# Not teaching cursive **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071 "2016-03-25T00:08:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/41 "2016-03-25T05:42:09Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I bolded what I believe he meant. It was just a cynical quip about how new technology that is better gets ignored, while old, insecure technology is treated as sacrosanct. This is correct. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure what is causing the breakdown in communication on either side. Me, either. > [@Senegoid](#): > > The world has changed. > I feel it in the water. > I feel it in the earth. > And I smell it in the air. > Much that once was, is lost, > for none now live who remember it. > > . . . some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost. OK, you have ten fothers of lead, worth 10 guineas, 5 pounds New Jersey money per pound, a firkin and a quarter of mead, worth 10/6 North Carolina money (Old Tenor, if you please) per dram, and two ells of indifferent linen, worth 13 shillings, 5 pence British money to the span. If you were to sell all of it and reduce the profit to Federal money, how much would each of your seven business partners receive, assuming you divided all of it equally? Show your work, compound addition. And _that_ is, at least, arithmetic, which can be defended on its merits as a useful skill. Teaching penmanship in this day and age is simply lifting one obscure handicraft into the pantheon for no good reason. We might as well teach them needlepoint or basic joinery instead, and we likely should, as I mentioned in a previous post. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/42 "2016-03-25T05:46:20Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Eat fecal matter and get indigestion, Derleth. 🙂 **Moderator Note** While this is clearly intended as a joke, let’s refrain from apparent personal attacks in GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/43 "2016-03-25T11:27:26Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > The OP seems to be assuming that older people who know cursive all sign their name is cursive. They don’t. I’d estimate about 1/4 of my patients over 65 don’t sign in cursive. They have a consistent signature that involves at least some of the letters in their name, but it’s a combination of printing and scribbles. I grew up in the cursive days, but pretty much gave it up by 7th grade. What happens, though, is that as you print, and print faster, you start to run letter together and develop your own sort of semi-cursive. So my signature is neither cursive nor print, but some combination of the two. But, if you looked at the very first letter, it’s a printed letter, quite different from its cursive version. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/44 "2016-03-25T12:18:08Z")
I’ve read/heard a couple of articles recently about whether handwritten signatures themselves were going extinct. When I was young(er), banks had complex procedures to compare one’s signature to the version on the “signature card.” Flash forward to today, when you can sign your charge slip (if you even are asked to sign) with any scribble or made up name you wish. Whether we go to fingerprints or retinal scans, passcode encrypted microchips, or something else, it isn’t difficult to envision a pretty near future where there is no need to ever “wetsign” your signature with pen and ink. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/45 "2016-03-25T12:38:15Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > I had to learn cursive as a child and later in junior high I took a drafting class where they taught me to write in a manor … An expensive, private school? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/46 "2016-03-25T12:41:05Z")
And is that Psychology Today article seriously claiming that cursive letters are more distinct from each other and thus easier to read? If that were so, then why are all books, web pages, and other mass-produced textual matter in block print? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/47 "2016-03-25T12:41:36Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > . . . some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost. But cursive is not one of those things. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/48 "2016-03-25T12:56:53Z")
nm, my reading comprehension is in a pre caffeinated state. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/49 "2016-03-25T13:10:48Z")
Not only have my kids not been taught cursive (they are in the 4th and 5th grades now), they weren’t even taught to print their letters in any specific way. I remember, in K-1st grade, being taught each stroke for each letter, usually at the top and working down. So for ‘E’ we had to draw the spine, then without lifting the pencil draw the bottom line to make an ‘L’, then add the two other lines starting at the top. On the other hand, my kids start many of their letters like E and S from the bottom and draw up. When they first started that I would correct them, but then I realized what difference does it make? It would make it harder to write in cursive, but they’ll never do that anyway. On the other hand, they’ve been learning keyboarding skills since kindergarten, which will be eminently more useful in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/50 "2016-03-25T13:38:13Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > I was amazed to see the OP. Not because of the question about signatures but because years ago I remember reading that learning cursive was important for various developmental reasons. I assumed at the time people would rally to prevent it being dropped since research showed benefits in teaching it. Here is [Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psychology-benefits-learning-cursive) on the subject. Yeah, this is an old article. The problem is that the study, at least every account I’ve read of it, completely lacks valid controls or relevant conclusions. Writing in cursive lights up brain scans. Unless you need some light to read by, who cares about the pretty lights on a brain scan? What does that have to do with anything? And the lack of controls is similarly disturbing. Stipulate that lit brain scans are better than unlit brain scans: what do the pretty lights created by cursive-writing kids compare to? If I asked these children to tame an ocelot in Minecraft, to write a haiku, to solve a jigsaw puzzle, to design an experiment to test ideal planting conditions, to take care of a duckling, how would those pretty lights look? If we want hand-eye coordination with immediate feedback, let’s think about introducing more computer games into our kids’ lives. If we want a useful skill, I love the idea above about knitting. If we want our kids to have a means to write quickly and neatly, we should teach keyboarding skills. The research that supports cursive is very shoddy, in my experience. If you don’t believe me, go to that blog link, and follow its references, to [homeschool.org](http://homeschool.org)’s “WHEN I WAS A CHILD EVERYTHING WAS BETTER” rant, to New American Cursive’s 404 page (where presumably they said PLEASE BUY OUR EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT), or to Psychology Today’s own broken link. [Here’s an earlier thread on the subject.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=695322) ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/51 "2016-03-25T13:45:08Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Maybe there’s something else they could teach that would improve brain function even more than handwriting. Say, algebra… Your post would make more sense if you could point to a school where handwriting was taught instead of algebra. Maybe my school was unusual. We learned handwriting AND algebra. The handwriting was much earlier than the algebra. Handwriting i.e. cursive started in 2nd grade. Algebra, as a discrete subject, wasn’t until jr. high school by which time handwriting wasn’t a subject at all. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/52 "2016-03-25T13:46:53Z")
