TED Conversations

Robert Winner

TEDCRED 50+

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

Should cursive writing be required in schools?

Only three state have made cursive a part of the core curriculum requirements while 45 states require proficiency in computer keyboarding at the elementry level. Some states have made cursive optional.

Has our society advanced to the point of where handwriting has become unnecessary.

What impacts can you see on not being able to write in cursive. Could printing be just as acceptable?

+1
Share:

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.

  • Alexa Corbett

    • +1
    Dec 5 2012: Cursive writing is absolutely necessary. I know with the changing technologies it seems arbitrary but it actually encourages analytic thinking. Not to mention that print is very easy to fabricate while cursive writing tends to have a more "Signature" look, after all, a signature has to be in cursive to be considered legitimate. SAT's still require students to write the on the back of the booklet saying they won't share information using cursive and sign it for that EXACT reason. Saying it's unnecessary will do society a grand disservice. Kids today don't even know how to write and professors at universities are trying to teach these fundamentals instead of coursework, thus impeding on course material. High school should focus on the proper format IN ADDITION to the correct sentence structures. Writing in cursive allow students' thought to flow more "freely" rather than be hindered by the specific directional changes of print writing. Also, "handwriting" actually means that it is in cursive not print, since "writing in print" means just that. It frustrates me so much to see people take an approach of cutting-out cursive because they didn't bother to learn it and find it difficult to use. If it was taught early in elementary school like it's supposed to be, people wouldn't have that problem.

    • Tify Ndanoboi 30+

      • 0
      Dec 5 2012: you know you said it so much more eloquently, than my.. "My God, its not taught in Kindergarten" (i'm not from the US, so i didn't know)

      In fact I was so shocked i searched to see if the origin post was true, that's how much I didn't believe this and how stunned I am.

      I am honestly NOT joking with you here, not at all.

      Tech or no, its about the flow of thought from ones mind through to the page, the act of actually feeling the pen transfer, the control, the refinement, the thought and the eloquence of language as you join the nuances together. The eloquence of sustaining thought in a flowing manner, just as speech.

      In fact cursive already reminds me of speech, of a conversation with you the reader, who is unseen, where non-cursive, is the antithesis of this, it's the barking of commands.

      Its now no surprise to me, that most email's I get now are "twitterized". I'd always read them as if somehow feeling the person didn't learn nor has the power to fully express their full meaning, and I think this must have an influence on it.

      Same too, it's clearly a sad state of affairs how people cant read more than one or two lines without being distracted or bored, as the blatantly obvious mean is not given, but rather the subtleties of the situations.

      Which is why I've taken to put lines breaks unlike Alexa, as if to somehow help people get through the difficulty of horror of looking at long paragraph.

      Lastly cursive, has taught me to think BEFORE I write, even if it's typed, as it makes me think about the flow the structure the steam of consciousness, the thoughts, the ideas, the possibilities. And only when that's been formulated to put with pen to paper, or hands on the keyboard.

      So in some ways we're making things harder for children now and when they get to university as this is where, and in later life, they'll need those very skills.

      Or would we rather condemn those children to a life where the only skill required is to ask..."Do you want fries with that?"

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.