Mamacita Says: Cursing Over Cursive, Or, Rather, The Lack of It

cursive Mamacita says:  It really bothers me; it bothers me way out of proportion; it bothers me TERRIBLY, that so many elementary teachers refuse to teach cursive handwriting now. There are many reasons for this, the three biggest being lack of time due to standardized test prep and the bullshit standards thereof, lack of incentive because some teachers don’t think handwriting is necessary in this day and age of computers, and rampant stupidity lack of any understanding of the artistic extension of personality that handwriting conveys. Yes, I know that standardized test prep is a crock of shit important to some people, but frankly, I think a standardized test that tested the students’ retention of accumulated learning, rather than crammed trivia, would be far better, more accurate, and less stupid redundant.

Test the students at the end of each school year and the beginning of the next.  That’ll show who’s retaining knowledge and who isn’t.  It shouldn’t be rocket science, and it sure as heck shouldn’t be the freak show show that it’s become.  Let each teacher teach as befits his/her personality, and let the curriculum develop as the students and teacher best need and want it to develop.  Spend TIME on the wonder and magic of learning; don’t let it keep on being nothing but a year-long cramcycle, the goal being a weighed regurgitation of uninteresting facts and a contest to see who can be the best echo in the system.  We don’t need any more echoes; we’ve got more than enough of those in administration already.

And the very black-and-white fact that an awful lot of our kids have never been taught how to write in cursive?  Shame on. . . . well, somebody.  SHAME on somebody!

Parents, sit down with your kids tonight, and ask them to show you their cursive.  If your kid doesn’t know how, go to school and raise calm, reasonable, bloody hell.  Call the newspaper.  Make a gentle, educated scene.  Chances are your child’s teacher was ordered not to teach cursive because there simply wasn’t time thanks to test prep.  I’m all for standards, but prepping for a test that’s supposed to be an assessment of retained knowledge from the previous year?  Or, if your school system gives THE TEST in the spring, of retained knowledge from the current year? Your kid needs CRAMMING before a test that’s supposed to measure naturally retained information over a period of time? Why would their school think that?  Are they not doing their job?

Oh, Hemingway, where are you?  My built-in shock-proof shit detector is going to wake the dead!

Distinctive, individual, readable cursive:  where did it go?  I’ve got college students whose cursive in worse than any doctor’s  writing; there’s no excuse for that!  Many of my younger students don’t even know how to write their own names in cursive.  Parents, were you not paying attention?

Most documents require a readable cursive signature, even nowadays.  Many colleges are now requiring a short handwritten essay, in cursive, along with the application.

To which I say, Write On!


Comments

Mamacita Says: Cursing Over Cursive, Or, Rather, The Lack of It — 30 Comments

  1. Listen, what bothers me even more is the complete and total lack of grammar and spelling. The other day, a kid thought he’d found a poorly written sentence in the textbook, and when I used phrases and terms like “subject-verb agreement,” “prepositional phrase,” “modifier,” and “simple subject” you would have thought I was suddenly speaking Klingon, although the kid in question asked questions and seemed interested. He later said, “Why don’t they teach us this stuff? It would make French class so much easier!”

    Why, indeed.

  2. Listen, what bothers me even more is the complete and total lack of grammar and spelling. The other day, a kid thought he’d found a poorly written sentence in the textbook, and when I used phrases and terms like “subject-verb agreement,” “prepositional phrase,” “modifier,” and “simple subject” you would have thought I was suddenly speaking Klingon, although the kid in question asked questions and seemed interested. He later said, “Why don’t they teach us this stuff? It would make French class so much easier!”

    Why, indeed.

  3. HB is learning both! I can’t believe they are teaching him both but he’s learning it. He has better handwriting than his sister! She has a more creative mind that runs around like nuts. Although the picture he drew the other day gives me hope that he has the artistic side to him. It was a “robotic” dog (that actually looked like a dog) that his tail was up. Behind his tail was music notes and a round disk looking thing. I had to ask if it was poop because boys and potty humor translates everywhere. I mean it was my duty to ask. He looked at me in disgust and said, “No mommy…it’s a robotic dog that has a cd that plays “Oh Christmas Tree!”
    See I just thought it was musical fruit and poop. I have a long way to go.

