Tulsa Schools Trying To Save The Lost Art Of Cursive Writing

Wow! I've always suspected texting was having a negative impact on the younger generation. It's bad enough that some kids don't know they are doing it, but others are trying to justify it. What a shame that parents are their enablers. Allowing a 5th grader to have the responsibility of a phone is wrong on all levels.

Cursive is no longer needed, it was originally taught back in the pen and inkwell days to keep the pen tip on the paper as long as possible to keep drops of ink from dripping off of the pen, with the invention of ballpoint pens it became pointless, and with the world becoming a electronic data driven society, its even more irrelevant.

David wrote:

Wow! I've always suspected texting was having a negative impact on the younger generation. It's bad enough that some kids don't know they are doing it, but others are trying to justify it. What a shame that parents are their enablers. Allowing a 5th grader to have the responsibility of a phone is wrong on all levels.

I agree 100%!

I just had an issue with that last week looking over some of my 9th grade daughters "free writing" for class.
There were quite a few mistakes that I tied to her "text speak", and I brought it to her attention. Unfortunatly, the teacher only noted on the paper that she needed to make sure she capitalized her "I". It was very frustrating that the teacher did not correct the other obvious misspellings....
I would love it if Broken Arrow took the hint from these Tulsa teachers and pushed correct writing as well...

Does this teacher have any evidence that cursive writing helps brain function, or is she pulling ideas out of her head? My handwriting was bad, so I went back to printing everything except my signature. It really seems that cursive writing should be an elective instead of teaching kids to print, then teaching them to use cursive writing.

Folks...I'm not very well educated, because when I was seven years old my father was killed in a construction accident in Indiana. I ran away from home in 1969 at the tender age of nine and have not seen my mother or siblings since. I learned to read before that and ran, ran, ran for years before settling in Leanard, OK. I can write Calligraphy pretty good with my pens and I think ALL schools should offer Calligraphic writing classes as an elective. It is a lot of fun to sit for hours and just write, one of these days I'm going to publish a hand-written book.

Ron B wrote:

Does this teacher have any evidence that cursive writing helps brain function, or is she pulling ideas out of her head? My handwriting was bad, so I went back to printing everything except my signature. It really seems that cursive writing should be an elective instead of teaching kids to print, then teaching them to use cursive writing.

You may think it doesn't matter, but I work where I need to verify parent's signatures and many of them are worse than doctor's signatures. They can't write cursive. I'm sorry, but this is an area that has needed more attention even before texting became so popular. Now it will be even worse when these kids are grown and can't write. Not everybody will have a job where they use a computer to do their work. And an awful lot of these postings are horrible with their grammar and spelling. Sorry folks, but it's true. Some, I know are just typos from hurrying to get it done, but an awful lot of it shows up every time.

So does this mean that teachers after the 3rd grade have ignored this problem? Why are kids in the 7th grade doing this in SCHOOL?

I agree with Dead Duck. Cursive is obsolete. My cursive was terrible and I was so happy when I got to Jr. High and was told we could print instead. Haven't used cursive for anything but my sloppy signature for the last 30-some years.

What hapened to the penmanship part of class? We had to copy sentances everyday until probably fifth grade. They didn't have it as part of daily work for my duughter and her handwriting shows it.

Haha and there is something to be said for proofreading ..I can write but I cannot spell :)

I am with Dead Duck and Snuffy on this one. I hated cursive writing and have not missed it in the many years that I have been out of school. Can we find something else to worry about? I am sure that there must be something more pressing...

While in elementary school, I was given the chance to learn Chancery printing, and it changed my handwriting immensely. It is a cursive stroke, and uses a special pen point and bottled ink,, but in 1960+ we used ink pens with a cartidge and cut the point to make do. If the art of different types of printing was encouraged, we might see a wonderful turn in the type of cursive handwriting we have at this time. Possibly if the children understood it was more an expression of themselves through a form of art, they might take more pride in their handwriting and do a better job. The earlier this starts the better, and maybe we could initiate competitions of various things, to assess the penmanship, i.e. poems, essays, songs, the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. This might involve craft stores, but I'd bet Hobby Lobby would jump at the opportunity to help out. Just a thought.

Dead Duck Walking wrote:

Cursive is no longer needed, it was originally taught back in the pen and inkwell days to keep the pen tip on the paper as long as possible to keep drops of ink from dripping off of the pen, with the invention of ballpoint pens it became pointless, and with the world becoming a electronic data driven society, its even more irrelevant.

its not just cursive writing - these kids are spelling words incorrectly by using the text abbreviation and think its ok.

I was basically pointing out that our kids need to learn how to seperate texting from school work.

I know a lot of people that prefer printing to cursive, and I can see where my daughters printing is much neater...they just need to get away from all the abbreviated words, etc... on their school work

I can relate wrote:

It was very frustrating that the teacher did not correct the other obvious misspellings.

And what did the teacher say when you inquired about it?

I'm all for forcing these kids to learn correct grammar and spelling. However, who really cares if they write in cursive? Does it matter? I'm guessing that before long, they'll stop even teaching the kids how to write cursive in elementary school. If you really think about it, the time spent on learning cursive (after you've already learned to print) could be much better spent on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.

Technology will change the face of everything. This shouldn't shock anyone. Does anyone know how to use pen and ink. Betcha it would spill all over the place. Don't see anyone operating old mowers. They all have engines now. Technology replaces and advances lots of small things. HOWEVER, they still need to learn basic use of language. Text speak, leet speak etc... is fast and so forth (annoying to parents) but I would still like to see them learning the proper way to write a letter. I use text speak alot, but I also know how NOT to use it. If my daughter actually verbalized "Oh my God!" as OMG, I would probably smack her. Heee heee!.... I mean... LOL!!!

Cursive writing IS obsolete and continuing to teach it in a world of technology is a waste of time.

However, basic grammar skills such as spelling, punctuation and sentence structure SHOULD be taught and taught aggressively.

This generation of adults must work hard to combat textspeak, just as our parents and grandparents worked to combat slang and improper grammar, such as, "I ain't got no money." Otherwise, illiteracy will spread like a virus. And believe me, it is up to the PARENTS to fight the good fight, because most public school teachers don't care enough to put in the effort to do more than the bare minimum and punch the clock.

Good thinking wrote:

Cursive writing IS obsolete and continuing to teach it in a world of technology is a waste of time.
However, basic grammar skills such as spelling, punctuation and sentence structure SHOULD be taught and taught aggressively.
This generation of adults must work hard to combat textspeak, just as our parents and grandparents worked to combat slang and improper grammar, such as, "I ain't got no money." Otherwise, illiteracy will spread like a virus. And believe me, it is up to the PARENTS to fight the good fight, because most public school teachers don't care enough to put in the effort to do more than the bare minimum and punch the clock.

Totally agree. I know this will get me flamed but the use and acceptance of "Ebonics" just really makes me sick. I understand some catch phrases and cute little sayings but when someone says something to you and the entire sentence is not able to be understood it's BS. The fact that this way of speaking is acceptable is crap.