Cursive...foiled again! 4

[jebenson]

I found this story in my local daily newspaper:

With emphasis on computers, schools are writing off cursive

the site requires a simple registration, but if you don't want to do that I have copied the story here

************************************************************
With emphasis on computers, schools are writing off cursive
By Matthew Obernauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The yellowed parchment lies between armed guards in Washington's National Archives, in a palatial room with marble columns, oil paintings and polished floors — a room dubbed "the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom."

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . ." it begins.

For centuries, Americans have marveled at the words and ideas imbued in the Constitution, as well as the sure and steady hand that recorded those words in extravagant loops and curves.

All of which raises the question: Would we make such a fuss over the document if the founders had typed it in Microsoft Word?

Today, written communication is increasingly being replaced by computer messages. And, while adding computer proficiency requirements, school districts across Texas and the nation are de-emphasizing cursive writing in elementary school training. In higher grades, teachers are seeing less work done in cursive and more in block lettering or on computer printouts.

Furthermore, some teachers say that with the pressure to help students pass high-stakes achievement tests, they don't have time or classroom resources to ensure that students master all aspects of handwriting.

Traditional penmanship, like calligraphy before it, is fast becoming a lost art.

Irma Webber, a fifth-grade teacher at Kiker Elementary School in Southwest Austin, said only two of her 29 students write in cursive, and few have traditional penmanship skills.

"I have kids who make letters in very creative ways," she said.

The state's guidelines on cursive writing are ambiguous. When the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum requirements were adopted in 1998, the state changed the requirement that students learn to write legible cursive letters in addition to learning manuscript, or printing.
Instead, according to an October 2004 clarification, the state mandates only that in third grade "students master manuscript writing and may begin to use cursive writing." In Grades 4 through 8, however, the same clarification notes, "it is assumed that students have learned cursive handwriting by the time they enter Grade 4."

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said, "We'd like them to still use cursive, but the district determines how the handwriting (instruction) will be used."
No one can say how many students are or aren't learning cursive. Still, for many, saving cursive writing is more than a matter of nostalgia.

"I would prefer them to learn both" manuscript and cursive, said Travis Heights Elementary PTA President Christina Roman, whose son is learning cursive writing in the second grade. "I do think it's a valuable lesson, and it teaches more than just how to write in cursive. It teaches pen control, coordination — stuff like that."

In response to requests from parents, Manor school district administrators this semester will decide whether to create a specific curriculum to teach cursive writing, which would require time and money to create lesson plans and train teachers. Manor Deputy Superintendent Andrew Kim said, "This is one of those issues as a community that we need to look at and see if our community says, 'We value cursive writing in an age of technology.' "

The Austin school district's third-grade language arts curriculum does not require cursive writing instruction, only that "students gain more proficient control of all aspects of penmanship." Officials said the district provides textbooks and materials for students to learn cursive writing during the second semester of second grade and in third grade but does not mandate instruction in cursive.
Some Austin teachers said there is not enough class time to teach cursive writing.

Third grade is the first year in which students are required to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills reading test to advance to the next grade, increasing the pressure to stick to the required material.

Sharon Holmes taught third grade at Pecan Springs Elementary School in East Austin during the 2004-05 school year and teaches second grade this year. "We had a handwriting portion of the day," she said. "We may not have gotten to it every day, because we were working on reading and math" and science.

Patricia Detrich, a third-grade teacher at Becker Elementary School in South Austin, said, "It's difficult enough to find time as it is to teach what we're required to teach.

"I do have students who desire to learn cursive writing, so I'll provide independent time, individual teaching (outside of class) to some students to make some of the strokes," Detrich said.

Webber said she and other teachers try to teach cursive writing incrementally, such as instructing children on how to write their names. She said, "Cursive right now is a choice."

Some teachers think the marginalization of cursive writing is just as it should be — class time, they argue, is better used on other things.

"I don't feel like it's a great loss," Detrich said. "I feel like the most important things to teach these days are problem-solving, logical reasoning, critical thinking — and that doesn't have anything to do with cursive writing.

"My son, who is 15 and a freshman at Austin High, spent his entire third-grade year, and had a year of specific instruction, in cursive and has never used it since."