I have a friend who, even 50+ years ago when I first met him, never used cursive. He always just printed everything. One exception though, his bank would not accept a printed signature and he used cursive for that. But if people aren’t learning it, they will have to adjust. No one compares signatures anyway, any more. But for a long time to come, if you want to be a postman, you will have to be able to read cursive. I addressed an envelope in cursive just three days ago. And my US cell phone company does not accept credit or debit cards from people with Canadian addresses, even if from a US bank (you have to have a five dgit zip) nor do they accompany their bills by a return envelope, so I have to hand address an envelope to them every month. Beyond that, my use of cursive is limited to notes to my wife and scratching out mathematics on my pad, that is, notes to myself. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/53 "2016-03-25T14:19:12Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I have a friend who, even 50+ years ago when I first met him, never used cursive. He always just printed everything. One exception though, his bank would not accept a printed signature and he used cursive for that. But if people aren’t learning it, they will have to adjust. No one compares signatures anyway, any more. But for a long time to come, if you want to be a postman, you will have to be able to read cursive. I addressed an envelope in cursive just three days ago. And my US cell phone company does not accept credit or debit cards from people with Canadian addresses, even if from a US bank (you have to have a five dgit zip) nor do they accompany their bills by a return envelope, so I have to hand address an envelope to them every month. > > Beyond that, my use of cursive is limited to notes to my wife and scratching out mathematics on my pad, that is, notes to myself. I’m 50+ years old, and only used cursive when my elementary school teachers insisted. I learned block print in drafting class and never looked back. If I have to put pen to paper, that’s what I do, and I do it more rapidly and smoothly than if I had to do it in my (irredeemably terrible) cursive. I learned keyboarding at age 7, at the specific advice of my elementary school teacher, because my cursive was so irredeemably terrible. It has served me well the last 45 years in my personal and professional calling in keyboard-driven technology. IMHO, cursive is an outdated affectation which last made practical sense when writing required a quill and bottled ink, and teaching it is a phenomenal waste of time and effort. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/54 "2016-03-25T14:20:56Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#): > > Do they still teach Roman [numerals]? > [@Derleth](#): > > If they do, they teach how to read them, not how to do arithmetic with them. Of course. I have never heard of anyone even trying to do arithmetic with Roman numerals – it’s never been feasible. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/55 "2016-03-25T14:28:16Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > “Cursive” is kind of a vague term here. Does the OP mean writing that’s not simply block printing? Or does he/she mean “penmanship,” as taught to me in Catholic school in the early sixties? Cursive is a style of writing that connects most letters together so as to minimize lifting the pen from the paper. Penmanship is the art and skill of writing beautifully and/or legibly. Penmanship was taught using cursive because cursive was how (almost) everyone wrote back then. > [@](#): > > Anyway, I don’t think a technique that allows one to write quickly and legibly is ever going to become obsolete. Nowadays that technique is typing for most people. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/56 "2016-03-25T14:31:12Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > I’m 50+ years old, and only used cursive when my elementary school teachers insisted. > > I learned block print in drafting class and never looked back. If I have to put pen to paper, that’s what I do, and I do it more rapidly and smoothly than if I had to do it in my (irredeemably terrible) cursive. > > I learned keyboarding at age 7, at the specific advice of my elementary school teacher, because my cursive was so irredeemably terrible. It has served me well the last 45 years in my personal and professional calling in keyboard-driven technology. > > IMHO, cursive is an outdated affectation which last made practical sense when writing required a quill and bottled ink, and teaching it is a phenomenal waste of time and effort. I’d take your HO more seriously if it hadn’t been prefaced with all that bit about how inept you are at writing in cursive. I never did well in foreign languages and, in fact, failed 8th grade French. You ask me, foreign language instruction is a waste of time and a useless affectation because Google translate keyboard internet… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/57 "2016-03-25T14:37:11Z")
Except that Google Translate does a worse job than skilled human translation, and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But even amateurly typed text is both quicker and easier to read than even professionally-penned cursive, and has been for a very long time. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/58 "2016-03-25T14:38:20Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Of course. I have never heard of anyone even trying to do arithmetic with Roman numerals – it’s never been feasible. It has always been feasible, and [here’s a link to an algorithm](http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/roman/) that will let you do it, assuming you’re a big enough of an idiot to want to. I was forced to do this in grade school in the 1950’s, probably because someone as idiotic as the cursive proponents thought it was a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/59 "2016-03-25T14:40:40Z")
Meh. Any time a low opinion of a skill is coupled with being poor at that skill, I take the opinion with a grain of salt. “I’m not good at this, so it is worthless” is just not an argument I find compelling. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071/60 "2016-03-25T14:54:53Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > I learned block print in drafting class and never looked back. If I have to put pen to paper, that’s what I do, Same here, coupled with lots of lab reports in engineering classes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-teaching-cursive/750071.md?page=4)