Cursive writing is gone. Should reading be next?

[Wilbur ★]

Obviously not but there can be a case made for the power of digital media as a source of education.  Search the right topics on YouTube and you could easily access an educational equivalent to a graduate degree without even opening a book.  Problem is control of topics and reference sources.  Most colleges offer some form of online or distant learning and it really is just a matter of time before brick and mortar schools become a distant memory. 

[maddmaxx ★]

The problem with online education is the same as the problem with home schooling and that's a lack of socialization.  Possibly the most important part of education is learning how to deal with other people both good and bad.

I cannot comprehend the possible life of a geek from CT had there not been two enlistments in the Navy.

[Wilbur ★]

9 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

The problem with online education is the same as the problem with home schooling and that's a lack of socialization.  Possibly the most important part of education is learning how to deal with other people both good and bad.

I cannot comprehend the possible life of a geek from CT had there not been two enlistments in the Navy.

Socialization is dying a rapid death Maxx.  The future looks very insular. 

[Indy]

I've never really been able to write in cursive.  So this was always a meh subject for me.  Yes, I learned it, but never used it, never saw a point in a writing style that was harder read.  That said, yes I can read it and from a historical perspective, kids should at least be familiar with it to decipher it.

My son did learn cursive in school this year, about at the level I'm talking about.  He can sign his name and somewhat read it.  He's also doing geometry and algebra in 3rd grade.

[Razors Edge ★]

45 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Obviously not but there can be a case made for the power of digital media as a source of education.  Search the right topics on YouTube and you could easily access an educational equivalent to a graduate degree without even opening a book.  Problem is control of topics and reference sources.  Most colleges offer some form of online or distant learning and it really is just a matter of time before brick and mortar schools become a distant memory.

Why read when you can listen?

[Wilbur ★]

1 minute ago, Razors Edge said:

Why read when you can listen?

Exactly. 

[ChrisL]

Yeah I see online education as the wave of the future.  Socialization as we know it really is fading with today's kids.  They are more insular and communicate through their devices more so than in person.  Rigjt, wrong, like it or dont it's the way things are done....

My daughter learned cursive but by the time my son went through elementary school 4 years later it was dropped.

[Page Turner]

1 hour ago, Wilbur said:

Cursive writing is gone. Should reading be next?

...it was all the cursing.  Cursing is wrong, and we ought to teach our children better than that.

[LabDaddy]

29 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Why read when you can listen?

Sorry, but I'm hard pressed to believe that listening to an audio book is anywhere close to the efficiency of reading when it comes to learning.

 

[Kzoo]

6 minutes ago, LabDaddy said:

Sorry, but I'm hard pressed to believe that listening to an audio book is anywhere close to the efficiency of reading when it comes to learning.

 

There are different types of learners.  I learn best by hearing.  I have no issues with reading comprehension but my retention level is best by hearing.

[LabDaddy]

Just now, Kzoo said:

There are different types of learners.  I learn best by hearing.  I have no issues with reading comprehension but my retention level is best by hearing.

No doubt. I'm talking more at the population level.

It's more of a challenge when you want to read, re-read, highlight a section to go back to, look up references and then go back to the text, yada yada.

Are any university textbooks offered as audio books?

 

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Wilbur said:

Socialization is dying a rapid death Maxx.  The future looks very insular. 

Well, I won't have to worry about it.  I do think you have a valid point however.

[Kirby]

Personally I'm still practicing writing with the Palmer Method.  I'm sure it will be a valuable skill someday.

[LabDaddy]

1 hour ago, Wilbur said:

Socialization is dying a rapid death Maxx.  The future looks very insular. 

And society is paying the price for that, as individuals will.

 

[Longjohn ★]

27 minutes ago, Kirby said:

Personally I'm still practicing writing with the Palmer Method.  I'm sure it will be a valuable skill someday.

I still use the Peterson method when I want to keep secrets from my granddaughters. It doesn’t work with the ones up north but to my granddaughters in Georgia have no clue.

[Razors Edge ★]

41 minutes ago, Kirby said:

Personally I'm still practicing writing with the Palmer Method.  I'm sure it will be a valuable skill someday.

