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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:02PM (#421605)

    If you care about learning and the effectiveness of learning, then taking manual notes is still a lot better than using a computer and typing. There are many studies that show the relation very clearly. Pupils and students typing on their computer retain less of the subject matter and at lower understanding levels than those who take manual notes

    Actually, that depends a lot on the individual. That it applies to everyone is a myth propagated by those who do learn better taking manual notes. Tests that show it to be true are tests performed on people who are already taking hand-written notes. If you were to test a bunch of students who never wrote hand-written notes, you'll see them struggling to keep up.

    And some of us can't take notes and learn at the same time. All the way through school I took notes in one class (I honestly don't know why I did that). That was the one class that I learned absolutely nothing. Except, as a test, I tried not taking notes one lesson. I still remember what we learned that day.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by BsAtHome on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:26PM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:26PM (#421614)

    No not everyone is impacted in the same way. That is why we have statistics and the result is a nice bell-curve. There are always extremes, examples and anecdotes that indicate the opposite. The spread from low-to-high has always been the case, also before the era of computers.

    The point is that, on average, there is a very significant negative impact. That should be enough cause for concern. Let the teachers deal with the exceptions to the rule in the classroom. That is what the teachers are supposed to do anyway, regardless which tools are utilized.

  • (Score: 2) by blackhawk on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:39PM

    by blackhawk (5275) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:39PM (#421645)

    This is like saying "people who learnt music theory and an instrument do much better on music tests". Of course they do. The point is that until quite recently everyone was given both printing and cursive lessons when a child. Even recently people were at the least given printing lessons. They are not at a major disadvantage to cursive students when it comes to "learning through writing". Both forms work quite well and better than typing.

    You argument might be valid for a generation who had learnt neither printing nor cursive, but holds no weight with the current generation who have had access to teaching for at least one of these, and often both.

    Remember, the studies on learning and memory based on hand-writing were performed on university level students - and they definitely had both cursive and print writing lessons, as well as typing (most likely).

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:50PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:50PM (#421687)

    And some of us can't take notes and learn at the same time. All the way through school I took notes in one class (I honestly don't know why I did that). That was the one class that I learned absolutely nothing. Except, as a test, I tried not taking notes one lesson. I still remember what we learned that day.

    So what you're saying is you did a rigorous experiment :P A sample size of one, nice.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @09:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @09:03AM (#421979)

      Proving that every sheep is white requires checking every sheep in the world.
      Disproving that every sheep is white only takes a single black sheep.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @03:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @03:08PM (#421696)

    Here's a test you can try on yourself: grab or borrow a Schaum's outlines (about $20) and work through a chapter (which is usually only a few pages, each book has dozens of chapters) using pen and line paper.

    Then study a different topic in the same curriculum using a reputable online source such as Khan Academy.

    Then go about your life, and check back a week later and see what you've retained.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:29PM (#421862)

      Even if you believe that these social science studies are valid in some way, you realize that it would be utterly absurd to literally claim that this applies to 100% of all people, right? That rarely happens.