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[mrklaw]

why bother teaching trigonometry, thats hardly used in real life. And who ever needs to use their knowledge of oxbow lakes while putting together a sales presentation at work?

Its called EDUCATION. its supposed to teach you things about the world around us. Its not meant to be job interview training.


I agree that cursive handwriting training starts too early IMO (our children started when they were 6), and they should focus on readability. But jumping to typing is nonsensical - kids do tons of computer use at school already, its used in most lessons. They'll pick up typing naturally, and there is no need to teach touch typing, that can be looked at later on and most people manage fine with two finger typing.

no middle ground? If cursive is no good, they could teach block letters. You still need to write by hand

 

[Dead Man]

As someone who is actually required to teach cursive, I want to chime in.

I don't understand why they wouldn't teach it anymore. It's really not that time intensive. When I've taught third grade, which is when most kids in CA have to learn it, I would say on average I spent no more than 15 to 20 minutes daily going over handwriting, which is just about the same amount of time I spend in 2nd grade working on decent penmanship. There's no guarantee we'd even do it every day, and I usually started in the winter after the kids have gotten adjusted back to the school routine. If things look really atrocious though I'm sending a little extra home for homework.

By the end of the year my kids have always been able to write legibly enough for me to comprehend what they're trying to communicate (nevermind spelling errors), and I've yet to hear complaints from their teachers the following year about how terrible their handwriting is.

So if I can manage to get it done within a half of a school year without spending enormous amounts of time on it, and lord knows I'm not the world's greatest teacher by any stretch of the imagination, why is Indiana so determined to not bother with it any more?

So within the span of one school year, they're done, they've learned it, they can read it, how many more man hours need to go into it other than some quick review in the future? Maybe you need to do a bit of drill and kill if things look sloppy across the board, but that's about it. I know a lot of upper grade teachers (in my experience) tend to write everything in cursive in the classroom to keep it all fresh in their heads.

Plus, our district has them start learning basic typing in 4th through 6th so they're ready for junior high.

Eliminating cursive altogether just seems far too drastic.

That's fine, but what is the benefit to teaching it? Even if it doesn't take up much time, that is still time that can be spent on other things. Unless there is a benefit to learning it, it should go.

 

[Kave_Man]

Screw that, make the kids learn cursive. I had to go through that crap so do they!

And OT but I just tried now to see what I remember from cursive...I have no clue how to make a capital Q.

 

[jmdajr]

lame!

 

[lightless_shado]

I was taught both cursive writing and typing when I was in elementary school. #winning?

 

[PigSpeakers]

I learned both. We had a technology grant at my first elementary school (we were a pretty crappy poor school). We got these weird computers from apple that were like, keyboards with a two line display or something like that. I don't remember much about them, but we did some typing on it.

Then at the next elementary school I went to, we learned cursive. I think it just made my handwriting sloppier and lazier because now I mix both print and cursive when I write things. Looks bad man.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Most cursive I can handle ok, but cursive capital 'Q' can go fuck itself. What the hell is a number '2' doing in my alphabet?

 

[Rpgmonkey]

I spent like two English class periods in Elementary school to learn it, everyone got acquainted with it, then it was never brought up again. People that wanted to use it could, those that didn't could continue writing in print. Didn't think it really required much more than that, but oh well.

I write in cursive whenever I don't need to use print, but I can see why it's not necessary if there are places actually making a whole class out of it.

 

[OmniGamer]

CNN is about to talk about this

 

[Vox-Pop]

they could learn as adults. it probably takes a few minutes if they really need to learn.

 

[Neuromancer]

Cursive is dumb anyway. Good riddance.

Also why did you have to tilt the paper a little bit? Also dumb.

 

[Zoe]

they could learn as adults. it probably takes a few minutes if they really need to learn.

It's better to learn things like this while you're still young and impressionable.

 

[DurielBlack]

Screw cursive. I can spell my name in it but haven't used it for anything else since school. I tried writing something in it a few years ago and realized I only remember how to make the letters in my name, and nothing else.

