AT&T Tech Support 360
April 19, 2007 4:00 AM PDT
Is the pen still mighty in the computer age?
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That's because even in an era when elementary school students are adept at mousing and teenagers are fiends at text-messaging, some experts say that writing with a pen is still the backbone for teaching people how to read and learn facts.
The difference will be in how the characters are made.
Cursive writing is introduced as part of the English language arts curriculum at the second or third grade level in most states, according to James Miles, senior associate at the International Center for Leadership and Education.
But as states re-evaluate the standards that dictate to schools what students need to know--including the seemingly universal addition of requirements for computer literacy--there is a lot of discussion of whether cursive should even be taught. If it's removed as a requirement, many of today's new teachers, brought up in the computer age themselves, will probably decide against teaching cursive handwriting, said Miles.
"The teachers we have coming into the classroom now were born in the late '80s, so they weren't taught it. It wasn't a focus or priority for their teacher," said Miles.
While cursive skills may be waning, QWERTY skills are on the rise. Today's youngsters are probably better typists than their parents were as children, and perhaps even as adults.
Typing isn't even called typing anymore, what with the PC having made the typewriter as quaint as a Conestoga wagon. Now referred to as keyboarding, it's introduced as part of state standards for computer skills in the second and third grade.
Miles said that based on anecdotal discussions with teachers across the country, the average student exiting fifth grade can touch-type about thirty-something words per minute with fair accuracy. (For comparison, the United States Office of Personnel Management requires 40 wpm for "Clerk-Typist" positions.)
Cursive shouldn't be confused with penmanship, the act of writing with a pen or pencil. Printing is still one of the main teaching methods for reading and writing. Educators call it "writing to teach." Handwriting, which has evolved into a hybrid of script and print, should stay around for quite some time.
"If I go back to my generation, we did the Palmer penmanship (method), and you spent hours getting the tails and stems going the right way. That has gone by the wayside. Basically, what you do now is some form of cursive mixed in with some of the print so we don't necessarily have all our letters connected. The letters looks more printed than cursive and it's better for speed," said Miles.
The Palmer method--which should be familiar to many baby boomers, and certainly to their parents--is no longer the method of choice. Just as the number of television channels blossomed with the advent of cable, there are now over a dozen methods of handwriting put forth by various educational resources and textbook manufacturers.
D'Nealian, one popular method of handwriting taught today, incorporates some of the pen movement and style of traditional penmanship, but has fewer flourishing loops and looks closer to printing. Another cursive/print font called Handwriting Without Tears, emphasizes consistency and legibility, but does not dictate to students how the letters should be made with the pen.
Regardless of the variation, most cursive fonts taught today forgo the extra loops and flourishes of the Palmer method in favor of speed and clarity. Some of the companies selling handwriting programs also include European characters, a sign of the expected diversity that today's students will experience in the classroom and later in the working world.
"The Old English writing of calligraphy was a way of writing at one point. We got away from that to a more expedient way and I think this is just a progression," said Miles.
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Uh, no, it's not just this generation. I said much the same thing to a college professor in the late 80's, after having used word processor software to write nearly all of my undergraduate papers. What a joy those writing assignments were compared with the drudgery of the handwritten and typewritten papers I wrote in high school.
There are differences in the creative process when writing by hand vs. word processor. Writing by hand forces the mind to organize and compose more of the message in one's head before writing it down, whereas with the word processor the writer is free to get the threads of thought down on the "page" and then re-organize and refine them into a cohesive message.
The argument the professor I mentioned above made in response to my opinion was that hand written essays teach a level of cognitive discipline and ability. In my opinion, this is not entirely true, because in the time before the word processor one typically created multiple drafts of a document, where the re-organization and refinement occurred between drafts. This is an example of how the computer improves productivity.
The future of computer interfacing technology is writing out long papers, or for developers writing out long lines of code. I don't think so. Why would we ever invent the typewriter if in the future we were going to return to writing out long lines of anything.
Hopefully the end of the tablet pc grows near and it stays at the end. It is wasting money put out by Microsoft, that can be used to better another functionality of Windows. But Microsoft will not drop the project because it is a pet project of Bill Gates. The product just isn't useful.
"Our teachers can't write cursive so we won't teach it". Better hire better teachers. I suppose when people can't do addition and subtraction we'll stop teaching that, too.
"Can you write down your phone number?"
"Sorry, I don't have my printer."
"Can you write down your phone number?"
"Sorry, I don't have my printer."
Qwerty (that was designed to avoid messing mechanics!)