************************************************************

I find this interesting because last night I was working on some homework with my kindergardener child, and part of it was learning cursive. Now I don't know about you, but I feel that kindergarden is a bit too early to be teaching cursive handwriting. My son got rather confused, as he still has not mastered the lower-case alphabet in block letters, and now the cursive is really throwing him for a loop (pun intended).

So what do you folks think? Is cursive really necessary? I don't use it at all, and I know very few people who actually do use it regularly. I still write a lot by hand, but it's all in block letters. In today's society, is cursive writing still seen as elegant or could it be viewed as actually impeding communication? That is, in trying to decipher someone's chicken-scratch handwriting - or even clear cursive if the reader is unfamiliar with it - is the reader so distracted that the message of the writing is diluted or obscured?

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[KateGladstone]

As a handwriting instruction and remediation specialist, I never teach "cursive" except by (rare) specific request. Normally, I teach what I use and advocate: the print-like (plain, loop-free letters), semi-joined, calligraphic-looking rapid-handwriting style called "Italic" which Steve Jobs learned at Reed College (and from which today's conventional cursive and printing styles evolved or, rather, devolved).

You can learn more about Italic handwriting and my work therein by Googling "Italic handwriting" and/or "Italic penmanship" and/or by visiting my web-site -

http://www.learn.to/handwrite

or

http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

-
In the meantime, I'll address some key concerns, questions, and flat-out misstatements and misunderstandings that this handwriting-topic has raised:

/1/ "A question to ponder: If no one uses cursive, what will the new generations' signatures look like? ... They'll all be printed, in block letters, and look identical. ... "
ACTUALLY ... No law in the USA or anywhere else requires a cursive signature, and handwriting-identification procedures work better on simple handwritings than on more complex styles. (More complex writing gives the forger more room for leeway.) Your handwriting belongs to you, not to your penmanship teacher - legally, your signature consists of how *you* write your name, not how your penmanship teacher thought you should write it.
Yes, I have checked this out with lawyers and forgery-detection people. It seems that the myth of signatures requiring cursive for legal status and/or identification began with a few elementary-school teachers desperately looking for some way to convince seven- and eight-year-olds to change their handwriting from the "print" they had just worked so hard on (for 1/3 to 1/4 of their lives) into this very different-looking "cursive" stuff.

/2/
"If you received a personal letter from a friend written in cursive, penmanship aside, could you read it?"
ACTUALLY ... learning to read cursive (if you know how to read print, and if you have a teacher who knows how to teach cursive-erading) takes about an hour or less - often, just a half-hour: in any case, 'way less time than the months or even years it can take to also have to learn to *write* that way. (I have taught fluent reading/decipherment of cursive to five- and six-year-olds who knew their [printed] ABCs and could read at least a little bit in [printed] books. Then and thereafter, they could read in cursive anything that they could have read in printing - even though they would not actually learn to *write* cursive for a year or two.)
Reading cursive does not require writing it, any more than reading the masthead of the NEW YORK TIMES also requires writing in the same super-elaborate medieval calligraphy.

/3/
"There is certainly another benefit/result from learning cursive (and similar disciplines): brain development."
Many people claim that cursive makes you smarter, grows essential brain-connections, or does other neato things. Some of them even claim that "there's research about this." However, when I've asked, *not* *one* of them has ever found and shown me a research-citation: they just say "well, everybody knows this" or "a friend of my cousin's kid's teacher read it somewhere" or something like that.
Most of the world, today (even in countries that use our alphabet) does not write what the USA/Canada calls "cursive," and never did write that way. What American classroom-teachers call "cursive" did not even exist until about 300 years ago: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Galileo, Copernicus, or Queen Elizabeth I (all of whom wrote Italic) would not have known what to make of a modern-day USA third-grade cursive-handwriting chart ... yet I do not think we can exactly call any of those folks lacking in brain-power. (Living before the invention of "cursive writing" certainly did not keep da Vinci from designing effective graphics.) (Conversely, the most cursively writing peoples of today inhabit those countries that use Arabic script, in which even printed books and newspapers routinely connect the letters, and no such thing as "printed" separate-letter writing exists. If the Muslim nations have produced several centuries' worth of cursive-enhanced superminds among whatever percentage of their citizenry actually learns to read and write... well, I would imagine that we might have noticed by this time.)
To anyone who "knows" that his/her "cursive skills" help him/her "design effective reports and screens," I have to ask: just how do you "know" this? (I have a graphic-designer acquaintance who "knows" that he cannot do his best work unless he wears his lucky pair of yellow sneakers. He can take off his sneakers any time he wants to, but you can't just remove your knowledge of cursive handwriting and check how you perform with and without it.) Cursive handwriting, as far as I know, doesn't give you anything except the ability to do cursive handwriting.

