Is There Much Value In Teaching Cursive Writing?

lxskllr · Nov 18, 2024

Inspired by a post in the RFWP thread. Cursive writing takes a fairly long time to learn properly, and doesn't have a lot of use in modern times. I'm nearly 100% certain I couldn't do a grade school type paper giving a proper demonstration of every letter, upper and lower case. I can fluently read cursive though.

Teaching Pros:
There's still a lot of places cursive writing could be run into, and it would be good(and sometimes necessary for people to be able to understand)

If one doesn't know cursive, it would be a kind of soft illiteracy. You could hire someone to translate(maybe AI?), but it would present many opportunities to get screwed without firsthand knowledge.

Teaching Cons:
It takes a lot of time that could be spent on more valuable knowledge.
It frustrates kids for something they have no need to perform themselves, though they may need to read it from others on increasingly rare occasions.

Teaching Uncertainties:

Not knowing Latin is also a "soft" illiteracy, and it doesn't matter much to most people. Is cursive on the way to becoming Latin or runes?
Maybe it promotes art or a different way of thinking? No idea, but I could see it providing non obvious value. Maybe it's been studied?

brianmanahan · Nov 18, 2024

i am glad i know how to read/write cursive even though i don't write it much anymore. lots of genealogical research i've done has required it.

and similarly i'm kind of sad that i didn't learn latin in school. i've been picking up both latin and greek over the years as i get more into ancient history, but i would have loved to have at least one semester on one of them.

once i'm retired i'm going to try to take some electives on those.

KMFJD · Nov 18, 2024

My handwriting was always terrible, no patience for it, these days if i write more than a sentence in cursive my hand cramps right up trying to do it

lxskllr · Nov 18, 2024

It's been decades since I've written anything substantial in cursive, and my signature's degenerated into a doctor-like scrawl. I print everything all caps. Started cause of work, and I just do that for everything. I've been complimented a couple times on my writing(printing), but I can't imagine the horrors those people endured to appreciate my scribbling :^D

FelixDeCat · Nov 18, 2024

I write in cursive all the time. It just flows. It is an ingenious invention versus having to write each letter out. Speaking of which, when I address an envelope, I use cursive.

But back in the 70s we used those stupid extra fat pencils that gave me callouses as I wrote millions of pages in cursive.

lxskllr · Nov 18, 2024

FelixDeCat said:
But back in the 70s we used those stupid extra fat pencils that gave me callouses as I wrote millions of pages in cursive.

Punishment in school was writing many many sentences, and I was punished *a lot*. It started as a stock sentence, but they caught on that kids were prewriting sentences to stockpile them for future use. They then turned to bespoke sentences created for each crime.

nakedfrog · Nov 18, 2024

Reading it is definitely a more useful ability than writing it.

Shmee · Nov 18, 2024

I think handwriting in general is kinda obsolete. I was always better at typing.

IronWing · Nov 18, 2024

lxskllr said:
Punishment in school was writing many many sentences, and I was punished *a lot*. It started as a stock sentence, but they caught on that kids were prewriting sentences to stockpile them for future use. They then turned to bespoke sentences created for each crime.

Charmonium · Nov 18, 2024

Learn cursive then say f' this shit and print instead. It's actually faster. I gave up on cursive so long ago, I hope my life is never on the line - cause I be dead.

Also learn to touch type. The pain it causes me to see people try to hunt and peck. ARRRRGGGGGHHHH! It's right up there with chewing with your mouth open. Does monkey want a banana?

GodisanAtheist · Nov 18, 2024

Yes, I believe it should be taught, but early at an elementary school level.

It's both educationally valuable at that age (different way to learn and reinforce letters), helps develop hand eye coordination, is kinda artsy and the kids get a big kick out of "writing grown-up".

But by the time you hit around 5th grade you (should) be moving out of the fundamentals and the "how" you write becomes substantially less important than the "what" you write and typing should take precidence.

My son's 3rd grade teacher incorporates cursive into their curriculum even though it's not required by the state and my son gets a huge fucking kick out of it.

I'll thumb through his little art journals from time to time and he'll have things labeled in as pin perfect cursive as he can manage at 8 and it's ridiculous.

gorobei · Nov 18, 2024

at this point the only point to cursive is signatures and forgery detection. but that assumes that people have written their name enough times for it to be muscle memory.
the amount of practice needed to avoid hesitation wavering on a pen stroke is enough to deter most casual forgers actually attempting to recreate an existing signature sample. the problem is old school forgery is so slow compared to digital fraud that it may not be worth bothering to forge. though check washing is supposedly still a thing.

Charmonium · Nov 18, 2024

This why a fast, sloppy, virtually illegible signature is better than a nice, prim, "civilized" signature. You have to practice for days or longer to be able to pull off a reasonable facsimile. If you try patiently to recreate a sloppy signature, that's going to raise some flags.

Brainonska511 · Nov 18, 2024

No, but handwriting in general should be taught. There are benefits for handwriting in general: fine motor hand-eye coordination, being able to take notes sans typing... I found in college my memory retention can be quite different if I write notes vs typing them (with hand writing being better for memory retention), likely due to different neurological pathways.

gorobei · Nov 18, 2024

Brainonska511 said:
No, but handwriting in general should be taught. There are benefits for handwriting in general: fine motor hand-eye coordination, being able to take notes sans typing... I found in college my memory retention can be quite different if I write notes vs typing them (with hand writing being better for memory retention), likely due to different neurological pathways.

writing and listening can help with retention but only with certain subjects.

if you are a taking down a constant stream of sentences/numbers/diagrams and fall behind the lecturer's pace you are so busy trying to catch up that you dont actually have time to understand or think about the content. if the material can be simplified to core concepts and a few details then yeah notes help, but there were some asshat old school lit professors who want you to be able to recite their talking points verbatim when i was in college. even math proofs can be annoying to transcribe.

and remember that cursive isnt necessarily faster, it was created to slow down the wear of quill tips and pen nibs.

