[Reader-list] Cursive being phased out of U.S. schools

[geeta seshu]

very interesting chintan...thanks for the post.

apart from all the implications of right/left brain development, cultural
issues and whatnot, I was trying to recall when - and what - I last wrote by
hand...

but to give up on teaching a skill completely?

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 8:53 PM, Chintan Girish Modi <
chintan.backups at gmail.com> wrote:

> From
>
> http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/07/cursive-finally-being-phased-out-of-u-s-schools/
> Cursive being phased out of U.S. schoolsJul 7, 2011 – 8:04 PM ET |
>
> By Laura Baziuk
>
> Forget the looping Ls and curving Gs.
>
> Students in Indiana’s public schools will no longer have to learn cursive
> writing starting this fall.
>
> The state is one among 48 others transitioning to new state-led national
> learning guides, the Common Core State Standard Initiatives, which no
> longer
> require children to learn handwriting. They do, however, have to sharpen
> their typing skills.
>
> An Indiana Department of Education memo last spring said teachers can still
> choose to teach cursive writing, or can stop altogether.
>
> “State standards themselves, they’re just supposed to be a guide for what
> students must know before moving on to the next grade,” said department
> spokeswoman Stephanie Sample. “And there are lots of little details that
> aren’t in those standards that kids learn.”
>
> Sample said she has not heard any feedback from parents who are concerned
> their children will no longer learn a basic, yet fading, skill.
>
> How often does one write in cursive every day? Much of our daily personal
> and business correspondence is done by a quick e-mail or text message.
> Note-taking and composing essays or statements are done almost entirely on
> the computer.
>
> Indiana father Mark Shoup said he wouldn’t be concerned if his children,
> though now grown, had not learned cursive.
>
> “There are much more important skills I think they take into this century
> than whether or not they write cursively,” the former teacher said, listing
> critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and literacy.
>
> “Maybe it’s something we should not give up on, but keep it in perspective
> of its relative importance in the scheme of things,” Shoup said. “How long
> we really have children in school and what are our real goals for them?”
>
> Perry Klein, a professor of literacy education at the University of Western
> Ontario, said a child’s ability to compose depends on whether she can form
> letters clearly and accurately.
>
> “If students can form letters fluently, then that frees up their attention
> to focus on the content and language of what they’re writing,” Klein said.
>
> Research has yet to be published, he said, on whether forming those letters
> works best on a page with a pen or on a computer screen. But as long as
> they
> can read what they compose, they will develop the right skills.
>
> “The important thing is that for kids to learn [printing)]and cursive
> accurately and fluently, and if they have that, then they’ll be able to do
> written composition in a whole variety of situations,” Klein said.
>
> Marie Picard, a penmanship workbook dealer in London, Ont., said cursive
> might be fading away, but still exists in letters, envelopes, signatures
> and
> signs.
>
> “Handwriting shows some sort of style and flair and how you are as a
> person,” she said. “I just think that it’s (becoming) a lost art.”
>
> Sonja Semion, with the Colorado branch of Stand for Children, an education
> advocacy organization, said with limited resources in classrooms, it’s time
> to focus not on what has always been taught, but what’s best for children
> for when they become adults.
>
> “I think schools have to toe a line right now where they have to really
> prepare kids for the careers of the future,” she said. “We still need
> writing, some kind of penmanship, but I think the keyboard is really the
> way
> it’s going to go. The technology is the future.”
>
> *Postmedia News*
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