;-)

/3/
"So is cursive just what I know as joined up writing (a more eight year old-friendly term!), or something more than that?"
AS IT HAPPENS: "Cursive" in the USA and Canada means something quite different from "joined-up writing" UK-style. It means having to write with loads of loops, with letter-forms made very differently from thier "printed" separate-letter counterparts (especially for b/f/k/r/s/z/CAPITALS) and with joining absolutely required for each and every lower-case letter throughout every word (even great long words like "antidisestablishmentarianism) ... which means, among other things, also requiring students never to finish (dot or cross) the letters t/i/j/x until after they get to the end of the word contianing one or more of these letters: at which time of course they must then go all the way backwards to[wards] the start of the word in order to cross the "t"s or whatever, then all the way over the right again in order to reach the place where the next word must start. In the vast majority (95+%) of American schools, you first "print" for a year or two and then, suddenly (usually literally overnight) you have to change to this "cursive" stuff: nothing in-between acknowledged or permitted or even given a name. (As a handwriting specialist, I find this situation just plain wrong - particularly in the light of the 1998 Graham/Berninger research-study documenting that the fastest and most legible handwriters at any age don't write "cursive," don't write "print," but instead create for themselves a "mixed" form of handwriting that combines the best elements of both styles: generally semi-joined and with print-like letter-shapes throughout. For a citation and summary of this study, send me an e-mail at handwritingrepair@gmail.com and put "seeking the Graham/Berninger study" in the subject-line.)

For elegance, teach kids calligraphy (as some members suggest) - the Italic form of calligraphy has a fast-handwriting version (about 500 years old) that "just happens" to embody the Graham/Berninger recommendations for high speed with high legibility.
For speeds beyond those of any form of today's handwriting (and without an electric power supply) I'd suggest (as one member here has also suggested) deciding on a nationally standard form of shorthand and teaching the kids that (along with calligraphy or whatever - I doubt we could get away with teaching shorthand *instead* of any other form of handwriting).

/5/
"Given the same intended message from your wife, 'Darling, you are the love of my life,' would you rather that she delivered the message:

1) Typed in Times-Roman in 4.8 seconds (at 100 wpm)
2) Mashed in 5 colours of Crayola (regardless of speed)
3) Prepared in calligraphy (in 45 seconds)"

Myself, I'd "prepare it in calligraphy" (with my trusty Italic-nibbed fountain pen permitting calligraphic strokes - oror, alternatively, in some non-calligraphy-pen [monoline] version of the same shapes: with Crayola or pencil or whatever) in about five seconds flat, using Italic handwriting. So I'd prefer that to the other three choices - even for a "Hey, [rectal orifice] ... " letter.

Yours for better letters,
Kate Gladstone
Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

http://www.learn.to/handwrite

handwritingrepair@gmail.com

 

[fumei]

One may be tempted to think that CRilliterate has an appropriately chosen handle. I am just kidding, and no harm is intended. Even if he/she was, it would in keeping with this thread as grammar is also disappearing - or rather, evolving. Evolving both in explicit use thereof, and in its intention.

I find it amusing that an exercise in contemplation is being touted as useless and incapable of producing action.

I would suggest - as chipperMDW does - that it may be instructive to actually try it.

1. It is a flawed concept that inaction is fundamentally useless.

2. It is a flawed perception that contemplation is eqivalent to inaction.

This drive to DO something, all the time, is a egoistic / consumeristic attribute of people, primarily those of the "advanced" societies. It is deeply, deeply flawed.

Stopping to actually think sometime...well, gosh, it can be kind of useful.

Gerry

 

[Dollie]

Stopping to actually think sometime...well, gosh, it can be kind of useful.

