It caused considerable concern when I read that the American Government dropped teaching cursive writing from the core curriculum in 2010. They have left it up to the states to decide if it should be taught in elementary schools. Some have decided not to teach the writing and reading of cursive script. Their students are not being taught to read or write past the printed letter.
Does not teaching how to write have repercussions other than affecting the way we develop and record our thoughts? Is it even a concern that we become solely dependent upon smart phones, tablets and computers for recording our words?
People may have asked the same question as the motor car replaced the bicycle or television replaced evening family interaction. Change produces change and each alteration to our lifestyle needs to be considered for its own new path. If we haven’t looked far enough down the path before taking the first few steps, we may arrive at a destination we did not desire. I don’t think an obese society and world environmental problems was what Henry Ford envisioned with his Model T; nor did Steve Jobs foresee family members retreating to separate rooms when he wanted to bring the world together.
What damage can possibly be caused by not teaching cursive writing to young students? I have already encountered a young postman who has difficulty delivering handwritten letters because they used “running writing”. So, we don’t receive our mail, is that a problem these days? The fact the young man couldn’t decipher or decode the letters on the envelope is of greater concern to me.
Cursive writing as with all writing requires the development of fine motor skills; skills that come with practice. The fine dexterity of finger and hand movement learned by a seven-year-old child is the same skill required to tie shoelaces, do up buttons, place a nut on a bolt or to produce a painting. I have already begun to see within my tuition experience young students unable to control letter and number formation between 8-millimetre lines or contain them within 7-millimetre squares of a quad page. Is this a problem?
When I was in primary school, the pencil and then the pen was an important tool to my learning. Our teachers came in early to prepare the black board with the day’s lessons. These lessons were copied into our notebooks. Maths problems were copied from the board or the textbook before being solved. Our scholastic days were filled with scribing and learning. Our weekends required us to compose an essay, so we could practise our scribbles and improve our imagination. Even now I produced drafts for this post with pencil and paper before committing them to digital creation.
Reading, writing and arithmetic formed the foundation of independence for an individual. With all three mastered a person was armed to contribute to society, create wealth from nothing and control their destiny. I am afraid the removal of just one may have an impact on creating an independent individual.
By Peter Kenyon: Online Tutor
When the pigs were in their sty playing in the mud they found a cassowary feather and one pig ate it and suddenly forty-nine more feathers fell on them and forty-nine pigs ate one each and all turned into humans.
In the middle of the night Antboy woke up in his big bed, in his big house, under the river. He’s a superhero who knew his ant friends were in trouble when they rang for help. He grabbed his super hero axe and sword, jumped into his superhero ant-boat and sped to guess where? Ant City. Antboy used his axe and sword to knock the tooth out of the evil spikey anteater who was scaring his ant friends. The evil spikey anti-eater ran away, his ant friends went home and Antboy went back to his big bed.
Yesterday in the spooky forest, the snake catcher tried to catch the giant Red Belly Black but it bit him. He shrank to the ground and slithered into the bush. Now that he was a snake he was very happy because he never had to do his job ever again. Now that he was a snake he could bit his family so they could become snakes too and they wouldn’t accidentally kill him. Yesterday the snake catcher caught a great new life.
In the rusty old ship where the poor old convicts were kept, was the worst journey I was in. My name is Annie and I had stolen a loaf of bread and two buttons but back then I was living on the street because my ma and pa had passed away. As the ship swayed side to side I saw my friend was paralysed in fear when The Lady Penhryn tore apart like a horrible tsunami. I grabbed wood to use as a float. As we were stranded in the sea a tiny spec grew larger and larger so I realised we were going to be alright.
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