But I do appreciate handwriting... and cursive. Handwriting a full
brain/muscular interaction learnig process!
And as Albert Einsteins said... "The fourth World War will be fight
with stone and sticks"... so, no more keyboards.
The fact that not every Notebook is a Tablet doesn't mean it is bad tech, just that not everyone needs it.
I know plenty of happy tablet users. I own a UMPC myself (for certain tasks under certain circumstances), and I am sure you disaprove of that even more! Doesn't stop me from using it though!
I have spoken with many parents of my son's classmates and we have all noticed the same thing. All energy in the classroom is focused on useless multiple choice tests that are now mandated. The children don?t have time to memorize multiplication tables and they don?t have time to learn to write properly. My son and children in schools all over Texas get more homework in the third grade than I did in middle school. Why? Because during class all they have time to do is practice for multiple choice tests.
Multiple choice state mandated tests destroy creative thinking. When I was in school we didn?t learn cursive because we might need it - we learned it to obtain precision in writing as part of a well rounded curriculum. Most of us didn?t learn algebra because we would need it - we learned it as part of a well rounded curriculum that helped to improve creative thinking. Are we going to stop teaching algebra next?
When I was in the third grade (my son is now) students had memorized multiplication tables by the end of the school year. They had gained basic writing skills and knew how to space out words, where to place periods etc. No children in my son?s school have learned these skills at the third grade level. Why? Because they don?t ?need? to I guess?.
I like CNET, but every once in a while your writers (in this case a very loose description) fail so badly at checking the qualifications of your sources its pathtetic. I think you will find substantial disagreement with your sources unfounded opinions if you surveyed educators across this and other western nations. I suggest that Mr. Miles like so many "experts" has been "institualized" - and as such ought to get our his institution and into the real world more often.
I should just get a tablet of paper, it doesn't need a battery, or require booting. As far as writing code out, I am refering to developers writting software packages free hand. I just feel as though the end is near with these devices I am one of many who is happy about that. i think that is somewthing we both agreeded on, that the end is coming?
Not that this wasn't an interesting story but it doesn't fit it's headline very well.
Computers are infinitely more flexible than paper. And QWERTY? We should have pretty good voice recognition here in a few years, so I wouldn't worry to much about that either. Paper can go off in a corner and die. Time to bring in the digital age.
By the way, that money printing practice is pathetic too. They need to knock it off and give everybody debit cards. So much cost maintaining physical currency. And not worth it at all. To much government power to track people? Then give us direct democracy. Who's with me? ethana2@gmail.com
I think my disdain for cursive is rooted in my computer experience. My dad is a tech geek so I had a computer at age 4 (TI-64). By 3rd grade I was capable of typing my own homework assignments, making customized greeting cards and signs, playing games, and some basic troubleshooting. I can remember my 5th grade teacher making me hand write an assignment that I had handed in typed, not believing me that I typed it myself (which illicited a rather furious response from my parents.)
The point being that I was ridiculously computer savvy, at the time, for my age. By comparison most of todays kids are light-years ahead of where I was at a similar age. If I felt cursive was unnecessary at the time, imagine how it must seem to these kids. If most of them can tough-type at 30 words per minute, why bother to learn cursive.
I agree that printing and penmanship will always matter. There are simply times when you need to write something down. But cursive writing is becoming a dinosaur very quickly because it is simply no longer relevant in the modern world.
- Not to step on anybodies toes....
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by ryvlad
April 23, 2007 7:18 AM PDT
- But I personally do not believe in cursive writing myself. Sure it was needed before all it was possible to create a readable document promptly and cleanly on typewriter or computer But just think about one thing here : the writing started as a printed letters not cursive. Cursive was developed as an alternative type of writing when a better writing implements(such as use of ink that allowed for more smother and faster writing) came into view. Cursive was a way for some one to simply write faster. (just as Dvorak keyboard it was designed to speed up writing process).
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See all 39 Comments >>I think that we need to teach our children writing skills but to concentrate on teaching them rules and skills of how to properly write (i.e. punctuation, sentence development, story line and structure, proper syntax) rather then impose an unnecessary limitation such as cursive writing. teach them both possible ways of writing and even calligraphy just to give them a choice and knowledge but make that an elective process.
All students MUST know how to handwrite things so if needed they have the ability to do so but it should not mean that they can only do it in cursive when that need arise. Teacher should not concentrate on how the student wrote the paper (typed or cursive or mixed) but what is written.
if it is clean and legible it is good.