Penmenship

Given the proliferation of the computer, could the emphasis of a child's early education be shifted away from learning penmanship (cursive writing) that we learned? I don't mean that they shouldn't be taught how to write with a pencil or pen but is learning how to make the same curvy forms that their grandparents learned still relevant? I think everyone should be able to communicate via the manual written word but would a legible form of printing serve as well? Just asking.

I hated cursive so I am biased.

Kids (teens) handwriting today is awful. My niece is 14 and her penmanship is terrible, I remember when girls used to have really neat and "pretty" handwriting. Kids these days are all about texting and laptops, so they never use a writing utensil unless it's demanded of them.

My son had the traditional cursive lessons just like I did. I don't think the education system would ever change it. No matter how a person's penmanship turns out, nice or poor, we all started with the same basics of connecting letters.

GrayWolf wrote:Kids (teens) handwriting today is awful. My niece is 14 and her penmanship is terrible, I remember when girls used to have really neat and "pretty" handwriting. Kids these days are all about texting and laptops, so they never use a writing utensil unless it's demanded of them.

The handwriting of professionals like doctors leaves a lot to be desired too.

I love to write....have ever since I was a kid....so my handwriting is gorgeous. When I was HS, I used to sign my friends homework and pink slips from the teacher for them.

I think they should definitely learn it. It's something you'll never forget how to do. Plus, you're going to be signing your name for the rest of your life and cursive is still the preferred method of doing so. Me personally, I don't think I have the typical "pretty" handwriting. It's been said that geniuses and really intelligent people have sloppy and not so neat penmanship as well so it's all good, I'm in good company.

Since the computer age my handwriting has decreased, I used to have a nice flair to my writing now I can barely hold the pen without getting cramps in my hand.

This reminds me of an article that was on MSN last year, this woman, a TEACHER, said that her son had trouble writing his e's and the teachers made him continue to work on it, so her solution was quit teaching all handwriting, wrapping up her article with 'put down the pencils kids because there are cooler toys to play with'. A teacher...'there are cooler toys to play with?' where did she graduate, University of Radioshack or something? And everybody had the same thing to say, if her kid was having trouble in math, was he solution going to be 'quit teaching all math'?

I was taught how to write in cursive, and at first I hated it because I couldn't get some of the letters like the b's and the v's and the z's and the f's, but my mother never gave me the option of giving up, and since then, cursive had been my first penmanship, printing second. On another hand, I had a neighbor kid who's 1 1/2 years younger than I am...and to this day his writing looks worse than a kindergartener's...he writes everything 10 times the size anybody else does and it all looks like he wrote it during an earthquake, everything is squiggly, he never even learned how to make an O round, never remembers to capitalize anything or put in periods or anything, and his mom's attitude was 'everybody's going to be using computers so why should he bother learning cursive?' And this was 10 years ago and if anything, his writing has only gotten worse over the years.

I like cursive because it looks more...professional, for just writing out a grocery list or something, I print, but whenever I write somebody a letter, I write cursive because it's faster, printing takes more time for me. And then I always think about people who never learned to cursive or don't use it, and then everything you get in the mail or from the government or whatever, where it says sign your name on the top line and then print it on the bottom...if it looks the same both ways...well, I don't know what to make of that and I know the rule's generally to hell with what other people think but when people see that on your return slip or something, I don't think it impresses them much either as per your ability to write.

Tony-
I know just what you mean. I've been a draftsman in the architecture field since 1983 and back then CAD (computer aided drafting) was not very common so I had to develope good lettering skills. It got to the point that I began to use that style in other forms of written communication so that I wasn't using my typical handwriting (which wasn't all that great to begin with). Then after about 7-8 years I started using the computer and over time my manual skills eroded overall. I finally got to the point where I felt the need for some self improvment in that area.

Supernova-
I also agree that at least legible hand writing is important for the impression it can have on others especially from a professional standpoint.

Tony Marino wrote:Since the computer age my handwriting has decreased, I used to have a nice flair to my writing now I can barely hold the pen without getting cramps in my hand.

Same here. I have to sign off on paperwork at work, but that is mostly initials and sparse writing. The other day, I sat down and called myself 'writing out a grocery shopping list' and was annoyed by how bad my handwriting has become. It didn't use to look so sloppy.

HOPE you didn't write "drak" instead of "dark." )

A common note we used was "cut to suit". Every once in a while the "u" would look like an "h".

How do you do that?

Basically because both letters can be formed with two vertical strokes and one horizontal. Too much haste and one letter can be mistaken for the other.

I think handwriting will always be important but I think it's less important in the computer age. It should still be taught,but along with keyboarding. I don't think it will ever go out of style, though.