Unjoined print is always easier to read than joined print. But it’s harder to write. Heck, i mostly swype, which is even more joined than “joined print”, in terms of the physical action used to create it.
Interesting that the UK teaches a simpler joined handwriting.
It’s useful to be able to take notes without electronic aid. I teach college kids (i teach square dancing, a gym class) and some of them have such untrained handwriting that it’s slow and painful for them to write their name on my form on the first day of class. That’s not going to cripple them any more than not knowing how to read an analog clock will, but i think they’d be better off if they could comfortably jot down a word or two.
Anyway, I’m here to testify that I’ve been “signing my name” with print for more than 40 years. It’s been good enough to get married, buy a house, and submit my tax forms. No one needs to learn cursive.
If Shapiro thinks they do, then i think he’s out of touch. Not that it’s disqualifying for a president to be out of touch. (Remember when Bush was stunned by super market scanners?) But it makes it harder to get elected, and it’s probably a bad sign.
Full disclosure - my own handwriting is no great shakes (pun intended) and my signature is Mr. Squiggle. I do try and practise a bit most days, but I notice I can’t write both fast and tidy.
So it was similar to Obama being foreign. The details being false didn’t matter, the truth was that everyone knew Bush didn’t have to deal with that kind of thing, and Obama wasn’t a typical white-bread (or even white) American.
You have to admit that it’s weird for Shapiro to care about kids learning cursive, though.
So funny story, I can’t write cursive. When I moved to the US, they were teaching cursive at schools, but only up to a certain grade, and I moved here just after that point. Part of my ESL classes was doing some cursive writing exercises, but I didn’t really pick that up (and I did pick up reading and writing in general quickly and asked to leave ESL because the class at our school was very basic, so it was either 1st grade level English or jump into a standard Language Arts class).
It’s been years since it has impacted my life in any way. I can read neat cursive but sloppy cursive just looks like squiggles to me, so in college I had to ask my now wife (then girlfriend) to read longer comments teachers left on papers sometimes.
I’ve never felt the need to write in cursive, and I don’t feel like I’m that slow at taking notes with pen and paper. Not that this comes up much anymore.
Actually, now that my kids are getting to be school aged, I imagine that is the exact same context I’m going to run into this problem next - reading notes from teachers.
So I agree that cursive is not a particularly important skill to have in the modern day.
I just refused to use it after it stopped being on the mandatory syllabus, which was either 3rd or 4th grade. I can read it as well as any other handwriting. I’ve had to read a lot of handwriting, grading actuarial exams. Few people handwrite in cursive these days.
I wonder if Shapiro really thinks it’s important, or thinks that voters will be impressed by the bill.
True, but if anyone epitomizes an “elitist”, it’s Donald Trump who, in one of his very first acts as president, gave the “elite” a trillion dollar tax break. And gambling? It’s rampant among the population.
I think we have to stop thinking in terms of “traditional values” and look at what this nation has become.
I’m split on this one. I firmly believe that service to one’s country is an important part of being a citizen. As long as the service isn’t required to be military (and is firmly apolitical), I could potentially get behind a required service requirement. There a lot of good things that could be accomplished that wouldn’t involve carrying a weapon. AmeriCorps, or something similar could and should count.
What’s changed since it wasn’t “obsolete”? Does the country have fewer needs now vs. some time in the past when it wasn’t obsolete?
We all do involuntary servitude now. Try working and not paying taxes. Why do I have to pay, I didn’t vote on that, some guys back in the early 20th did, but I’m stuck with it.
Being part of a society comes with obligations, including supporting that society. I do think there should NOT be a way to buy out of it. Everybody serves in some capacity.
For one, we no longer have problems that can be solved by throwing millions of untrained infantrymen who don’t want to be there into a woodchipper at them.
Sometimes we discuss topics where giving into what the average swing voter thinks raises a human rights concern. Not here. If Democrats want to win purple states, they have to, at a minimum, choose the popular side on a nothingburger (thanks to Calder for that word) issue like this where the arguments on each side are fairly balanced.
I’ve refrained from pushing Shapiro too hard here because he’s not really a nomination frontrunner. But he does know how to win elections.
He was talking about National Service, not the military. And it was a “let’s float this idea and see what we can come up with” not a suggestion to restart the draft. So, it was a talking point about having a National service not a “lets get a bunch of kids into the infantry”.
Last September, Newsom launched the California Men’s Service Challenge, which set a goal of getting 10,000 men to volunteer as mentors, coaches and tutors.
“Too many young men and boys are suffering in silence — disconnected from community, opportunity and even their own families,” Newsom said in a statement at the time.
We keep getting these soundbites taken out of context, and from one poster.
No, not the draft.
Because those parents had to learn cursive. Why not teach calligraphy? or Latin? They used to be required, and the parents that were forced to learn latin were upset that their kids werent forced to learn that dead language- which has done nothing but fuck up English spelling, grammar and pronunciation.
You know, but not the guy who posted the out of context quote.
And his actual plan was to do a volunteer national service, something he started in California.
Not a draft and from what he said in other context- voluntary.
“I think we have to look at ways we can frame a responsibility to serve for a year, 6 months minimum — year, 18 months,” said Newsom, who did not serve in the US military.
No mention of “mandatory” or “draft” or “military”.