Thursday, September 16, 2010

Cursive & Chopsticks!



Back in the third or fourth grade plenty of time and resources were spent teaching me to write in "perfect cursive".  I even remember the motivational tactic my teacher used in the lessons!  Once you passed all of your cursive tests you would get your "pen license", and your pen license allowed you to use pens instead of pencils in class.  To some extent that strategy actually worked too!  I remember working hard at perfecting my hand writing so I could use a pen.

My only question is, "why"?  Why was it important to learn cursive?  I mean, I always print and so do most of the people I know.  Especially the ones in my age group.  So why was so much time dedicated to us learning cursive?  Could that time not have been spent teaching us something a little more useful?  You see, to me printing is the most legible form of penmanship.  Even bad printing is still comprehensible.  Bad cursive on the other hand?  Well that's a different story!  In fact by the time I was in high school, teachers were asking us to print all assignments!

To me, cursive is a lot like chopsticks.  Sure they're fun to use, but really we all prefer forks!