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OT Have you heard??

J

John B.

Well-known Member
Has any one heard the schools are going to be doing away with penmanship? Since now most communication is done with keyboarding and texting. Not sure when this will officially take place but I've heard that from more than one person. Some I've heard it from were teachers.
I'm afraid if they do away with it that will be one of the biggest down falls for the United States of America.
 
Does not surprise me. One of our local schools is doing away with kids learning their times tables. No need with a calculator!
 
Around this area they haven't taught cursive writinmg for a number of years. A high school teacher at church told me that she had a few student freshman come in that couldn't sign their names! They always printed them....
 
No, haven't heard that. For some reason I am not surprised. I don't know if that is a good idea, many types of communication still need to be done manually. Hmm, guess we will all see what the future holds.

Rick
 
Indeed.

Many schools are doing away with cursive.

The results will certainly be "fun" to watch someday.

Dean
 

On the local news this morning it sounds like they are going to do away with school. There has been a lot in the news lately about truancy, and what can they do about it. Well it seems they keep coming up against laws and personal rights protection that there is not a thing that they can do to enforce attendance. Most parents don't want anything to do with trying to get there kid to do what they don't want, after all it might hurt their self esteem. So they are preparing to cut back on teachers. since attendance is off so much.
 
Local schools have quit teaching cursive; church had a Valentine's party Saturday night; I asked a 4th-grader to draw (and read) the names from the box for about a dozen door prizes; he couldn't read about half of 'em.......cause they were written in cursive.
 
Doesnt surprise me. I work at a technical high school and freshmen students have trouble converting fractions to decimals for machining. They want the computer/ program to do it for them but we make them do it the old fashioned way at first. Over time they commit to memory the more common conversions. I think it makes them more well rounded and better at the craft if they know how to do it the hard way at first then let them use the program later on.
 
I just ran an Ad for farm help. Couldn't even read some of the phone numbers on the Applications young people filled out. I told one guy to make a note of what was to be done. He did and then later could read his own writing.
 
My youngest graduates high school this year and my oldest is 3 years older.
Neither one of them learned cursive writing.

School is all about SPORTS !!!!

Now they are crying because our school started pay to play because of money problems.

Sure as heck is not about the 3 R's as they used to say.
 
I have heard rumors of changes in writing and math. Nowadays they want to do their thinking electronically. Years ago when my kids started asking for calculators I asked them what they were going to do when their batteries gave out.
What puzzles me is the fact that 911 proved that even the US is not immune to acts of terrorism, and if someone managed to eliminate a percentage of our electric power plants we would not be able to depend on all these machines that do our thinking for us. And the vast majority of people under thirty, I fear would have major problems.
I know when the majority of us were in school the three Rs were instilled in us, Reading, 'Riting. and "Rithmetic. I will always believe there is no substitute.
 
That is the point exactly! When you commit something to memory. it means you have LEARNED that point and can draw on it anytime when necessary. If you depend on pushing buttons for the answer you are much less likely to remember the answer.
 
I work shift work every week and we are always leaving notes for one another. Not everyone's writing is legible but you can make it out. At least they were taught cursive.
I wonder what happens when these people that don't know cursive get an email that some one has changed the font to cursive... I guess you can leave them out by including them in on a group message, knowing they can't read it.
 
Cursive writting has been falling by the wayside for the last 15 years. It is no longer necessary in todays businesses. The keyboard is the new pen. Back when school budgets got cut and the No-Child-Left-Behind standard tests were established, schools dropped the frills because they had to teach to what was on the tests first.
 
WHAT?!!

I'd raise cain about not memorizing multiplication, division, addition and subraction tables!

I think not teaching cursive is bad enough... but to stop teaching math facts is insane. They won't even know how much change they should get back from a transaction.
 
No big surprise to me. There will come a day that those who can not use a pen will not be able to do much. Sad how school at one time was there to teach children to read write and do math but not days it is sports and computers and how to be wimps
 
Iphph only they had phollowed and phactored in our now phamous "conservation oph letters" approach. I could have helped to make cursive diction more attractive. Perhaps it was all our phault.
 
