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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @08:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the heading-for-a-new-dark-age dept.

The New Yorker wonders:

My children know how to print their letters. And they type frighteningly well. Still, I can't escape the conviction that cursive—writing it and knowing how to read it—represents some universal value. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Every year, there are worried articles about the decline of cursive and its omission from school curricula. And there's a backlash, one that I secretly cheer for. When I read that Washington state is now considering Senate Bill 6469, "an act related to requiring that cursive writing be taught in common schools," I gave a little fist pump in the air.

Cursive and handwriting are dead. Communication of the future will be done with pure emoticons.


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  • (Score: 1) by Drogman on Wednesday November 02 2016, @09:22AM

    by Drogman (2422) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @09:22AM (#421544)

    As a 53 year old left-hander with dyslexia, I do not welcome this. I was persecuted at school due to my dreadful writing, spelling and reading skills. To this day I still struggle reading joined up writing and would much rather type.

    My nieces, aged 5 and 8 are already very good readers and reasonable writers - mostly a printing style. Do they need to learn joined up writing? I really don't think so. I will ensure, as best as I can that they can at least type with efficiency.

    Cursive or joined up writing can die a natural death as far as I'm concerned.

    -G

  • (Score: 2) by arulatas on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:46PM

    by arulatas (3600) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:46PM (#421651)

    That is interesting as the school taught my daughter cursive to use for writing and note taking as it helped with her dyslexia and adhd. Having one letter connect to the next seemed to help her concentrate and keep focus on the word as she was writing. She said it helped her too. So I guess not everyone learns or reads the same. I am not discounting your experience only giving a different take on the subject.

    --
    ----- 10 turns around
  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday November 02 2016, @04:16PM

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @04:16PM (#421722) Journal

    As a 53 year old left-hander with dyslexia, I do not welcome this. I was persecuted at school due to my dreadful writing, spelling and reading skills. To this day I still struggle reading joined up writing and would much rather type.

    No dyslexia here, but I'm left-handed and it was a pain in the ass when learning to write. Every teacher was right-handed, and all my family was too except my grandmother who grew up in a time when lefties got forced to do shit right-handed. So, nobody knew how to teach a lefty to write, and it caused me a lot of problems with it. Smudging problems led to holding my hand in uncomfortable positions, which led to frequent cramps, which meant I hated writing and avoided it as much as possible. I've had illegible writing most of my life as a result and still hate writing for long periods.

    On the bright side, I've since learned how to print a bit more legibly when needed by treating it more like drawing, and I can type around 150wpm now -- which mostly eliminates my need for writing -- because the writing problems led me to learning to type early and often.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:37PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:37PM (#421865) Journal

      It is apparent that we have a lot of southpaws here, with legitimate gripes about the teaching of handwriting. It suddenly struck me, instead of giving up on the fine art of cursive handwriting (especially with a left-hand offset oblique nib!), the lefties should force the rest of us to just write in the opposite direction, as it is done in Hebrew and Arabic!

      • (Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:27AM

        by Marand (1081) on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:27AM (#421892) Journal

        I've actually thought about that before. Not forcing people to write RTL, but it's occurred to me that I would have had fewer problems with an RTL language. Of course, I'd also have had fewer problems if I had been taught to place the paper a bit differently, at a bit of an angle, when writing -- something that I believe is taught to lefties now when learning to write -- but that ship has sailed for me. Too much trouble to unlearn the old habits for too little gain at this point.

        I've heard it's gotten better since I learned, because teaching this stuff to lefties is better understood now, but it can still be hard. Even learning basic things like tying shoelaces is a challenge when everyone else is backward to you. That's probably part of why southpaws are usually more ambidextrous. Well, that, plus some things just aren't worth the effort required, such as mousing. If you get accustomed to left-handed mousing it just screws you up horribly any time you have to use someone else's computer.

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:35AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:35AM (#421941) Journal

          ; Just an aside, Marand: you do know that Latin for Right is "dexter", thus "ambidextrous" for both right hands! But the Latin for left is "sinister". Always, I immediately follow this revelation by the observation that the body is controlled by the opposite hemisphere of the brain, so that only lefties are in their right minds. Or something.

          • (Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:42PM

            by Marand (1081) on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:42PM (#422147) Journal

            lol, yep, I learned both of those factoids ages ago as well; it's probably inevitable that all lefties will eventually hear both at some point. I think the one about brain hemispheres in particular is practically guaranteed to be told to a lefty at some point as a sort of consolation prize for all the right-handed stuff they have to deal with like those damned right-handed scissors. Those things are ridiculously painful to deal with when left-handed.

            It's not all bad, though. For example, I've noticed right-handed people tend to use the same hand for both the knife and fork when eating, whereas I ended up learning to use the knife with my right and fork with left. Much easier than constantly switching hands like I see many righties do when eating things like steak.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:30AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:30AM (#421893)

        With my right hand a mangled and bloody mess, I sat down to write with my left hand. I had never attempted this before. I wrote as quickly and as easily as normal. It came out just like normal... if you looked at it in a mirror!

        Yep. Backwards, but otherwise just as nice as normal.

        After a bit of thought, I managed to get going in the other direction. This time, writing was slower, but the quality was even better than normal!

        So... it's not a big deal. All you lefties should stop complaining, and the rest of us should expect better-than-normal quality out of you.