School District Considers Dropping Cursive

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Chewy said:
Yep it does so I don't want that hour and fifteen to be taken up by writing pretty.

The key is to get students to feel confident in communicating their ideas and to actually participate in the classroom.

It is wrong to suggest that most of the day is filled up with watching Disney movies but if it is I can tell you why. That for everything a teacher teaches a child they have to spend time grading.

And that takes up time. I had a class in college with 20 students who were learning to write essays. It took me hours to go over their papers and point out each and every mistake.

I have a tutor working with my company now who I hired just to do this. It takes her 6 hours a week to evaluate the essays of the teachers. And that's because she evaluates it properly. (She has 6 students at a time with a limit)

Many times when the schools are showing Disney movies it's because the teacher will be sitting at the desk grading papers.

Everyone is overworked but you usually don't have to go home and take tons of materials for grading, assessment and evaluation.

Take a math teacher. She can either go down the test and mark the answer wrong, or she can evaluate the "work" for the equation and try to figure out where the student got it wrong. The teacher's goal is to find a pattern in the learning and how the student is misunderstanding the information and then show the student where they are going wrong.

This take a huge amount of time. As I said I teach teachers for a living and when I create classes I have a limit of 10 students per class so that I can see what they are getting wrong.

Consider how much time it takes to do this for each subject? Then you want to pile on an outdated skill set just because?
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Chewy sounds like you are doing a fantastic job.

What you describe, is not what goes on here. Children are not encouraged to think, communicate, collaborate or to assimilate knowledge gathered utilizing technology.


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A viewer survey accompanied the article that I posted yesterday when I started this thread. It's still on the WDIV homepage if you'd like to participate and/or see the results.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/
 
Linda7NJ said:
Chewy sounds like you are doing a fantastic job.

What you describe, is not what goes on here. Children are not encouraged to think, communicate, collaborate or to assimilate knowledge gathered utilizing technology.


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Exactly, they wind up having to "teach to test" because they are penalized if their class doesn't do well. This is where funding comes in, when you jam that many kids in the classroom it makes it impossible for a teacher to do their job.

It's not that teachers need to be paid more, it's that they need smaller classes and more teachers.

Oh and thanks for the props. :)
 
Found myself singing this song from my time. Interesting now to listen to the lyrics and compare to where we are today;

song: In the year 2525

[video=youtube;1FgSmdfRUus]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FgSmdfRUus[/video]
 
I think cursive is very important. That being said, I had to laugh remembering a few months back when I asked my younger son (32) to sign a paper for me. Now, he has two master's degrees, a high paying job in the computer industry and is working on a PHD.

He stood there for quite some time looking at the paper. I asked what was wrong and he replied, "It's been so long since I had to write anything in cursive that I can't remember how!"

:floorlaugh:

So I told my older son (37, also has degrees and works at a very good job in another area of the computer industry), thinking he'd laugh his butt off. Ahhhhh....., nope. He told me he could barely remember either.

Apparently cursive just isn't used much anymore, at least by people younger than I am. What a shame.
 
Chewy said:
Exactly, they wind up having to "teach to test" because they are penalized if their class doesn't do well. This is where funding comes in, when you jam that many kids in the classroom it makes it impossible for a teacher to do their job.

It's not that teachers need to be paid more, it's that they need smaller classes and more teachers.

Oh and thanks for the props. :)
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Exactly. I agree with you on the way it should be done. When my kids wonderful small private school closed its doors....I sent him to another private school that was very much run like the public school here. After a year, they almost managed to completely extinguish his love of learning. He was in trouble constantly for reading and working ahead, on his own. Once he received a detention for simply asking, "why" in class. For the record, my kid is not a super genius.

I home school now. He takes a two interactive online classes through Landry Academy as well as attends all the locally held 2 day intensives, belongs to a co op where he takes classes for Spanish, genocide studies, college English 101, i hired someone for the advanced maths, and he takes a college credit constitutional law class online, and is still very involved in martial arts. He typically spends in an average week 15-18 hours of structured learning, 12 doing wushu, works with my husband one or two days a week and the rest he spends socializing. The kid has way more free time than he ever did when he "went to school"
 
FWIW - my DD is in 2nd grade. They use the D'Nealian handwriting style starting in Kindergarten. At first I was like ???? but when she all of a sudden (always fascinated by my signature LOL) just stopped picking up her pencil and viola - she's writing in cursive. Did not take man hours to learn - just a natural progression is all.
 