(quoted from post at 11:10:24 02/11/13) Doesnt surprise me. I work at a technical high school and freshmen students have trouble converting fractions to decimals for machining. They want the computer/ program to do it for them but we make them do it the old fashioned way at first. Over time they commit to memory the more common conversions. I think it makes them more well rounded and better at the craft if they know how to do it the hard way at first then let them use the program later on.
Click to expand...

This is nothing new...

The kids that went to "technical high school" (i.e. BOCES or "vocational education") when I graduated high school 21 years ago generally weren't the brightest bulbs in the package either. They weren't good at math, didn't get fractions or basic algebra.

What helped was a practical application that they were interested in, like machining.
 
"The keyboard is the new pen". I understand that this is the new trend but think that it is very short-sighted.

I have personally watched a child in the family do his French homework on google translate.

I have asked highschool grads to do simple long division without a calculator and got a dumb look back. Not lazy but plain didn't know how.

I am far from the best writer but just open a newspaper or magazine and you can find misspellings and grammar errors that would get a D-. At least in my high school.

It appears that the 'dumbing down' of the educational system is intentional. It will probably be a shining achivement when the first doctor has to print his name on your prescription because he cannot sign it.

Brad
 
they always find money for sports,but not for books and teachers.cant hire a kid to do even the easyest odd jobs any more there only concern is sports.dont have to know how to make change most young people just use a card and dont even look at whats charged to it.glad my time is about up
 
I've got a girl 18 and a son 15 and they can hardly sign their name on a check. Of course they don't have a check book, debit card now you know.
My daughter is taking nursing courses in college with a B average.
My son is in the tech school for HVAC with an A grade and taking advance courses in high school for math and English and getting good grades in those.
I guess the world does not need penmanship anymore. Sure hurts when I watch them try to sign something.
 
Yes, I've heard they have been phasing out cursive writing out for some time. Sad.

But, if you really want to have fun...go into a gas station/convenience store and tell the clerk you want ten gallons of gas. They reach/look for a calculator every time.

It's so simple to just move the decimal over one space. example: 10 gallons X $3.569= $35.69.
 
Most prescriptions are done electronically these days. This has dramatically reduced the number of errors in reading a doctor's scratch. Best of all you don't have to stand around (or shop as Walmart would like) for forty five minutes waiting for your prescription to be filled.
 
Bill..........I totally agree; there are none so blind as those who will not see. Perhaps we need to carry our platphorm to a larger audience.
 
I have heard that from the boss's son. He (graduated) from school a couple of years ago. Said they didn't even teach typing anymore. Asked him how he could use the computer then. Said he just hunt and pecked. And they say drugs don't affect the mind. I think all the ones from the flower children years are of age now. Cause of most of todays problems. Parents are raising a nation of idiots.
 
Guess I'm "on the fence" on this- they are teaching everyone to print (my 2nd grade grandson has pretty decent printing- don't know if he can write cursive or not, but he does sign his name "cursively"). Maybe cursive, like Roman numerals, typewriters, slide rules, calculation by logarithms, and long division, is just becoming obsolete.

They do teach "keyboarding", too- my kids could type as fast as me by the time they were in Jr. high.
 
A somewhat related question: I wonder when Gregg's Shorthand was last taught in an American school?
 
I went to a local pizza place the other night and was waiting for my pizza. Three people paid while I was waiting by credit card. You don't need to know math to slide a card. Made me feel "old-School" paying with cash.
 
Ya and people wonder why there is little to no common sense and how many people with college degrees are pretty much educated fools. Now days when it comes to knowing what is practical to know it is no longer taught
 

Guess those people are getting PAID enough that they can AFFORD to be fools...
I wonder just how long that is going to last..!!!

"Make them dependent" and hand out money to any and all who want it..just to get VOTES..

Sounds like a valid plan for Decline, to me...

Ron..
 
Yep and one of these days some how some way the $hit is going to hit the fan and when it does few will know how to get by let alone be able to feed them self's. I remember years ago a woman was asked what will you do if there are no more dairy farms etc. Her answer was heck I will just go to the store and buy what I need there is not reason there should be farms any how. By the way she had a doctors degree in some such thing
 
I have a lot of Amish neighbors. Even though they only go to eighth grade, they teach cursive and also conventional math. Their writing mostly is very good. Watching them figure board feet at the sawmill gives respect for their tenacity. May take a while, but are always very close.