Brainonska511 · Nov 18, 2024

gorobei said:
writing and listening can help with retention but only with certain subjects.

if you are a taking down a constant stream of sentences/numbers/diagrams and fall behind the lecturer's pace you are so busy trying to catch up that you dont actually have time to understand or think about the content. if the material can be simplified to core concepts and a few details then yeah notes help, but there were some asshat old school lit professors who want you to be able to recite their talking points verbatim when i was in college. even math proofs can be annoying to transcribe.

and remember that cursive isnt necessarily faster, it was created to slow down the wear of quill tips and pen nibs.

In college and grad school, I never found someone going so fast I couldn't hand write my notes. The few classes where someone would reach off slides, they'd hand out the slides so we could take notes directly on them, so no need to copy it all down.

But obviously, my experience may not be universally applicable to everyone else's.

Torn Mind · Nov 18, 2024

https://extension.ucr.edu/features/cursivewriting

It's coming back because...cognitive benefits.

The Resurrection of Cursive Writing

In many US schools, the reinstatement of cursive handwriting in some states is a hopeful sign of perhaps a return to older teaching…

medium.com

SteveGrabowski · Nov 19, 2024

Charmonium said:
This why a fast, sloppy, virtually illegible signature is better than a nice, prim, "civilized" signature. You have to practice for days or longer to be able to pull off a reasonable facsimile. If you try patiently to recreate a sloppy signature, that's going to raise some flags.

You could be like me who never writes his signature the same way twice. Sometimes I'll do the first letter of my name and then the rest are a completely unintelligible line and other times I won't even do the first letter and just sign a damped topologist's sine curve. Or sometimes it'll be a straight line that barely waves. Every once in a while I'll do the first initial of my first name and the first initial of my last and they'll kind of look like letters and then everything else is god knows what. And I had such beautiful cursive handwriting in elementary school, it genuinely looked textbook lol.

Charmonium · Nov 19, 2024

Maybe this is just me, but my sig is 95% muscle memory. If/when I choke, it's noticeable.

@SteveGrabowski - I like that wildly varied list. It sorta proves that signatures are meaningless.

I noticed this today filling those endless forms they give you when you're new at a given medical practice. The form was online but required a sig. They didn't even give me the option to upload one - that used to be de rigueur. Instead, they spelled my first middle and surname in cursive - very neat, perfect cursive.

And this was for medical records.

I'm not sure I ever really believed that there were these bridge trolls someplace actually doing any sort of comparison.

lxskllr · Nov 19, 2024

Brainonska511 said:
No, but handwriting in general should be taught. There are benefits for handwriting in general: fine motor hand-eye coordination, being able to take notes sans typing... I found in college my memory retention can be quite different if I write notes vs typing them (with hand writing being better for memory retention), likely due to different neurological pathways.

I can't type fast, so when I need to get information down quick, it's done by hand, though it's printed. Aside from raw speed, I can take shortcuts to emphasize certain bits, and I'm not constrained by lines. I would say I remember things better when I hand write, but I'm unsure how much that has to do with the medium vs my skill with the tools.

dave_the_nerd · Nov 19, 2024

We don’t teach it anymore, haven’t in decades, and it’s been working fine. I see no reason to start again.

Learning to read it is something that history majors can learn in college if they have to.

gorobei · Saturday at 1:58 PM

SteveGrabowski said:
You could be like me who never writes his signature the same way twice. Sometimes I'll do the first letter of my name and then the rest are a completely unintelligible line and other times I won't even do the first letter and just sign a damped topologist's sine curve. Or sometimes it'll be a straight line that barely waves. Every once in a while I'll do the first initial of my first name and the first initial of my last and they'll kind of look like letters and then everything else is god knows what. And I had such beautiful cursive handwriting in elementary school, it genuinely looked textbook lol.

same here, at this point me trying to write it properly like i did in the past would probably look like a forgery.

FelixDeCat · Saturday at 3:52 PM

Heaven forbid we teach kids new skills ..in school.

Cursive was created by wise elderly scholars to free men from the drudgery of printing block script letter by letter.

lxskllr · Saturday at 3:57 PM

I didn't vote in this poll cause I didn't know, and still don't, but I think bash scripting or python would be more valuable. Aside from creating useful tools, it teaches logical thought processes. Or maybe just a few semesters of fucking critical thinking so people know when they're being played like little bitches. If there was any doubt about a need for that course, it got nuked from orbit a few weeks ago.

Torn Mind · Monday at 12:15 AM

lxskllr said:
I didn't vote in this poll cause I didn't know, and still don't, but I think bash scripting or python would be more valuable. Aside from creating useful tools, it teaches logical thought processes. Or maybe just a few semesters of fucking critical thinking so people know when they're being played like little bitches. If there was any doubt about a need for that course, it got nuked from orbit a few weeks ago.

Cognitive biases don't cure themselves when presented with logical training. What happens is that people try to dress up cognitive biases as "logic" and abuse concepts in order to dominate a debate. Rather than dumb and simple-minded nonsense, the learned engage in sophistry, censorship, or treating incomplete paradigms as totally complete.

Is There Much Value In Teaching Cursive Writing?

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