Kids no longer learn cursive

I was surprised to learn that my 21 year old grandson cannot read cursive script. My wife sent him a birthday card with a note (and a check) and he had to give it to his mother to read. Turns out none of my grandchildren (7 of them) have a clue about cursive. They no longer teach it. Color me astonished. And yes, I know why this has happened, but the implications may be more severe than you think. People who are illiterate in cursive have been cut off from a vast trove of knowledge that is now hidden from them. Everything that is not typeset is now a foreign language to them. This does have implications. As a real-world example, my daughter passed away in September. She wrote her will in longhand. The kids can't read it.

On the other hand, I now have a secret code I can use with other older people that the young folk can never understand.

a reply to: schuyler

I personally like to write in normal font, but I was taught from a young age to read (and write) cursive. It is a very handy time-saver, and in most cases cursive is more elegant than normal fonts.

I find it sad that this art is being forgotten.

a reply to: schuyler

My daughter's school insists they learn to write in cursive. It drives me mad. I can't read a bloomin thing she writes, although she is 11!

It looks nice if done neat, but otherwise, I can't read it either.

SURPRISE!!

Yup, Been that way for years and years. I couldn't believe it either.

a reply to: schuyler

About damn time.

a reply to: schuyler

To be fair, I learned to read and write cursive and depending on the person, especially cards from older people, I can't read a damn thing and I'm used to reading my own barely legible chicken scratch writing. There's too much variation in cursive. Some people do some letters totally unrecognizably to the way I was taught.

I was pretty surprised as well. Just think about all the history they will not be able to read. Very sad.

But, like you say, we now can write in "code" and they will have no idea.

I may teach my grandsons. Just because.

Same can be true for any language; for example I am cut off from the vast trove of knowledge that was written in the other 6,498 languages that I don't speak. Knowing how to read cursive doesn't save me from this fact.

Just like those languages and cursive and the many different ways humans converse in the written form I can always unlock that knowledge by first learning the method used to communicate. If people can learn to decipher long dead languages; kids today can learn cursive on their own if they want or need to ... its actually not that hard; my 9 year old daughter just did it. For some reason or another she became interested in cursive (probably after seeing my or her mom sign our names); she asked me about it; I printed out the 26 letter alphabet for her in both cursive and block letters; she studied it for a few days and now she can read cursive. No big deal.

a reply to: schuyler

They traded cursive for emojis.

They still make students at my daughter's school write/learn in cursive for one year. I agree it's useless though, already forgotten. If something needs translating these days it can be scanned and formatted to different font.

That's the thing, though. You were taught. My mother and grandmother had beautiful handwriting. They were taught the "Palmer Method." It was a regular class in elementary school, and they were held accountable. The script was really beautiful, yet you could tell who did it. I still have a few scraps of her handwriting on recipes and such. It is just so obviously "her." Same with my wife who did not learn Palmer but has a very distinctive style.

Women have beautiful handwriting compared to men. I was at Disneyland a few years ago and mickey Mouse signed "his" autograph. I took one look at it and blurted out, "Mickey Mouse is a woman!" It was so obvious. No man could write like that. Got in a lot of trouble for that.

a reply to: schuyler

You know what is next - soon they won't be asked to write at all, everything will be typed.

School itself is not long for the world I think.
I think it is going to get to the point of everyone just learning what they want to off the internet.

🚫🕛🐂💩

I have a feeling cursive writing is an American thing!

Outside the US... My kids learnt to write legibly in a style they were able to develop themselves. Not cursive, but legible and neat.

Cursive? Most cant even write a sentence without an emoji or abbreviated words.

I learned cursive. My father was a master calligrapher. He was a lefty and had to learn to write with right hand.

Tech is great but the problem is what happens when the lights go out.

originally posted by: proximo
You know what is next - soon they won't be asked to write at all, everything will be typed.

What's wrong with that? They don't teach typing anymore because it's antiquated since a 5 year old can type now.

My cursive is worse than my punctuation and spelling.

Be thankful for small favors.

a reply to: schuyler

How do they sign their names? With a X? Block letters?

a reply to: schuyler
What a silly statement. Cut off from a vast trove of knowledge. Language and the written word are changed with the on going generations. Cursive!!! Lost knowledge!!! Why don't you go on about lost knowledge of Greek, Coptic or even Latin.
Let me tell you how it goes. 20 years ago calculators were not allowed into classrooms. Then they were allowed into classrooms but not in exams. Now they are allowed into exams. That's progress. It's the Adams apple theory, once bitten it cannot be un bitten.
I'll give you a better example. My niece is a teacher and went to teach in Dubai. The school children did not use pen and paper, they all had lap tops. When she showed them how to write with pen and paper she was severely reprimanded and told to teach them with the lap tops only.
The world goes on, no matter how much you want it to stay like your world.

Don't we still need signatures for documents ect.?