education Establishment Hates Cursive

American Thinker ^ | December 23, 2016 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[Kaslin]

Modern educators are dismissive of cursive. Indeed, many are hostile to such a degree that you should immediately suspect that they are up to something.

Here is an education journalist providing the Party Line: "Cursive writing is an anachronism. Spending any classroom time on it is comparable to teaching how to use an abacus: it's interesting as a history lesson, and probably offers some side benefits, but it is not at all practical as a day-to-day skill in the modern, connected world."

A professor of education argues: "Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades." (You can depend on education professors to confuse "decades" with "centuries.")

When you read such swaggering attacks on cursive, you might assume that the question is settled. The old geezer is dead, so take him off life support. You rarely see thoughtful praise of cursive. Even people who are sentimentally inclined to support cursive can't think of many reasons to do so.

I propose a higher truth: the Education Establishment is always a reliable guide to what is good. If our socialist professors rail against X, you know that X is educational gold. Here are eight reasons why cursive is valuable and we should fight to keep it in the classroom:

1) LEARN TO READ FASTER. The main thing is that learning cursive accelerates learning to read. If it did nothing else, this alone would still make it a huge asset. Cursive obviously makes a child more aware of letter forms and how words are spelled. Don Potter, the phonics guru, states: "Any attempt to educate American children that neglects the direct development of fluent handwriting is doomed to fail. The little dribble of handwriting done with the typical phonics programs is FAR below optimal."

[antidisestablishment]

I am always impressed with the lost skills.

[Kaslin]

You said it.

[gr8eman]

Really? Do you sign your name in block letters?

[tomkat]

..students who have never used a screwdriver.

News such as that (and not having to deal with such snowflakes) takes a bit of the sting out of aging, ya know ?!

Back in the day there was a concensus amongst most all us carpenters that architectural students' mandatory first year should be spent working on a construction crew.

[Kaslin]

I was born and raised in Germany and when I was in the second grade we learned to write in the Sütterlinschrift. Than in the third grade we learned the Latin handwriting.

I remember my mother telling me that they used to teach the Suetterlin Schrift the entire time she went to school. They must have taught Latin handwriting too, as she had a very neat handwriting skill

[Terry Mross]

Everything could be filled with errors and missing punction no matter whether it’s written in cursive or typed on a computer. And writing by hand does not have spell Check.

[Freedom56v2]

I agree with the educational establishment.
____________________________
Seriously, doesn’t that make you question your position?

[sparklite2]

Is that the KJV version of the Constitution? ;)

Times change. “We’ve always done it that way,” is the foot-dragging response of Neo-Luddites. There are reasons we don’t teach slide rule calculating any more. My cursive is virtually unreadable, even to me: Fugeddaboudit.

[rlmorel]

Heh, went back and re-read my post and I mangled my response...just to be clear, I agree with you...I think cursive would be much faster.

[WKUHilltopper]

“Spending any classroom time on it is comparable to teaching how to use an abacus...”

We learned math in the first grade with an abacus. Learned 1’s, 10’s 100’s, etc. Now, you SOBs have students counting on their fingers—and they can’t get past ten. So FU.

[Kaslin]

No, that is the way they used to write at that time. The Latin handwriting came much later.

I found this Here you can learn Suetterlin - the "German handwriting"

[stars & stripes forever]

Ban it and every school child will want to learn it.

[Gumdrop]

I am also a genealogist. Reading cursive is a great advantage if you are a researcher in any historical documents.

Reading old German documents is another matter. The older Gothic script is nearly unreadable to modern Germans. I can make out some of it but only because I had a serious need to translate the documents.

Still cursive is important in the same way as learning another language skill. It expands your knowledge and analytic skills.

[Kaslin]

No, that is the way they used to write at that time. The Latin handwriting came much later.

I found this Here you can learn Suetterlin - the "German handwriting"

Free Republic would look like this

[Wonder Warthog]

They aren’t lost....just dormant. I suspect there are some purist hobbyists out there who could approach that.

[Kaslin]

Excellent points. All of them

[trebb]

My cursive might as well be a doctor’s prescription - been printing for decades so others (and sometimes myself) can read it. I still hate to see it go but can understand that it is no longer a prevalent mode of written communication in today’s world.

[antidisestablishment]

Lost in the cultural sense, not in the literal one. My grandfather was an ornamental plasterer; while there are a handful of individuals still capable of doing that work, it is very rare. Our society, as a whole, doesn’t value workmanship, nor do many have the discipline required to attain such skills.

[polymuser]

We agree to disagree.

[polymuser]

...nor do many have the discipline required to attain such skills.

Bingo!