Who knew it had that name? Not me Definitely easier than the Spencerian! But not as pretty. 

Tom

[Page Turner]

51 minutes ago, Kirby said:

Personally I'm still practicing writing with the Palmer Method.  I'm sure it will be a valuable skill someday.

...a lot of my personal problems in life, (as exhibited here,) I blame on the Palmer method.

I eventually just started printing stuff.  The graphology people have a field day with "printers".

[Longjohn ★]

[Kzoo]

1 hour ago, LabDaddy said:

No doubt. I'm talking more at the population level.

It's more of a challenge when you want to read, re-read, highlight a section to go back to, look up references and then go back to the text, yada yada.

Are any university textbooks offered as audio books?

 

Printed text books are out.  They are e-books leased/rented for the term.

[Kzoo]

I wrote in cursive (fairly well) up until about 10th grade.  I then entered a drafting and design program where I was required to letter (as opposed to print).  From then on I have printed (as opposed to lettering).  Lettering is one thing I could do very well.

[Page Turner]

8 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

I wrote in cursive (fairly well) up until about 10th grade.  I then entered a drafting and design program where I was required to letter (as opposed to print).  From then on I have printed...

The writer who prints is basically one who is a constructive and practical thinker who relates to the mechanics and material/ tangible aspects of life. Printing provides a cover up for his true feelings. Harmonious printing indicates a person who thinks in a building block fashion. He is able to take many small details and combine them into a coordinated whole. He possesses self control and good organizational abilities. Inharmonious printing indicates a person who is fragmented in his thinking and has difficulty relating to others. He can be sharp and unfeeling in social interactions. 

 

http://www.handwritinginsights.com/printing.html

 

...personally, I think I'm more of an "artistic" printer.

[Page Turner]

A:   It is a generality, but worth answering. People who print have put up a barrier to keep the world from getting to know them. They do not easily express their inner-most feelings. People who print take longer to experience intimacy and tend to have a strong external protective mental shell that is often seen as confidence.

It is estimated that over half of men in the United States prefer to print rather than write cursive. This is the same tendency that says “I’d rather sit here in pain rather than express my feelings.”

Some men learn at an early age to keep their insecure feelings hidden from the world. And yes, they do often have to print because of their messy handwriting, but the answer still applies.

 

https://handwritinguniversity.com/members/handwriting-analysis-faq/

[Kzoo]

3 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

The writer who prints is basically one who is a constructive and practical thinker who relates to the mechanics and material/ tangible aspects of life. Printing provides a cover up for his true feelings. Harmonious printing indicates a person who thinks in a building block fashion. He is able to take many small details and combine them into a coordinated whole. He possesses self control and good organizational abilities. Inharmonious printing indicates a person who is fragmented in his thinking and has difficulty relating to others. He can be sharp and unfeeling in social interactions. 

 

http://www.handwritinginsights.com/printing.html

 

...personally, I think I'm more of an "artistic" printer.

I had to do it for school and then for the first 8 years of my professional life.  Lettering was a requirement and I forgot how to write.  I do it once in a while just to see how funny it is.  I have completely forgotten how to connect letters.  I could sprain a finger connecting a W and an S.

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

Not true,

 

I curse just as much when I’m writing as I do when speaking.

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

you could easily access an educational equivalent to a graduate degree without even opening a book.

The fly in that oinkment is that you can just spew it back, but not apply it.

[MickinMD ★]

I can still remember the Peterson-style cursive letters above the blackboard in my 1st and 2nd grade classrooms - a well as Sister Serina and Sister Damaris who taught them. By 2nd grade I was already developing a strong interest in science - I wanted to be the chemist I became by age 12 - and Sister Damaris nicknamed me "Mars."

Today I still see a use for handwriting and why not cursive, which can be written faster? You can't always send a text!  As long as pens and pencils are being sold, people will be writing stuff down.

[Kirby]

My Mom was a grade school teacher and her handwriting is still perfect.  I know it bothers her if I send her something and the writing isn't "correct".

[ChrisL]

Off on a tangent, I've noticed more and more that younger people are not signing their name but making a "mark" as their signature.  Both my kids just make a scribbled initial as their signature and i see it often on younger folks I hired.