Gene
 
Other than signing my name I have not used cursive writing since I graduated high school in 1977. The only people I know that write in cursive are older than me.
I heard on the news last week that they are trying to pass a law in Indiana to require schools to teach cursive writing. People should be able to write their name. Other than that, is cursive even used anymore? Every form I can think of requires printing. I haven't gotten a hand written letter in at least 25 years.
It's kind of funny reading all the comments about how the education system has declined. Those comments are full of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors.
 
I'm sure at one time they were complaining about them not teaching Latin in schools anymore, or how to write Hieroglyphics, or the art of making an arrowhed, or the art of making papyrus. It is a sign of changing times. "change isn't always good, but it is always different"
 
I am a 43 year old engineer. I learned cursive in grade school, but when I went to college, I was re-taught how to print (for drafting). The only cursive I write today is when I sign my name, and it isn't very legible.

I have been able to type faster than I could write ever since I was in high school.
 
Like everyone else, I had forgot about Gregg's shorthand- didn't mention it in my post below about things that had become obsolete.

My mother had been a "stay at home Mom" while us kids were growing up, but in 1959, we were all in school, and oldest sister was old enough to babysit when we came home from school, so Mom decided to go back to work, as a legal secretary, to help with some additional income for the struggling dairy farm.

She needed to brush up on her shorthand- so it was decided that I would do my homework "orally"- read everything and do everything aloud, and she would do the shorthand for it. She sat quietly in the corner, taking shorthand, while I did my homework. Didn't matter what I said, she took it down- I took to making smart-alecky editorial comments about the mysterious lady in the corner, and she would smile but just took it down, never a comment. It worked great- after a couple of months, she took the test and passed, and I could go back to figgerin' in my head.

My wife was the daughter of a male chauvinist lawyer, who thought she would never be able to do anything beyond being a secretary. Guess he didn't realize that a girl could be good lookin' and smart, at the same time. She took shorthand in high school, in 1965, and I don't know how much longer they taught it. She became a dental hygienist, makes about triple what a secretary makes. But believe it or not, she can still take shorthand!
 
Chris- Thats' a good one too! They usually try to hand band the smaller bills and change and say you are giving too much. I just tell them to enter it in the cash register and see what the change due is.
 
Other than the signature problem, I'm OK with not learning to write in cursive. Maybe it's because that was the only "D" I ever got, and pity was the only reason it wasn't an "F". But as an engineer and draftsman for 45 years, no one ever had a problem with my printing. The important thing is to be able to communicate clearly and to precisely understand written communications. I share the concerns with calculators vs. understanding basic math. I used to do a lot of basic trig calculations in my head, but after I got a calculator with trig functions I lost the ability. Basically I think we don't do our kids a service by allowing the use of calculators, CAD programs, etc. UNTIL they have mastered the basics of the subject matter. Once the basics of a science or other subject have been learned the use of devices makes the student even more effective, but if the basics are not learned the device just masks incompetence.
 
Went to an Amish sawmill a couple years back. Had a list of lumber I wanted to make a haywagon bed. Presented the list to the bossman. He reached in the desk of his ramshackle office, and pulled out a billing pad and a calculator which he used to calculate the bill. Said he didn"t have the materials in stock, and would have to get into a pile of logs to cut what I needed. Asked for my phone number. Few days later, he called to tell me the order was ready. He had a cell phone. When I went in to pick up order, asked him what he powered the mill with, and he proudly showed me a brand new, state-of-the art imported diesel engine. Asked how he started it in cold weather - told me battery powered glow plugs. Would some one remind me what it it to be Amish.
 
After reading all of the replies below, I feel I gotta throw my $.02 in as well. Just for the record, I'm a high school math teacher.

