Handwriting: Should it continue to be taught?

[Timmy HarleQuin]

In my opinion, yes we should still be taught handwriting. Joint-writing (or cursive in US terms) is debatable really, because it's unnecessary and tends to aid how illegible people's hand-writing can be. But writing in general is something that should always be taught. It's a basic skill. Although for the majority of the time it isn't needed, if today someone told me that they didn't know how to write I would consider them partly illiterate.
I live in Ireland, where we still are taught Irish as a compulsory subject, unless you have special exemption, you cannot get into University without it as a general rule, along with Maths and English. Do we need Irish? Of course not. It's a national pride thing to bring it down to it's basic level. Somewhat similar to the chinese case made in the article, the national pride of being able to write the symbols of the language.
But, to wrap up an unnecessarily long comment, it should still be taught as there isn't a strong enough reason to not learn it. Not yet, at least.

 

[viranimus]

It is bad enough many schools ARE starting to no longer teach cursive, but Handwriting is completely illogical considering its the basis for using a computer as much as it is regular handwriting.

I also dont get the hate toward cursive.

Seriously, try writing more than 3 paragraphs comparatively and A: See which cramps your hand first, and B: see which you finish first, unless of course your one of the ones who couldnt be bothered to get proficient at it.

Cursive is still a viable and important technique. The purpose of it is if you have to write long and drawn out documents, statements, etc it is easier, and quicker to write it in cursive than in script. The medical field is an example of where it is used extensively. Literally hundreds of thousands of people using it, on a daily basis, multiple times a day.

Its disheartening to hear kids willing to trash something for everyone, all because they feel they have the right to determine what they learn and cant be bothered to learn what everyone else knows.

TL;DR Why on earth a person would choose ignorance over knowledge is mind boggling.

 

[Xaio30]

It is a different issue in china, as their writing is a large part of their culture.
But I still think the rest of the world should be taught how to write in the future.

 

[kelsyk]

Yes it should be taught, even if only as a backup incase your computer fails.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Yes, I think it should. Granted, we don't use longhand as much as we once did, thanks to netbooks and tablet and such, but it's still important for your writing to be legible. I think what we're really talking about here is "penmanship," which is simply teaching kids how to make letters properly. Chinese calligraphy goes rather beyond that, I think, so I can see why kids find it particularly frustrating, but for Arabic letters, I can't see the harm in students taking a few minutes a day to work on it.

 

[theevilgenius60]

Getting rid of handwriting would severely handicap several professions. All of the general contractors I know would be royally fucked if they had to lug around a computer or tablet just to do some figuring for a job. They generally get it done with a carpenters pencil, because they can also use it around the job. Drafting and graphic artists would be handicapped also because any notation they had to put inearly drafts would have to be printed onto the paper. So no, handwriting classes should not be cancelled, as they are important to several important jobs.

 

[Yoshisummons]

Ha! Syllabic writing it trivial compared to writing the logo-graphs in Chinese. Looks like they will transition to either abandoning it or developing their own syllabic writing system but I doubt they would since logo-graphs is such a great technology of power. China's predicament gets more entertaining by the day.

 

[DustStorm]

Yes, but only in the earlier grades and not cursive which is unnecessary. Entire classes should certainly not be devoted to it. As long as people can write print in a legible manner there isn't a problem. Most people can only write print anyway.

 

[xdom125x]

I'm going to have to say yes, handwriting still needs to be taught. Although I do sympathize for those kids that have to write in calligraphy (as oppose to simplicity that is the english language) because that looks really really complicated.

Why? There are times when you are away from technology and still need to have some information stored; if the electricity in your house goes out and you need to store some information, you're screwed; it is a little too soon, culturally speaking; info stored on a computer can't survive an E.M.P. pulse (I think); and my best argument: after the inevitable apocalypse, how will people store information?

 

[SextusMaximus]

No way. We used to have it three times a week and it was painful... did me no good anyway, if anything made my handwriting worse.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Handwriting in general, no. That is still very important. Cursive on the other hand, past learning to sign our names I don't see the point. I remember all my teachers telling me that I would use it every day for the rest of my life. How many times have I used it other than to sign my name? Probably about twice in the ten or so years since I learned it.

