NationStates

We've had some intense battles of ideas here on NSG about race, economics, and reproductive rights, but I think it's time for a subject that really gets us at each other's throats. Cursive!

Is it useful? Should kids be learning it in school? What are the consequences of a generation growing up without it?

I learned cursive in elementary school and for several years they made us write assignments exclusively in cursive. In middle school, there were some things we were made to write in cursive but by then we started typing things and printing it out. First day of high school, teachers say: Every assignment will be typed, we do not accept anything written by hand. Except for worksheets, in which case we were told to print legibly. College, not once single graded thing was ever handwritten.

I'm in my mid 20's now and I have barely retained any ability to write in cursive at all, but I can still read it. I am of the opinion that it was unnecessary to learn it, and that it was a waste of time that could have been better spent. If I'm writing something with a pen, it's always better to print. If it's for me, I want to be able to read it. If I'm filling out a document, someone wants to be able to quickly read it. If I'm writing an address on a letter or package, I want it to get where it's going, so I print clearly.

The only advantage to cursive is that it's a lot faster to write that way if you're good at it, but I don't encounter many situations in life where I need to write down a lot of information very quickly. I view cursive as similar to shorthand - an interesting skill but one most people can do without. What say you, NSG?

Why does it even exist?

Everyone has their own style of writing, and I like my own separated-letter handwriting. Here's a sample of my writing.



With that said, I don't think it should be a compulsory class. It can be an extra class if a school survey shows that there're a decent number of people who loves or wants to write that way.

I think cursive looks much better and readable than the separated-style writing, but I don't think it should be compulsory. I struggled with it a lot in elementary school, too. Now I am more talented in cursive than in the separated style.

Ah is cursive a language or???

I've been writing exclusively in cursive ever since I was taught it and it's the normal way everyone I know write with.
It just sounds like you live in a quite peculiar place tbh.

As someone who does not use English as a first language, it is not the end of the world if you don't write/read cursive well, but can be a little annoying when you meet someone who does (i.e. your professors in university lmao). People from my country definitely do not write or read English on a daily basis if they are not English teachers, students academics. I'd love for it to be compulsory but there is one thing I would like to add -- consistency. I used to be taught cursive for maybe 2-3 years during primary school, but then the school changed the textbooks and the cursive writing was taken out. Then, I found that they had cursive teaching again after I went to high school.

The school really has to be consistent whether they want to teach it or not, especially with young students in their formative years. Teach it or not, I would at least prefer that the schools and the teachers make their decision well beforehand and stick to it.

Cursive can be a fun thing to learn, but if you have illegible handwriting, no one other than yourself can be sure what you’re writing. So if you want to learn cursive kids, have good handwriting.

I'm a 00s kid who was taught cursive twice: once in 3rd grade and once in 5th grade, and some of the letter forms were different the second time around. I was always better at printing and still am to this day; it's just faster and easier, seeing as how printing looks closer to the letter forms you see in publications and on the Internet, and I've known how to print well since a very young age.

The only thing I use cursive for is signing my name, just because that's what signing your name entails: writing it in cursive. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry my handwriting turns into an ugly mishmash of printing and cursive, with letters joined awkwardly and unevenly spaced, reminiscent of the handwriting of a few other kids in elementary school (when mine was really neat). People rant about students no longer being taught cursive; I can't relate, and I do think it should be taught if only for the purpose of knowing how to sign your name. My cursive was never as neat as my printing, so requiring everything be written in cursive is just opening a can of worms. (My 3rd grade teacher always threatened that in middle and high school, everything will have to be written in cursive; I never had to write anything in cursive for school assignments other than signing permission slips after 5th grade.)

We were forced to learn cursive in grade school, and I detested it. I still do not write legibly with it, and despite being taught that this was against some rule, I even print to make out checks (except for my signature).

One day, I told my (nasty) 4th-grade teacher that it was a waste of time and that I would live to see the day when it'd be obsolete. This was long before computers were ubiquitous, or even on people's minds. I just figured that everyone would either print or type, and that the "usefulness" of cursive only existed in teachers' minds - similar to how the school had made us learn how to use an abacus for nothing.

