On learning cursive:
In reply to a Friend's FbShare of the modern curriculum question, is learning cursive handwriting nowadays a waste of time? ... the end gets a little intuitive and probably doesn't qualify as a sentence, but I think this level of "educating the whole child"/"integrated education" be considered:
The Waldorf Ed folks have a whole neurological/pedagogical set of assertions about learning cursive ... among other things, it is a kinetic help to children in learning to literally string together the letter-sounds, and then the words-into-visible-sentences/
In reply to a Friend's FbShare of the modern curriculum question, is learning cursive handwriting nowadays a waste of time? ... the end gets a little intuitive and probably doesn't qualify as a sentence, but I think this level of "educating the whole child"/"integrated education" be considered:
The Waldorf Ed folks have a whole neurological/pedagogical set of assertions about learning cursive ... among other things, it is a kinetic help to children in learning to literally string together the letter-sounds, and then the words-into-visible-sentences/
- JZ, AZL, and RB like this.
- TL: Russians learn it at a young age and many from what I've seen, it's often impeccable. As well I'm often envious. When observing them writing they seem very full of intent and thought. I'm pro cursive.
- NE: Better off learning to type. By far the majority of my text is typed. Watch a typist type and tell me they don't string together the letters. Just my two-cents...
- RB: In order to be graduated from high-school, I had to successfully take a semester of public speaking (at which I was dreadful, until I discovered acting Shakespeare a year later) and a semester of personal typing, at which I was a natural, because, as a classmate pointed out, I'd been playing the piano since I was 4. Let's add music to the required curriculum! (I had at least one English teacher who required that all assignments be handwritten, in cursive; she was the one who introduced me to Shakespeare by having her students memorize and deliver speeches from his plays when we needed extra credit. To this day, I could go on as the Priest in Romeo & Juliet.)
- KR: NE: typing is not excluded, this is not an either/or proposition ... the stringing together of letters in typing would be (is) much more like the knitting, though. It lacks the visceral, indeed inescapable, connectiveness that learning to see and then to express oneself in cursive opens in the mind. I would argue that the latter type of [thinking]/[experiencing the world] is sorely, sorely needed by humanity ... and that the younger our children learn it/the more they are supported in not losing what many say they are born with, that better ...
- KR: RB, the Waldorf curriculum assumes music as such a fundamental need for human learning that it is woven into and across all subjects and also is given its own focussed time, both chorally and on wind instruments (and, in schools with adequate funding, on string instruments as well) ... so, yes :). While I don't hang with my Waldorf homies about everything, the attempt to integrate human learning capabilities is the strongest I have yet run into.
- NE: Hmmm, while you describe a beautiful experience, I'm not sure that can really describe everyone's experience learning cursive. And what's not visceral about typing? The tippity-tap of a great idea being carved from light and electricity? I can barely write in cursive, but can still see the connectivity of the world, the grace and flow of language like leaves in a late-autumn stream. And it IS an either or thing, if you're inside learning cursive, print and typing, you're not outside exploring the connectivity of the world or in the music room stringing together notes (perhaps you view cursive to thought as many view music to math). School is a time of opportunities, and yet every opportunity taken is at the cost of another lost. Time is a finite quantity, we should spend our children's wisely (and I argue, not on cursive :-P). My two-cents, and sending good thoughts to you and the kiddos.
- KR: On an amusing Shakespeare/cursive juncture ... anyone who wants to retain proper cursive skillz should NOT ever try to imitate The Bard. I used to have beautiful cursive handwriting, until for a graphic art assignment I taught myself to copy his style. Of course it's rampantly mechanically efficient (although quite tricky to parse unless you already know English), because he wrote all those plays (and all of the sides the actors worked from) by hand (the only way to try to keep them out of the hands of publishers, in the era before copyright). My writing has never been the same, and several of my shorthand marks are cribbed from the master ;) ...
- KR: thank you, :) NE :). We must recall that in the end I am a firm Unschooling advocate, and as far as I am concerned trapping any child (much less all children) in a curriculum or even a classroom is at best morally questionable and probably essentially unethical. Free public school? alright, and probably a good thing as long as it's understood by everyone involved to be a resource ... compulsory "education"? not so much. As I co-parent with a man who does not trust the assertions of Unschooling, and probably still doesn't trust me to homeschool his children, I sought a curriculum and a place to institutionalize my children that would (1) do them the least harm and (2) do them as much good as a forced institution might do. So, yes, there is opportunity cost. But I think kids will generally learn to do the obvious things (nowadays: type), and might miss the things our modern world makes less obvious (cursive).
And I didn't mean typing wasn't visceral, nor that the thoughts worked through via typing couldn't be connective. But cursive is *viscerally connective* -- it cannot be avoided -- and indeed, even the motion of one hand (with the pen) from the right to the left of the page sparks a different (not better) type of cross-brain processing than the typing of two hands on a keyboard (with little or no crossing of the visual/physical midline, if one types 'correctly' ;) ). It is essentially like being a polyglot ... learning to think, perceive, and process the world we live in through a really quite different lens, while still coping with the same material or ideas, is a good thing for our brains (and, in the macro, for all of humanity and then, presumably, since we are one aspect within them, all of the world/universe). - KR: awwhell, I have stayed up all night again. #reversedsleepschedule ... at least I got the laundry done ...
- KR: gonna catch a couple of winks before I get the kids up for school, but I look forward to coming back to see what folks said/see here :)
- NE: I agree with everything in your above comment, and if it means anything, I'd let you teach my children anytime... now, go to sleep, perchance to dream. :)
- RB: Wow..."O brave new world that has such people in it!" Y'all bolster my hope for humanity (Mrknz in particular), and I thank you!
- SGH: An article in the Wall Street Journal described how, by using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers found that writing by hand helped with learning letters and shapes, could improve idea composition and expression, and aid fine motor-skill development. Another study demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.How Handwriting Trains the Brain, Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2010
- KR: NE: aww :), thanks -- but I'm actually a pretty crap "teacher," much more along the lines of you taking your kids on a hike every day and just seeing what happens ... I guess that makes me an OK adult ;). And at least one of my kids is doing their darnedest to never learn cursive, sigh ... ;P. RB: :). SGH: YAY! You still had the article on hand :). I hadn't retained that, thanks :).
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