My early elementary years were spent in a European country where students were expected to write in cursive with fountain pens starting in kindergarten. I have no children of my own and don't have strong opinions about pedagogy, but it always saddens me to see "pretty" dismissed as, basically, wasteful and ridiculous. I'm not prepared to debate that cursive is more essential to teach (given limited time and resources) than arithmetic or whatever, but I also don't want to abandon the idea that everyday things can and should be beautiful; that there is value in the aesthetic as much as in the practical. At risk of sounding insufferable, it's one of the things I miss most about living in Europe and something I see very rarely here.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that's the attitude with which cursive is currently being taught, and teaching cursive mechanically "because that's how things are done" does nothing to instill said attitude, so perhaps this is not the right battle.
 
longtallcold said:
FWIW - my DD is in 2nd grade. They use the D'Nealian handwriting style starting in Kindergarten. At first I was like ???? but when she all of a sudden (always fascinated by my signature LOL) just stopped picking up her pencil and viola - she's writing in cursive. Did not take man hours to learn - just a natural progression is all.
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I hope this doesn't come across snarky because I don't mean it that way. But I really hate when parents try to use their own child as a litmus test on "how it should be done."

My kids are gifted. My son scores perfect scores on all standardized tests and is loved by all his teachers. Would it be fair for me to shrug my shoulders and say "What's the big deal" for the other kid? If you want to streamline education to the success of your child then by all means home school. But it's unfair and insensitve for parents to ignore the socio economic disparity of all students.

Fine if you want to judge the other parents as being slackers, but the reality is and continues to be, our focus is on the needs of the students and not the whims of the parents.
 
likeafox said:
My early elementary years were spent in a European country where students were expected to write in cursive with fountain pens starting in kindergarten. I have no children of my own and don't have strong opinions about pedagogy, but it always saddens me to see "pretty" dismissed as, basically, wasteful and ridiculous. I'm not prepared to debate that cursive is more essential to teach (given limited time and resources) than arithmetic or whatever, but I also don't want to abandon the idea that everyday things can and should be beautiful; that there is value in the aesthetic as much as in the practical. At risk of sounding insufferable, it's one of the things I miss most about living in Europe and something I see very rarely here.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that's the attitude with which cursive is currently being taught, and teaching cursive mechanically "because that's how things are done" does nothing to instill said attitude, so perhaps this is not the right battle.
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Keep in mind I work with NYC inner city school teachers. So there's a lot more diversity and need.


My son attended LaGuardia High School in NYC which is one of the five top public high schools to attend. If you've ever seen the show FAME that's the school. He needed a portfolio to audition. Even these schools are cutting the programs for art because of the need in other areas.

Someone else posted that the reality is that most parents don't help their kids with their homework because it's exhausting and overwhelming. Even in a two parent working household it can often create stress that cuts into the quality time the parents have with their child.

Part of the problem in the school system are parents who have never had to teach who think their special child should be the litmus test for what decisions are made in the curriculum. Unfortunately a large amount of parents are not as involved with their kids as they like to think themselves to be. Educators are constantly held at bay from being honest at what is "going on with charlie" The key in curriculum development is progress and moving forward to find simpler solutions that develop cognitive, logic and reasoning skills and other such skills.

An example of this would be, you may have seen this on your 2nd graders homework.

2+3=
3+2=
5-2=
5-3=

And so many parents think their 6 year old can do this in a heart beat. Once they actually show them the equation they are surprised to find that the child pauses after the first one and then starts "trying to figure out" the answer to the rest of them. This is because young children are in the preoperational stage of development and do not understand "reversability"

http://peggybroadbent.com/blog/category/understanding-reversibility


It is essential for young children to learn this skill to help them develop an understanding of the way you can move things around in a equation in algebra. Nearly every parent that rags on teachers for not teaching the "pretty things" struggle with math skills because they didn't learn the basic foundations.

I'll post some fantastic math links for your kids if you want them. Please note that my area of expertise is in creative writing. I'm all for the arts, however too many kids are being pushed through the school system without the basic foundations of learning in place. It's easy to coddle the idea of "pretty" things but IMHO much more valuable to a student in life to learn core concepts.

I have NEVER met a person who complained about not learning how to do paper mache or write in cursive. I have met many many people who are distraught because their lack of logic and reasoning and core concepts leaves them at a loss with math and computer skills.

Look up Glad2teach on youtube btw. This guy is a MUST for any parent and adult with math. Mind bogglingly easy. He has a lot of videos so be sure to check them out.

