i was thinking about making a post about the importance of learning cursive handwriting (historical documents, neurological benefits) etc. but then i remembered how i learned cursive by my teachers guiding my hand. i realized that this is basically off limits in the U.S and this would be seen as very scandalous for a teacher to do but in most of the world its such a normal, innocent act for kids to learn how to write. a low touch culture literally kills a people so insidiously.
What do people who don’t know cursive use for a signature in the west? Do they just print their name? In my wife’s native language (non Latin alphabet), printing and signing your name are exactly the same.
I see what you’re saying and we agree, both with learning cursive and guiding the hand. The hand touching wouldn’t be the issue, the bodies being that close may be. Decades ago, I worked in child care, my class were kindergarten and first year. They discouraged hugging but I let the kids hug me and hugged back. Today, it would quite possibly be grounds for dismissal.
When I was in high school is really when they enforced no hugging. But in fact, female students would hug female teachers at the end of the year and nothing was done about this and this was usually the only exception. Although during my graduation ceremony I, a male hugged my elderly, female math teacher because she was grandma age and was hugging all her graduating students.
Sad.
Honestly fuck cursive.
Cursive is not necessary because we have print, so there is no reason to have it except to make signatures harder to forge or to read cursive from old documents.
this would be seen as very scandalous for a teacher to do but in most of the world its such a normal, innocent act for kids to learn how to write
I would like to know where you’re getting this impression of the US. As EmmaGoldman indicated, cursive writing in particular is slowly fading, due to not being required. But I’ve never heard of anyone being looked down upon for wanting to write cursive.
Second is that this is not the same as learning to write or not learning to write inherently. I’m honestly not sure how often kids are writing in school now, but it is likely they’re still being asked to do some essay writing by hand. The letters themselves would look much like what we’re typing in this thread. Cursive is its own style.
Literacy in the US is an issue though: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics (I don’t vouch for this particular source, just a quick one I could find on literacy)
Edit: I just realized, you probably meant the “holding their hand to guide it while writing” would be the scandalous part. In that, you may be right.
In China, people are just forgetting how to handwrite altogether. You can be considered a fluent speaker and writer without handwriting anything, because most modern tests allow computer, pinyin input for writing. There are many terms for the phenomenon, such a 电脑失写症, 汉字遗忘症, 拼音综合征, 汉字危机, and 新文盲.
this is basically off limits in the U.S and this would be seen as very scandalous for a teacher to do
Literally huh? American schools don’t really teach how to do cursive writing anymore, but American teachers are absolutely not forbidden from or judged for touching children in this way. Strange misconception.
One of my close friends works in education and they’ve actually relayed to me the same experience. I think it depends on where in the US you are. Also, what level of position you are and the context behind the interaction. I doubt something like writing cursive would be frowned upon, but it can really depend on he school officials.
Everyone should know cursive, so they can sign their name. I wish shorthand was still en vogue, too.
I learned cursive in the early 2000s, but I also went to Catholic school. Anymore, the only words I write in cursive are my signature.
I learned cursive in US public school. No one guided my hand; no one needed to. This was long before touching was such a no-no (assuming it is; I don’t know what goes on at schools in the 21st century).
Just because you learned it that way doesn’t mean it’s the only way nor necessarily the best way. You could learn it by watching an animation of the characters being drawn, for instance, or watching someone draw on a chalkboard.
For anyone who wants to ask, I learned cursive kind of like this. Just without the numbering.
I admit, I learned cursive by reading what my teacher wrote in my report whenever I misbehaved in elementary school and editing it so my parents didn’t
abusediscipline me.wait, americans don’t learn cursive? as in handwriting?? how tf do those people write stuff down?
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It’s sad, isn’t it?
American, I was taught cursive. We often write down in print.
EDIT: Cursive is a type of handwriting, but not the only one.
ah okay, i was getting worried.
i still don’t quite get why some people manage to use print to write things down, it’s so much more inefficient!
edit: in russian, for example “cursive handwriting” literally translates to “hand-written writing” (рукописное письмо), so we may mean slightly different things, idk.
Yeah, print over here means when your handwriting is in the form of keyboard letters like how we’re communicating, at least from my end.
ah good, then we’re talking about the same thing after all.
in the country i grew up in, writing “in print” wasn’t really a thing (at least during my education, idk about now), and to be honest, it just kind of seems self-defeating to me, since the reason why cursive was invented in the first place was to facilitate quicker and more efficient writing on paper.
It was actually developed for ease of use when writing with a fountain pen. With a pencil or a ballpoint pen, I think printing is just as fast. I actually challenged one of my cursive using friends to a race once, and I won.
That being said, I’m old enough to have been taught how to handwrite (as opposed to print-style characters), but I wasn’t taught cursive. I was taught an alternative that was faster and more legible. I still abandoned it 5 years later when I was approaching high school. Legibility of my writing was more important than speed. And I quickly discovered that printing wasn’t actually slower. All I handwrite these days is my signature, and it’s honestly just an aesthetically pleasing scrawl.
forms and official documents prefer/require print because it’s clearer
I think you could still learn cursive even in a remote learning setting. In the late 90s it was still being taught in elementary school and as far as i remember i think i learned it through exercise books and copying the teacher’s handwriting on the blackboard. None of that technically requires a teacher to be physically present.
Of course it can help to have direct physical help, depending on what style of learning suits each individual student…some may need that tactile feeling to develop the motor skills and muscle memory, others may not.
If i did get actual physical guidance learning to write it would have been by my parents and grandparents, not by the teachers. And this was not because the teachers were too cautious or anything about physical touch – after all this was a time, at least where i grew up, when they still administered corporal punishment by hitting kids on the hands with a ruler if they were not behaving.
I think most of my classmates in school didn’t write in cursive. Some did, and I infact nearly forgot how to write with non cursive letters in my own native language (writing a legible letter to my at the time crush was a pain in the ass, as my handwriting is physician-like, and I had to remind myself of non-cursive). We were taught cursive in 2nd grade and forced to stick with it (in primary school, and only when the teachers had to look at our assignments), so it comes naturally to me. But I think part of the problem isn’t just a low touch culture, but also the lack of necessity to write in cursive. I guess part of that might be misplaced guidance, the teachers helping the kids with something they are really capablr of doing on their own (or should learn to do so), and not helping at all with others (we learned cursive from prewritten examples, and I don’t recall being helped when actually writing in cursive.). Might be a reason as to why I struggled with keeping up with dictated texts when we first did them.
How long ago were you in elementary school if you don’t mind me asking? When I was in either 1st or 2nd grade (2007-2008 ish?) we went over cursive writing only fairly briefly. I would say I can’t write in cursive though I can read it (admittedly slower than printed handwriting). Most of my friends my age can’t read cursive at all.
I am a little aprehensive about revealing details of my age (privacy, and I still have a sense of “don’t give out personal details on the internet” and all), but I think 2nd grade was around 2015-2016. As to when in the year and how it was taught, basically all of my elementary school years blur together, so I really couldn’t tell you any details around that.