  4. HB is learning both! I can’t believe they are teaching him both but he’s learning it. He has better handwriting than his sister! She has a more creative mind that runs around like nuts. Although the picture he drew the other day gives me hope that he has the artistic side to him. It was a “robotic” dog (that actually looked like a dog) that his tail was up. Behind his tail was music notes and a round disk looking thing. I had to ask if it was poop because boys and potty humor translates everywhere. I mean it was my duty to ask. He looked at me in disgust and said, “No mommy…it’s a robotic dog that has a cd that plays “Oh Christmas Tree!”
    See I just thought it was musical fruit and poop. I have a long way to go.

  5. Pingback: Carnival of Education at The Core Knowledge Blog

  6. Pingback: Carnival of Education at The Core Knowledge Blog

  7. Okay, I’d like to know what colleges are requiring this cursive essay. And I’m sure that my mortgage company would have still lent me money if I messily printed my name.

  8. Okay, I’d like to know what colleges are requiring this cursive essay. And I’m sure that my mortgage company would have still lent me money if I messily printed my name.

  9. You hit a sore point for me… I came to North America when I was 12, and somehow I ended up writing cursive in my first language, and only printing in English… I can’t DO English cursive to save my life, and I still remember the teacher who told me to print my words! 🙁 🙁

  10. You hit a sore point for me… I came to North America when I was 12, and somehow I ended up writing cursive in my first language, and only printing in English… I can’t DO English cursive to save my life, and I still remember the teacher who told me to print my words! 🙁 🙁

  11. The writing test of our 5 part OGT and all of the short and extended response questions on the other 4 parts require students to write or print legibly. I have three boys who will probably miss many points- perhaps not even pass- some of these tests because their handwriting (cursive AND printing) is illegible. Not just difficult to read, but impossible. I have talked to all the parents involved, I have taken off points on tests all year on these guys if I couldn’t figure out their answers, and I don’t think they understand that this is going to be a problem for passing the tests. I had to work very hard to be able to write legibly and with a certain beauty as
    I’m a lefty from a long line of ambidextous/lefty writers. Teachers tried to make me change my handedness until my mom said she’d hit the next one who rapped my knuckles with a ruler for using my left hand (I am almost 60). I do about 1/2 of everything with either/or hand. I wonder if there are more lefties who use their right hands more effectively than righties who use their left hands?
    I tell my kids that the only place I can think of where lefties have an advantage is the bank or fast food window!
    Well, I certainly got off on a tangent!

  12. The writing test of our 5 part OGT and all of the short and extended response questions on the other 4 parts require students to write or print legibly. I have three boys who will probably miss many points- perhaps not even pass- some of these tests because their handwriting (cursive AND printing) is illegible. Not just difficult to read, but impossible. I have talked to all the parents involved, I have taken off points on tests all year on these guys if I couldn’t figure out their answers, and I don’t think they understand that this is going to be a problem for passing the tests. I had to work very hard to be able to write legibly and with a certain beauty as
    I’m a lefty from a long line of ambidextous/lefty writers. Teachers tried to make me change my handedness until my mom said she’d hit the next one who rapped my knuckles with a ruler for using my left hand (I am almost 60). I do about 1/2 of everything with either/or hand. I wonder if there are more lefties who use their right hands more effectively than righties who use their left hands?
    I tell my kids that the only place I can think of where lefties have an advantage is the bank or fast food window!
    Well, I certainly got off on a tangent!

  13. I actually prefer a modified Italic, or a clean Spencerian handwriting – I am not at all fond of the cursive alphabet! I use a fountain pen for everyday writing, and my handwriting has improved dramatically because of it. However, most of the credit goes to my calligraphy teachers, who taught that lettering was artwork… I wish my writing were better, but it will improve over time (I’m only 40…)

  14. I actually prefer a modified Italic, or a clean Spencerian handwriting – I am not at all fond of the cursive alphabet! I use a fountain pen for everyday writing, and my handwriting has improved dramatically because of it. However, most of the credit goes to my calligraphy teachers, who taught that lettering was artwork… I wish my writing were better, but it will improve over time (I’m only 40…)

  15. Whoa, seriously? I was just wondering the other day at what age kids should know how to read cursive handwriting, because I wasn’t sure when kids learned these days. I’m pretty sure we started learning the letters in 3rd grade, and now I’m bummed that kids might not be learning at all. How do kids know how to READ cursive if they don’t know how to WRITE cursive? Weird and sad. They will never know the joy of learning not only how to write perfect cursive but how to adapt it to their personality and writing style. (My Ts, Fs, and Js are mine, although I know my Ts and Fs were influenced by my dad’s letters. I never write a cursive upper case Q, mainly because I don’t like how it looks like a 2. And those Fs and Ts on the sheet you have up there don’t look like the ones I was taught to make, so I suppose there are many ways to do it these days.) They’ll never write print/cursive based on mood. Sometimes I write cursive because my hand just “feels” like doing so, and sometimes I write in cursive because that feels better instead.