I absolutely love the fact that I was right, and better yet, that the teacher in question was young enough that she will have lived to see it happen. I just hope she remembers that day, so she is suitably irked by the correctness of my prediction. I'm glad that schools are finally catching on and that now, millions of children are not made to try to write that way at all.

Aellex wrote:I've been writing exclusively in cursive ever since I was taught it and it's the normal way everyone I know write with.
It just sounds like you live in a quite peculiar place tbh.

I'm originally from Florida and every person under 30 I've ever met only writes in print.

Victorious Decepticons wrote:We were forced to learn cursive in grade school, and I detested it. I still do not write legibly with it, and despite being taught that this was against some rule, I even print to make out checks (except for my signature).

As long as a check is signed and the rest is legible, I don't think it matters what style of writing one uses. Never heard of such a supposed rule.

Page wrote:
I'm originally from Florida and every person under 30 I've ever met only writes in print.

Guess it might just be cultural then. The only thing I've seen people ever write in print was their family name and it's because it's a convention to make sure people don't mistake a letter reading it.

I hated doing cursive in School and thought it to be extremly retarded.

I taught myself cursive in 4th grade, and I really love writing in it, but I don't really see a point in teaching kids to write in it.

Considering that I literally cannot write on paper for an extended period of time without my hands hurting due to my dysgraphia, I see no point in trying to force people, kids especially, to write with it. If they want to though, I have no problem with that.

I was taught cursive throughout elementary and secondary school, and I have fairly good writing, with both cursive and non-cursive handwriting.

I don't really see the point in teaching children cursive, but I also don't see the point of treating as a completely useless, traumatic experience. Necessary? Not entirely. Useless? Eh, arguable. It can be useful to have legible handwriting.

I write, and can read, in cursive as a preference, though it isn’t very good. To me it is more than just an exercise, a utility. I think cursive gives life and personality to the text that would be missing in print; it is a bit of culture passed down to me.

Aellex wrote:

Page wrote:
I'm originally from Florida and every person under 30 I've ever met only writes in print.

Guess it might just be cultural then. The only thing I've seen people ever write in print was their family name and it's because it's a convention to make sure people don't mistake a letter reading it.

I don’t think it is a cultural thing, tbh, although that might be different in France. I would say cursive is something that has declined with the advent of iPhones, iPods, Laptops, computers, etc. and the emerging predominance of typing these days. Out of all my peers, even women (stereotypically having very neat and tidy handwriting), only a few can read and write in cursive, and fewer actually write in cursive. Comparatively, my parents an older sisters have fantastic cursive.

No, teach kids to communicate exclusively in emojis and then send them down the mines. They won't develop complex enough thought to question the system.

Just don't teach it in public schools most poor children wont ever read Absalom, Absalom! anyway and probably wouldn't be able to in the first place so why try. Well I mean I guess they could reprint the whole thing in Comic Sans which I guess will be the new official handwriting style. We can go ahead and get rid of pencils to wax crayons are way more economical and all the pretty colors right.

I can only write a few letters in Cursive just so I can have a signature. Cursive should be taught in a limited fashion so kids can sign their name, other than that cursive should be practically left to die.

As someone who has never experienced such knuckle pain before or since being forced to learn cursive, I say to heck with cursive.

Page wrote:

Victorious Decepticons wrote:We were forced to learn cursive in grade school, and I detested it. I still do not write legibly with it, and despite being taught that this was against some rule, I even print to make out checks (except for my signature).

As long as a check is signed and the rest is legible, I don't think it matters what style of writing one uses. Never heard of such a supposed rule.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of my grade school teachers along the way just made that up in order to get me to quit refusing to learn cursive quite so obstinately. Not that it really worked - it still took them years to ram that data through!

I learned to write in cursive from my parents and my school and the letters were different. I don't know why. Usually I prefer to write in cursive just to be faster, but some of my teachers now don't allow cursive. One teacher requires you to write in cursive. What schools should do is teach cursive, but be more consistent about if it's needed or not.

Serrus wrote:As someone who has never experienced such knuckle pain before or since being forced to learn cursive, I say to heck with cursive.

I get similar symptoms, like the cramping of my fingers when writing short entries and feeling pain when trying to write anything. Maybe you are dysgraphic like me as well? Anyway, I agree. *burns a sign encouraging cursive writing*