[video=youtube;I9t-gYnPNaw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9t-gYnPNaw[/video]


Please keep in mind that the theoretical goal of curriculum planning is to create a "life long learner" with metacognitive awareness. What seems like "junk" to most parents is simply something they don't understand.
 
I'd like to see schools focus more on spelling. I'm always amazed on forums and FB seeing how poorly people spell common words, and now with texting and everything being shortened it is even worse IMHO. Some examples are:
were / where
there, their, they're
live / life
plan / plane

I know people make typos, I'm the master of typos, but when you see the same common mistakes by the same people over and over, it tells a story to me anyway.
 
Dewey2Me1MoThyme said:
I'd like to see schools focus more on spelling. I'm always amazed on forums and FB seeing how poorly people spell common words, and now with texting and everything being shortened it is even worse IMHO. Some examples are:
were / where
there, their, they're
live / life
plan / plane

I know people make typos, I'm the master of typos, but when you see the same common mistakes by the same people over and over, it tells a story to me anyway.
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I don't usually do those; my typos are usually what I prefer to call creative spelling. I don't know if I've ever read a book that I didn't find at least one typo, misspelled word or grammatical error in. Yes, I know that should be in which I didn't find...
 
Dewey2Me1MoThyme said:
I'd like to see schools focus more on spelling. I'm always amazed on forums and FB seeing how poorly people spell common words, and now with texting and everything being shortened it is even worse IMHO. Some examples are:
were / where
there, their, they're
live / life
plan / plane

I know people make typos, I'm the master of typos, but when you see the same common mistakes by the same people over and over, it tells a story to me anyway.
Click to expand...

From my research and professional background, I've decided the best way to improve spelling is to read, read, read. Studies have shown that those who read a lot, especially as kids, are better spellers. OTOH, my husband is a terrible speller but reads a lot and is a good writer (he just has to use spellcheck...). So there you go.
 
It doesn't matter to me if someone learns to write cursive or print. What matters is legibility. If it can't be read, mistakes are made. So, teaching someone to slow down, take their time, and write properly would be more important. I do find cursive more difficult to deduce when it is illegible than print, but both can be impossible to decide. If you know your handwriting is illegible, age can make it impossible to write clearly, invest in some form of equipment to type.

Grammar is not a big deal as long as the message is clearly understood, that is an English language issue though, and simply requires asking questions when uncertain. Another thing that could be taught, if you have a question or uncertainty, ask questions always.
 
I love cursive writing. i find it beautiful.....
 
21merc7 said:
It doesn't matter to me if someone learns to write cursive or print. What matters is legibility. If it can't be read, mistakes are made. So, teaching someone to slow down, take their time, and write properly would be more important. I do find cursive more difficult to deduce when it is illegible than print, but both can be impossible to decide. If you know your handwriting is illegible, age can make it impossible to write clearly, invest in some form of equipment to type.

Grammar is not a big deal as long as the message is clearly understood, that is an English language issue though, and simply requires asking questions when uncertain. Another thing that could be taught, if you have a question or uncertainty, ask questions always.
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While I am a spoken grammar Nazi, I am terribly guilty of nasty punctuation errors in writing/typing. Ugh.

And I will also say I have really nice handwriting. However that is due to a really great teacher I had in the fourth grade who, like me, was left handed and taught me to turn an exercise in awkwardness into an art form.

She had a calligraphy set and let me use it, telling me to think of it as artwork instead of penmanship. How cool is that?

Anyhoo, I love writing thank you notes and handwritten letters. I don't necessarily think it is something that will be of any use to future generations *wipes tear*, but I like to think of it as a genteel expression like embroidered handkerchiefs and flower arranging.

My daughter's school is still teaching cursive writing, however. :)
 
FrayedKnot said:
While I am a spoken grammar Nazi, I am terribly guilty of nasty punctuation errors in writing/typing. Ugh.

And I will also say I have really nice handwriting. However that is due to a really great teacher I had in the fourth grade who, like me, was left handed and taught me to turn an exercise in awkwardness into an art form.

She had a calligraphy set and let me use it, telling me to think of it as artwork instead of penmanship. How cool is that?

Anyhoo, I love writing thank you notes and handwritten letters. I don't necessarily think it is something that will be of any use to future generations *wipes tear*, but I like to think of it as a genteel expression like embroidered handkerchiefs and flower arranging.

My daughter's school is still teaching cursive writing, however. :)
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Way cool! You were fortunate to have had an astute, creative, flexible teacher who recognized your "special needs" and encouraged you to make the best and most of it.
 
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