I've always had poor handwriting. I remember teachers yelling about how teachers in HS and College would only take handwritten reports and we better learn how to write by hand.

Bullshit. By the time I was in highschool only the most die-hard of stubborn old teachers wouldn't take typed reports, and by college turning in a handwritten paper would get you instantly failed no matter how good your handwriting was.

And now in the real-world everything is typed and copied out of a printer or sent in an e-mail.

I write checks in print, and only spell my name in the bottom right in cursive. I see no reason for that being a requirment though.

When I do write anything lengthy, like some instructions to give to a co-worker I have to write slowly, for some reason I have developed a problem where I mix capital and lower case letters. EspEciALLy E's, A's, and L's. I never used to have this problem when I was in school (my punctuation and grammar were always passable and spelling excellent) but it seems to have started in the past 5 years or so for no reason. Maybe my brain is looking for the SHIFT key on the pencil, I don't know.

 

[LocoMrPollock]

Meh, cursive really is a dinosaur at this point, I see no reason to waste time on it.

 

[Skiptastic]

Time for all you folks to move out to the MidBEST, GAF. We don't need no fucking cursive!

 

[Venfayth]

I remember in gradeschool my teachers told me I'd use cursive all the time after graduating.

What a load of bullshit that was.

 

[Drkirby]

They're gonna be fucked when they take the SATs.

Uh, you don't have to use cursive on the SATs at all. I just printed my paper, no problem!

For the part at the end that I had to wright in cursive, I just BSed it. I made squiggles that sort of looked like letters.

 

[buhdeh]

I've always had poor handwriting. I remember teachers yelling about how teachers in HS and College would only take handwritten reports and we better learn how to write by hand.

Bullshit. By the time I was in highschool only the most die-hard of stubborn old teachers wouldn't take typed reports, and by college turning in a handwritten paper would get you instantly failed no matter how good your handwriting was.

lol, exactly the same type of bullshit i was fed for learning cursive. i don't think i've ever used it since elementary/primary school. what a waste of time.

 

[MrPliskin]

It has little to do with retardation, I'm sure. Probably more to do with the investment in learning it is nowhere close to the actual use you'll get out of it. Relatively pointless and archaic skill.

Hardly pointless and archaic. People still sign in cursive. I can't imagine "printing" my name on a check, or a professional document.

People still write in cursive, I'd hardly want to be "that guy" trying to figure out what something says because I'm not familiar with the cursive form of the letter "q" or "z". I think there's a lot of value in any type of education, regardless of how much you use it. Were that the case, why teach algebra or basic math if we all have smart phones to do it for us? Just teach kids to use those tools instead, right?

 

[GodofWine]

I don't even know how to handwrite anymore...I gave that up once I entered the professional world...I've never seen anyone take notes in business meetings in cursive..

 

[Dead Man]

CNN is about to talk about this

Really? Sad.

 

[Houston3000]

Meh

I learned how to write cursive in 3rd grade
I learned how to type in 7th grade

I don't see a problem with that, seemed to work fine. It's not like we were still using cursive after 3rd or 4th grade anyways so teach typing then. It's at least important kids learn what all the letters look like so they can read it.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

Cursive's not bad... shit, my writing is pretty much cursive and regular print just blurred together.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

We had typing classes in elementary - primarily though Apple II games!

 

[Devolution]

I was taught both cursive writing and typing when I was in elementary school. #winning?

Same.

Typing games were pretty sweet. Also stuff like Super Munchers and Treasure Mountain, awesome.

 

[suzu]

Should learn both! I had both in elementary school.

 

[makingmusic476]

I fully support this. Cursive was necessary 200 years ago to facilitate more efficient writing, and even those that did not write would have to learn it to read the works of others. Today, aside from test taking, almost everything you'd wish to say is done via text, and like 99.5% of what people read on a day to day basis is in text format. There is no reason to spend so much time learning a form of writing that is almost completely unused in modern society.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Typing is something i learned via talking to chicks on AIM in the 90s. I didn't need school for that. However if I wanted to read wtf my college professors were writing on the board I needed cursive. Also my cursive-print hybrid is ultra fast for taking notes. So clearly cursive is one of the most useful things I learned in the 3rd grade.