Don't learn cursive can't sign your name...

[maddmaxx ★]

44 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

I wrote in cursive (fairly well) up until about 10th grade.  I then entered a drafting and design program where I was required to letter (as opposed to print).  From then on I have printed (as opposed to lettering).  Lettering is one thing I could do very well.

Same here except that I continued down the path replacing my printing with keyboard and printer such that now my printing is no more legible than my cursive.

[maddmaxx ★]

22 minutes ago, F_in Ray Of Sunshine said:

Not true,

 

I curse just as much when I’m writing as I do when speaking.

I suspect that I would also but I'm a bit more careful of leaving a permanent record.  It's better if the shocked audience is left thinking "did he just say that in public"

[Razors Edge ★]

4 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Cursive writing is gone.

FAKE NEWS!  Or is this a Canadian thing?  I just polled several of my young nieces, and they ALL are still learning (or did in earlier grades) cursive handwriting in schools. 

Jeebus, everybody please step back from the ledge and take a few deep breaths.

Tom

[12string]

my thoughts on the OP are this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hazzQ5bSs

[Ralphie ★]

Use it or lose it!

[Longjohn ★]

3 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

FAKE NEWS!  Or is this a Canadian thing?  I just polled several of my young nieces, and they ALL are still learning (or did in earlier grades) cursive handwriting in schools. 

Jeebus, everybody please step back from the ledge and take a few deep breaths.

Tom

I facetimed with my eight year old granddaughter last week and she was saying she wished she had a phone so she could talk to me more often (she was using dad's phone). She asked me if she wrote to me would I write back. I said I would, then she said "don't use cursive because she can't read cursive".

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

4 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I suspect that I would also but I'm a bit more careful of leaving a permanent record. 

Too late. You already have one.I realize it’s been a long time, but think back to grade school when your teacher told you the things you did were going on your Permanent Record. Yeah, that didn’t just go away....

 

(...and yes there are still people who can read cuneiform).

[shootingstar]

8 hours ago, Kzoo said:

I wrote in cursive (fairly well) up until about 10th grade.  I then entered a drafting and design program where I was required to letter (as opposed to print).  From then on I have printed (as opposed to lettering).  Lettering is one thing I could do very well.

My handwriting deteroriated rapidly after 12th grade. I think the speed of my thoughts, ideas couldn't keep up with the speed of my handwriting. If you can believe it for a few undergraduate literature courses for short essay test questions, when I wrote answers (we had no other option at the time in the late 1970's), a professor warned me in red ink, that my mark dropped 10% because he could barely read my handwritten answers.

So, yes, I love computer keyboards.   

As 2 art courses in evening I did take hand Western calligraphy...  that is a real art form, where letters and words can be made into art shapes/forms.  I do have an opinion on computer fonts...the prnciples of understanding hand calligraphy, legibility of lettering styles with serifs or san serifs...derives from the medieval times now into the 21st century.

[shootingstar]

Here is hand calligraphy.. dip steel pen nib into ink.  I did design my own Christmas cards about 20 yrs. ago.  Now people will say :  you can do that on a computer. From the standpoint of art and design, I'd rather feel the hand pressure of steel (or pig's hair, sable hair for paintbrushes) and viscosity of media...ink, paint over computer graphics.  

[Tizeye]

8 hours ago, Kzoo said:

I wrote in cursive (fairly well) up until about 10th grade.  I then entered a drafting and design program where I was required to letter (as opposed to print).  From then on I have printed (as opposed to lettering).  Lettering is one thing I could do very well.

This. And while I did have drafting and design classes in high school, it was the ballpoint pen that converted handwriting to slop. Actually, the printing from drafting helped maintain readability. Fast forward a few decades and unable to read my own handwritten notes, I switch hack to a fountain pen. What a huge difference and slowly improving. Enough friction to slow me down with a solid, rather than blotchy, ink flow. Love the reaction when I pull a decent pen out the pocket and start writing or responding to their "borrow a pen" request.

(Never have used a flex nib though. Seems a little weird. Just regular medium and fine nibs.)