The article Is Cursive Writing Worth Teaching is an article discussing the pros and cons of teaching cursive writing in the classroom. One teacher tells a story about how a little girl was standing in front of the Declaration of Indepenence and told her parents that she wanted to learn cursive so that she could understand what the paper said. For this reason the teacher believes that cursive is an important skill to learn. Not only does it help with things like motor skills, but it also helps the child read this country's most important documents. If we expect people to follow the guidelines set out by these documents we should give them the tools to read the document. On the other hand, another teacher explains that technology is overwhelming everything else in our society. She uses this reason to explain that instead of taking the time to teach our children how to write, we should teach them how to type. It is important that students be able to communicate in the medium that is most common now. This article does not ever reach a conclusion, but instead focuses on the two different opinions of the teachers and other teachers like them.
I think that cursive is an important skill to have. Students are not always typing even though it is the medium of choice. As a future teacher I want every student that I have to be able to communicate their message, and to me an important step in this process is writing. There is something about writing that takes the understanding to the next level and the student many times is able to retain the information correctly. There are even every day occurances when people use cursive. When signing your name to a legal document it should be written in cursive. There is also the fine motor skills that are extremely important and writing is just one more way that those skills can be nurtured.
While I agree with the benefits you list for cursive such as creating motor skills, I feel that writing normally or even using a keyboard teaches motor skills on an equal level. Even more, if teachers spent the time learning cursive teaching keyboard skills instead, I believe the time would be much better spent. Cursive was originally designed as formal communication. However, even formal communication is now done through digital means.
ReplyDeleteI am an intensely practical person, and so I believe cursive should be something relegated to special interest classes such as art, or even to college level courses.
I definetly agree with the point that you made, signing your name on a legal document should be cursive and cursive does take an ability of fione motor skills. But I can see both sides of the arguement. Today society focuses on the ability to communicate via technology, but the basic skills of writing should be taught via hand written.
ReplyDelete