 

[TheLastCandle]

Cursive sucks shit.

I probably wouldn't hate it as much if it weren't for the fact that you were told as a kid that you would have to use it later in life, and then you realize that everyone hates it, so you don't actually end up using it.

Also, a big fuck you to the cursive capital Q and capital G. You two look like rejects.

 

[Trojita]

Teachers: YOU WILL BE USING THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Mumei]

It's not particularly difficult or time-consuming to learn both.

I learned both in my elementary school

Spoiler

in Indiana

. Typing starting in first grade and cursive in second grade.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Teachers: YOU WILL BE USING THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They were right, look at all the various things you end up signing!

 

[Shortt Sirket]

I am surprised to see my state doing something right for a change and not ass backwards.

 

[DurielBlack]

Hardly pointless and archaic. People still sign in cursive. I can't imagine "printing" my name on a check, or a professional document.

People still write in cursive, I'd hardly want to be "that guy" trying to figure out what something says because I'm not familiar with the cursive form of the letter "q" or "z". I think there's a lot of value in any type of education, regardless of how much you use it. Were that the case, why teach algebra or basic math if we all have smart phones to do it for us? Just teach kids to use those tools instead, right?

I don't want to be "that guy" who gets stuck trying to read someone's cursive handwriting that looks like a bunch of squiggles because like most people they didn't learn to do it correctly because it's harder to learn.

Also, even though I write my name in cursive on official documents and the like, I think its stupid to be a requirement. I'd stop doing it if it wasn't for dickheads that think it's important to be able to make illegible squiggles rather than something thats easy for everyone to read.

Writing in print is easier and results in something that is clearer to read. I see no use at all for cursive.

Algebra is hard, and most people will never ever ever have a direct use for it in their entire lives unless they become a programmer or similar profession. (I work in IT and I don't even use it). Its wise to teach the basics of this in school since you would be too young to know what you want to do in life. Basics actually DO get used in real-life sooner or later, so you WILL need to know the simple math ( addition, subtraction, etc).

If education was ideal, it would be tailored to each individual, so after learning the absolute basics of everything you would only need to focus on what you are actually good at and have an interest in, so you could excel in that area. But life in general is full of suck before you die, so that's not going to happen.

Instead people like me that were able to do trigonometry/calculus in physics class and get perfect scores every time, yet flunked out of algebra I/II, weren't allowed to take honors physics classes. (Reason being, Physics was cool and interesting and made sense and actually explained WHY you were doing the calculations, so I was able to learn it, just grinding out hundreds of random math problems in algebra classes was fucking retarded and useless and taught me absolutely nothing, so I failed those) Of course now I am getting into the problems of the current educational system, which is a whole other topic in itself.

And yes, I am very very bitter about my education. Not my college education, but the shitty public one.

 

[tiff]

Indiana does something smart for once. Cursive is absolutely useless.

Is Indiana even an "SAT state?" A lot of colleges in the Midwest only require the ACT.

I dunno, at least some colleges require it. I took both in high school.

 

[buhdeh]

Hardly pointless and archaic. People still sign in cursive. I can't imagine "printing" my name on a check, or a professional document.

People still write in cursive, I'd hardly want to be "that guy" trying to figure out what something says because I'm not familiar with the cursive form of the letter "q" or "z". I think there's a lot of value in any type of education, regardless of how much you use it. Were that the case, why teach algebra or basic math if we all have smart phones to do it for us? Just teach kids to use those tools instead, right?

How is that not archaic?

The first use is another thing that was passed down from hundreds of years ago and literally has no reason for existence now.

The second only occurs because of the age of the workforce. Everyone handwrites differently and you ALWAYS get someone who writes something on a memo that no one understands. Give it a few years and when the next generation takes over management positions, I guarantee we'll see a huge drop off in the use of cursive writing.

 

[Skiptastic]

Indiana does something smart for once. Cursive is absolutely useless.

I am surprised to see my state doing something right for a change and not ass backwards.

