The Value of Cursive

[mdengraver]

The Value of Cursive
"Have you ever wondered why children are no longer taught to write in cursive?"
And no, it is not by chance that they tend to use it less and less.

Writing in cursive means translating thoughts into words; it forces you to not take your hand off the paper.
A stimulating effort, which allows you to associate ideas, link them and put them in relation.
Not by chance does the word cursive come from the Latin "currere", which runs, which flows, because thought is winged, it runs, it flies.

Of course, cursive has no place in today's world, a world that does everything possible to slow down the development of thought, to fill it.
I think cursive was born in Italy and then spread throughout the world.
Why?
Because it was compact, elegant, clear writing.

But ours is a society that no longer has time for elegance, for beauty, for complexity; we have synthetics but not clarity, speed but not efficiency, information but not knowledge!
In general, we know too much and too little because we are no longer (generally speaking) able to put things into relation.

Most people can no longer think.

This is why we should go back to writing in cursive, especially at school. Because this is not just about recovering a writing style, but about giving breath to our thoughts again.

Everything that makes us live, that feeds the soul, that sustains the spirit, is connected to breathing.

Without breath, as the ancient Greeks said, there is no thought. And without thoughts there is no life.

Vivian Parra.-

 

[T.G.III]

"Have you ever wondered why children are no longer taught to write in cursive?"

Of course, cursive has no place in today's world, a world that does everything possible to slow down the development of thought, to fill it.

Many of the most important founding documents of a lot of countries are written in cursive, such as our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Hard to know what is missing from your life if you cannot read the paperwork that describes the liberties.

 

[JJ Roberts]

Cursive was how I learn to wrIte back when in school in the 1940's. J.J.

 

[T.G.III]

They were still teaching and grading cursive it in the 70's and early 80's

 

[ByrnBucks]

Never been a study of older writing or perusing older txt but I happened upon a small treasure trove of books in my childhood home. One of these was beautifully penned diary beginning near the civil war. Though the book is large it seemed abandoned after maybe 50 pages. The women who wrote of loved ones, poems, and verses truly poured thought and effort into every letter, possibly believing no one would ever read them. definitely an art in its own rite that shouldn’t be neglected. BB

 

[Meshach]

a little ironically I ran across this post on youtube today talking about the benefits of the old runic alphabet..

maybe we should go back to runes..?.. it may be easier to "chisel" into our projects than the cursive as it's designed for a harder medium such as stone, wood or in our case, steel.. actually that might make for a cool project, I will have to keep that in mind.

on a more serious note, I understand where people are coming from when they say that cursive is so important especially in preserving the written history, but half of those points fall moot on deaf ears as there are so few written formats used in this "modern" day and age, The notebook has not only changed it's place as the primary note taking implement but also surrendered its very name to technology, as most of the younger generation would think you were talking about a compact computer. More to point most essay reports are submitted in text documents and via Email making them easier and more efficient to send, grammar check, search for particular info (such as plagiarism), edit, copy, and of course falsify (ect..).. Of course there is always bad with the good..


Hardly anybody sends handwritten letters anymore, it’s more of a novelty club for those who do. It’s much more common to send Emails for formal/business reasons and texts for “personal” contact, both of which are nearly instant, and that instant gratification is hard on teaching determination and patience, but if used properly, it can help get a point across to a wide audience of people. Your post here is a prime example. How would you have been able to so easily make such a wide spread post visible to many thousands of people that will likely remain visible for decades to come with cursive?


People are still capable of expressing thoughts and thinking while typing, which is taught in schools as well as programming, which whether we like it or not is a large part of society as a whole in this age and cannot be done in cursive..
Perhaps it is too easy to express thoughts with typing, even the stupid ones are easily expressed and widespread.. The problem isn't that people aren’t being taught to write in cursive, it’s that they aren’t being taught to learn and teach themselves and to come up with original ideas.
What they are being taught is to follow directions and follow the crowd, and copy what others have already said before them.


stupid people following the directions of other stupid people is dangerous, but stupid people following the directions of malicious people is the start of a zombie apocalypse.


P.S.
Generally speaking when quoting a post it is best practice to put quotation marks at the start and end of the post.. I thought your name was Vivian Parra and didn’t realize that the whole thing was a C/P from another post and not your own original thoughts until just now.. my apologies for any offenses taken <_<

 

[monk]

if i posted my thoughts about this matter, sam would likely ban me from the forum. somethin bout " the dumbing down of america"

 

[tdelewis]

People are not learning cursive because teachers are not using it. I doubt that you could find one teacher out 100 that has any idea how to teach cursive. If you are a parent and want your child to learn cursive you will need to teach it yourself. Here is a good suggestion: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519J9uVucxL._SX342_SY445_.jpg There are adult sources for learning cursive as well. Amazon ha many materials as well.

 

[DKanger]

If kids can't write cursive, can they read it or is it Greek to them.