This quote is truth, well for most. The teachers go "You'll write in cursive for the rest of your life." Three years later teachers stop caring which format you use, the only reason I stuck to cursive is because I'm to the point where I actually have to think to write otherwise.

OT: Yeah, we need to continue to learn to write, it's just China's misfortune to have an alphabet that's practically an art form in itself. The one we use (vague) is rather simple once you figure out which of the two is b and which is d, and maybe s and z.

 

[Gorobrin]

I am rather young and only got taught about good handwriting on the side in 3rd grade English and although it was boring I do wish that my handwriting was better than that of a 8 year old... so yes it should be taught at least a bit in middle school because. Even with all these technological advances i don't think we will ever truly outgrow pen and paper

 

[liquidsolid]

I personally hated handwriting in school, and I was so bad at it I would sometimes be taken out of class and be worked with one on one with some "specialist". I still have rather sloppy handwriting, but that doesn't matter much anymore because most of the things you needed to write can be done on the computer. My handwriting is still legible enough to be able to fill out forms and whatever other little things I need to do.

They should start teaching kids typing skills at a young age because lets face it, computers and typing are the present and the future.

 

[General BrEeZy]

yes it should. someone above said your printer runs out of ink, so it should always be taught, i like that, so i'll sub for his/her quote...mainly because i cant think of more to write, so im done.

 

[Karma168]

Even if we move into solely using computers instead of pen and paper you can bet major bucks on the replacement being a tablet PC that lets you write normally.

For example i'm doing a physics degree and that means a lot of equations being written out. I've tried using one of the programs designed for that kind of thing but i find i can work 10 times faster with a pen and paper.

 

[Major_Tom]

Yes, writing Chinese characters is an art and should not be forgotten. The only thing they should stop teaching children is cursive (both Latin an Cyrillic) because it's useless, stupid and unreadable.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

"I don't like it, and most of my classmates don't like it, because it's very boring," complains Li, 11.

In that case, stop all classes......i mean a child thinks a class is boring? Thats original. We have to learn stuff. Just because you can type doesnt mean you can write. In this day and age with text messages and younger people writing txt speak even when their is no limit to word count....its more important to be taught proper English and hand writing. Some kids use txt speak in their English work and i know of one woman who wrote a letter to a teacher stating why her child had a day off school, and she wrote 'u' instead of 'you' and other txt speak like that.

Just tell that kid school is boring, but its all just preparation for you adult life, the jobs you can go for and make you a better person with more choices. Unfortunatly its not until you leave school and live in the real world that you realise how important school was.

 

[The Virgo]

Of course it should! Handwriting is one of those things that should never NOT be taught!

That and spelling. There has been an influx of bad grammar and spelling on all fronts! A TruTV online article on Serial Killers had a grammar mistake, PC Gamer gets several mistakes in their magazine and there also one on a large, mainstream streaming video site!

Yes, writing Chinese characters is an art and should not be forgotten. The only thing they should stop teaching children is cursive (both Latin an Cyrillic) because it's useless, stupid and unreadable.

Yeah, I have problems reading cursive as well!

 

[Tzekelkan]

We should abandon teaching hand-writing the same way we should abandon teaching elementary math. I mean, what's the point, right? Calculators are ubiquitous, no need to memorize 6*7 = 42 when you can just ask a machine to do it.

WRONG! The reason why it is wrong is left as an exercise to the reader.

 

[rutger5000]

Your not even being fair, this is chinese were talking about aka the most anoying lanaguage in the whole world to write. You know they don't have an alphabet, so they'll have to remember at least a thousand very complicated signs. Should China chance it way of writting? Definitly espescially since china is the one country in the world who could actually pull that off. But to stop teaching handwritting seems like a bad idea even there.
I agree with you that it's place in the world is becoming smaller and smaller, but it still serves purposes. I for one learned spelling both Dutch and English through handwritting, it makes you much more concious of what you're actually writting down.
Besides you're being thought how to write in primariy school, do you know something better to do during that periode?