    My niece’s school never teaches the semi-block print letters most of us use. Instead, their “printing” has the basic formation of cursive in it (some curlicues, etc.) in order to prepare them for learning cursive. It’s harder to learn, but it makes cursive much easier.

    This really made me sad about writing. I don’t write often, but sometimes I do just because I really miss it. I need to get back into handwritten journaling…

  16. Whoa, seriously? I was just wondering the other day at what age kids should know how to read cursive handwriting, because I wasn’t sure when kids learned these days. I’m pretty sure we started learning the letters in 3rd grade, and now I’m bummed that kids might not be learning at all. How do kids know how to READ cursive if they don’t know how to WRITE cursive? Weird and sad. They will never know the joy of learning not only how to write perfect cursive but how to adapt it to their personality and writing style. (My Ts, Fs, and Js are mine, although I know my Ts and Fs were influenced by my dad’s letters. I never write a cursive upper case Q, mainly because I don’t like how it looks like a 2. And those Fs and Ts on the sheet you have up there don’t look like the ones I was taught to make, so I suppose there are many ways to do it these days.) They’ll never write print/cursive based on mood. Sometimes I write cursive because my hand just “feels” like doing so, and sometimes I write in cursive because that feels better instead.

    My niece’s school never teaches the semi-block print letters most of us use. Instead, their “printing” has the basic formation of cursive in it (some curlicues, etc.) in order to prepare them for learning cursive. It’s harder to learn, but it makes cursive much easier.

    This really made me sad about writing. I don’t write often, but sometimes I do just because I really miss it. I need to get back into handwritten journaling…

  17. Standardized testing is screwing EVERYTHING up, isn’t it? And what a coincidence…Today I wrote about standardized testing in relation to snow days, of all things! I have to say, though, that my printing has always been MUCH better than my cursive!

  18. Standardized testing is screwing EVERYTHING up, isn’t it? And what a coincidence…Today I wrote about standardized testing in relation to snow days, of all things! I have to say, though, that my printing has always been MUCH better than my cursive!

  19. The state of education today is so depressing, I don’t think I could stand to have kids in the system. And this with a wife who teaches! All the better to see what’s going on with the modern NCLB Lake Wobegon take on education – every child above average. By definition.

    Oy.

  20. The state of education today is so depressing, I don’t think I could stand to have kids in the system. And this with a wife who teaches! All the better to see what’s going on with the modern NCLB Lake Wobegon take on education – every child above average. By definition.

    Oy.

  21. I so adore and respect your thinking on education.

    And so I beg you to impart your wisdom: like you, I value quality handwriting; I cherish good penmanship; I am a calligrapher, myself. Yet, I have not yet taught my (very bright) 3rd grader cursive. Whyfor? Because, despite his Brainiac-infused Einstein mind, the dear boy cannot print clearly or properly enough to save his life, let alone allow anyone the ability to decipher. Yes, of course I’ve worked closely with him. I ask you (in lieu of Ann Landers), what’s a mom/educator to do with such a pupil? Live with the chicken scratch (naw!), force the cursive or some other remedy? I await your counsel. You know how to reach me.

  22. I so adore and respect your thinking on education.

    And so I beg you to impart your wisdom: like you, I value quality handwriting; I cherish good penmanship; I am a calligrapher, myself. Yet, I have not yet taught my (very bright) 3rd grader cursive. Whyfor? Because, despite his Brainiac-infused Einstein mind, the dear boy cannot print clearly or properly enough to save his life, let alone allow anyone the ability to decipher. Yes, of course I’ve worked closely with him. I ask you (in lieu of Ann Landers), what’s a mom/educator to do with such a pupil? Live with the chicken scratch (naw!), force the cursive or some other remedy? I await your counsel. You know how to reach me.

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