Should elementary school teachers stop instructing students to use cursive writing? Apparently some Michigan schools are giving cursive writing less priority than computer use. Hmm, looks like this is a problem for Tablet Guy to rescue! Yes, teach cursive writing with each student using a Tablet PC. There, conflict gone!
I missed the Deb Shinder’s WXPnews editorial referenced by Rob as a response to my comment about Technology for What? (How’s that for making a simple reference complicated?)
Deb takes on the content of an essay by Jodi Upton about elementary school teachers not instructing students in cursive writing. (The essay writing center site of Jodi’s looks interesting.) I better stay out of my Tablet PC closet more; yes, I literally keep my computers in a closet out of my family’s way and work in that closet with my computers, usually before they get up in the AM; well, I do keep at least one Tablet PC on the kitchen counter for quick use by whomever happens to pass by.
Cursive writing – I’m not sure why a teacher would drop cursive writing instruction. Maybe teachers don’t use cursive handwritting these days? I’ve seen some beautiful cursive handwriting by a few student teachers. It’s not a difficult skill to develop, but like keyboarding, it takes hours of disciplined practice.
Thank you, Mrs. Gotham for insisting on all of us then eighth graders correcting our cursive handwriting whenever you saw anything we wrote. You gave priority to penmanship first, content second. (“If I can’t read it, then the content doesn’t matter,” you’d say as a matter of fact.) To keep us aware of our handwritting, you oversaw us writing remedial, repeated circles touching (and not exceeding) the top and bottom lines on pages after pages of newsprint paper, weeks on uninterrupted end when you deemed we needed the practice. You also insisted that we learn to use an ink writing nib dipped repeatedly into an ink well! Today I appreciate your effort more than I did 57 years ago.
Mrs. Gotham took handwriting more seriously than I did. I still remember her standing over me and the other 30+ students in our class, insisting on consistently appearing letters, or I got to start over again on another page and do it all again until the whole page was done correctly (during class or recess, or noon hour, or after school). She continuously walked up and down the classroom isle inspecting our progress and correcting our handwriting and content errors on the spot, irrespective of the lesson.
I respect such dedication by a teacher. She helped all of us learn to grow up from being kids to using beginning adult level skills (such as handwritting) that didn’t offend other people, including her. She didn’t cater to what she considered sloth and laziness. I think she’d be just as insistant about handwriting proficiency in today’s pressure for increasing student content learning rates. “If you’re going to do it, do it right, so you don’t waste anyone’s time,” she asserted, or at least that’s what I remember she said. 🙂