Standardized testing and radidly advancing technology is behind the push to drop many of the older subjects like penmanship and cursive. Frankly, for better or worse, the business world is becoming more heavily dependant on computers. Every parent wants his or her kid to learn the skills needed to succeed in life. Now imagine if Junior goes to apply for a job after graduation. No, he can't type, can't run an excell spreadsheet, is baffled by MS word, but boy! look how neatly he can write in cursive. Biff, on the other hand uses a fist to hold his pencil, but is a whiz when it comes to the computer. As long as the electricity is flowing, Biff is going to get the job and Junior will be making minumum wage down at Casey's.

Now a topic more near and dear to my heart: calculators. I'm in the high school, and I still stress to my students the importance of being able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, square and square root mentally or manually. Luckily, I'm in a rural district. I explain it to my students this way. If I have a pile of firewood to split, I can either use an ax or a hydraulic splitter. If it happens to be a pile of red oak or walnut, I grab the ax. I can have the whole pile split and stacked with the ax before you get the splitter running. However, if it's a pile of knotty white oak, I'll opt for internal combustion and modern hydraulics. Don't grab a calculator to tell me the cosine of 60 is 1/2 or to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of 5 and 12.

Surprisingly enough, schools no longer teach many useful skills. Why, I bet if our oil supply suddenly dried up not one kid in 10 could properly hitch a team for a run to town. Few kids would be able to trim a proper nub on a quil pen should the need arise. And in music appreciation classes, they no longer stress the imporatance of keeping the dust off a vinyl record.

I now yield the soapbox.
 
I do not mind if a kid does not have very good penmanship but they should be at least able to read cursive writing. One of my Grand kids has not been taught cursive in school. She could not hand out the Christmas gifts because she could not read the name tags.

Also the real danger/issue with not knowing how to read cursive is that most of the founding documents of this great nation where written in cursive. So if we raise a bunch of illiterate students that can not read those important documents do you really think they will under stand them???

So I guess I am old school. I write my load lists in cursive. So I guess if the driver can not read them he will just get fired.

Side bar to Dan the teacher below. Modern schools have the time to show my kids/grand kids how to use a condom but not to read/write cursive. Which is worse for our society???

So they can't read cursive but they can put a condom on and then take a picture of it an then they can post on their face book page with their fancy computer.

I know of two different human resource people that give cursive reading tests to applicants. Any that can't read/write cursive are passed by. Those companies both are heavy into computers. They both say that if the person does not know cursive they more than likely don't know a bunch of other needed job skills. So the cursive test just helps them thin the list down.
 
Well sir, I had a belly full of fancy math growing up but I still use my calculator for "scientific" calculations of which Trigonometry calculations certainly are. I do however remember that the numbers 3,4, and 5 for the sides of a triangle will get you a right one, and the hypotenuse (C) is the square root of sides A squared, + B squared.......Pythagorean theorem as I recall.

However, I do feel that we lost something every time you go to a checkout counter and make up change to get a single larger bill in return and the clerk just gives you a blank stare, having grown up behind my a cash register in my daddy's business and having to make change in your head!

Mark
 
I'm another engineer who hasn't used cursive writing for anything beyond my signiture for nearly 25 years now.

Cursive was popular because it was a faster and more eligant way to write compared to printing, but it is easy to misinterpret. It was superceded by keyboarding when computer word processors becme universal in the late 1980's.

Cursive writing will always be around, just like calligraphy is now.
 
But I'll wager a dollar again a dog biscuit that blank-eyed kid behind the register is prob'ly the one I have to wake up 5 times each class. Or maybe, he's the kid that spends all of class time playing on his cell phone/ipad or doodling on his desk. We do try to teach mental math. Those that pay attention get it and move on to bigger things. Those that don't end up getting noticed when they get an after-school job at McDonalds.
 
Hear you on that.

On school and all. When I was young and undirected in pursuit of my future (elementary school) I had a problem with the why part of getting an education. Had no mentor or anything back then to show me the why part....quiet little semi-rural town.

So here I am, much later in life with an instant replay of the things I was taught back then and didn't understand, want to understand at the time. It took a long time for me to realize that some of it actually soaked in.

So all that dedication on the part of my teachers paid off after all.

I taught tech school for 3 years and know the feeling when a blank stare transforms into recognition. Great feeling.

Mark
 
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