And for those that say, "Oh, you need it for signatures!" Why don't you just have a computer show you how to sign it, then you practice signing your name over and over. Maybe make some tweaks to make it look nice. I did this for my M and J because I hated the way it looks in my signature.

 

[DoomGyver]

Indiana is not that bad, guys. I mean look at Indiana gaf, we're the best.

 

[Shortt Sirket]

Don't get me wrong, I love Indy. I came back after Florida and don't see myself leaving anytime soon.

That doesn't mean I am blind to how backwards our state can be, especially in schooling.

 

[Hitokage]

...stuff about algebra...

Algebra is all about number abstraction and manipulation. It's an incredibly useful skill that liberates you from the confines of strictly ordered operations, and is something you must be utterly comfortable with it if you move on to higher math, which is basically when you start going into REAL applications.

Meanwhile, cursive is how to write while lifting the pen as little as possible. This may remain useful to those who, you know, write a lot.

 

[cajunator]

I hate using print. Always feels like a chore. Cursive is so much faster when I need to jot down a lot of information in a short time.

 

[-_-]

I still randomly use cursive when I write notes or scripts for my comics but I avoid the hell out of using upper case "G", "Q", and "Z", the freak letters.

 

[Holmes]

lol. I learned cursive in second grade... honestly didn't take that long, I think. I may be wrong though, considering that was 13 or 14 years ago.

It's all I write in. Well, my hand writing is a mix of mostly cursive, and some print for some letters (mostly the ones where you have to lift your pencil to dot or put a line, like i or t). Especially when I'm in school and write for hours. Print just slows me down.

My boyfriend prefers typing. For lecture notes, and making reviews, or notes for his course readings... whatever. It pisses me off! Alas.

I still randomly use cursive when I write notes or scripts for my comics but I avoid the hell out of using upper case "G", "Q", and "Z", the freak letters.

How sad, they're pretty letters. Upper case S as well. T and F are nice too.

 

[Loxley]

Ohh cursive, my mortal enemy.

 

[X26]

Good idea. Teach enough cursive that they can write a signature and that's it, anything else is a waste of time

 

[Kusagari]

There's no reason to teach cursive period. The only time 99% of people will use it is signing their name, and it doesn't even have to be legible for that. Nobody could tell what the hell my name is from how bad my cursive is.

 

[KingK]

I heard about this on the news a couple days ago. Sounds like a great idea to me. Brings us into the 21st century.

Indiana is not that bad, guys. I mean look at Indiana gaf, we're the best.

*Fist Bump*

Representen' the Elkhart/South Bend area of northern Indiana.

edit: while I don't love Indiana, we're really not that bad of a state. I'm very liberal, and would prefer a liberal government, but as far as red states go, Indiana is one of the better ones I think. Mitch Daniels is a pretty smart guy and we don't usually have many crazies in our government.

 

[Skiptastic]

*Fist Bump*

Representen' the Elkhart/South Bend area of northern Indiana.

edit: while I don't love Indiana, we're really not that bad of a state. I'm very liberal, and would prefer a liberal government, but as far as red states go, Indiana is one of the better ones I think. Mitch Daniels is a pretty smart guy and we don't usually have many crazies in our government.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Unless the tiger changes his stripes when he gets in the Statehouse, fucking Mike Pence is going to be our governor for four years. What a fucking nightmare. I love me some Mitch, but a Pence regime just bodes nothing but shit for this state.

(I represent Carmel, btw. I love this state, even though I moved here when I was 16.)

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Algebra is all about number abstraction and manipulation. It's an incredibly useful skill that liberates you from the confines of strictly ordered operations, and is something you must be utterly comfortable with it if you move on to higher math, which is basically when you start going into REAL applications.

Meanwhile, cursive is how to write while lifting the pen as little as possible. This may remain useful to those who, you know, write a lot.

And if they're writing a lot, well, they're probably typing. Or employing shorthand.

 

[Mad Hatter]

wtf why does it have to be one or the other? They both have their uses.

I hate Indiana. So glad I left