I'll have to think about that.

/grin/

 

[fumei]

Thank you Kate for a superlative post on the technical aspects of handwriting. Wow.

I find it interesting that there seems to be this concept that contemplative actions (on the grass looking at clouds) and...hmmmm, "real" actions (DOING stuff) are mutually exclusive.

This is a long standing argument, and one that has frequently annoyed me.

At the risk of being called a braggart, here are some of the things I do.

I compose and play music, having written and recorded over 300 songs. I have a digital recording setup at home and I play piano, guitar, flute and Celtic harp.

I sculpt, mostly carving in rock. In the past three years I have carved more than 400 sculptures.

I paint, mostly in oil. My studio contains - heck, I don't know - probably close to 4,000 paintings.

I am a past president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. I have built telescopes and actively do observations of variable stars and galaxy clusters.

I write novels and Japanese poetry (renga mostly).

I write and deliver training courses on network topology, as well as end user desktop applications.

I program and develop in-house mainframe applications.

I do back-country kayaking and hiking, and paticularly enjoying doing those in programs for troubled kids.

Blah blah blah. My point is that these are actions mostly. They are DOING things.

Yet for all that...I would say 80% of my time is spent on the grass looking at clouds.

Sensitivity is NOT mutually exlusive to being active or participating. It was stated "go, go, go"...well, I DO go and I will flatly state that stopping to think, to dream, improves what is actually done.

Sensitivity makes what you DO all that much more significant. It makes things better.

Gerry

 

[SantaMufasa]

Kate, Excellent treatment of several issues at multiple levels. Have a Purple Star.

I find this thread continually fascinating. The insights (and incites...and even the in-sites) are exhilarating.

This thread also aroused my curiosity at another level as I read CRilliterate's interesting perspectives. CR, would you be willing to share with us the derivation/reasoning for your your Tek-Tips-screen-name choice: CRilliterate?

And continuing on with Chipper's allusion:

...laying on the grass and admiring a sky is not going to DO anything to anyone.

I beg to differ...if you are laying on the grass, whether you are admiring a sky or not, you are, by definition, DO-ing something to someone (or to something), else you are, in fact, not laying ! If anyone is in doubt, just ask the partner whom you are laying.


Now, lying on the grass and admiring a sky, perhaps is a different story. Is still believe, however, that doing so also does DO something to someone...it does something (potentially at many levels) to the reclining admirer. If it doesn't do something to the participant, then s/he might as well go trade in her/his birth certificate on something more useful (like a death certificate).

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[SantaMufasa]

I promise that I started my thread (above) two hours ago when Kate posted her excellent contribution...and, knowing that some-kind-of-similar minds think alike, Gerry posted twice and Dollie posted once, both articulating many of my sentiments, while I had to step away from my screen and not noticing that there were those fine posts that made mine, above, seem rather redundant. (...and who know how many others might have posted between this post and the other three that I mentioned?)

Apologies, and next time, I'll hope not to step away during one of my "post-creative periods" on such a hot thread !!!

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[CRilliterate]

chipperMDW asked me
"So what if laying there admiring the sky gave you insight on how to get up and go go go in a better way? Have you ever tried it? You might be surprised".
I might be but how would I know if I don't think it is fun?

I don't get Santa's post but I wasn't claiming to be super smart so I will pass and read up later. I don't think staring is productive even if it is a verb, sorry.
Thanks

 

[jebenson]

I don't think staring is productive even if it is a verb, sorry.

That's the issue...why does everything have to be productive?

I'll put it another way.

There's a question I ask myself periodically, to help me determine what is important in my life. For any given situation, activity, or whatever, I ask myself, "When I'm lying on my deathbed, am I going to wish for one more day to do this?" If the answer to that question is "No," then I know that whatever the question may be about at that time, that thing/activity/whatever is not the most important thing in my life. So far, the list of things to which the answer is "Yes" is very short...as I feel it should be.

I hadn't asked myself this question about "...laying on the grass and admiring a sky," but I do believe my list of "Yes" answers just grew by one.

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[KenCunningham]

Regarding the necessity to get a good work/life balance, Desiderata sums it up for me:

http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html

And from 'Leisure':

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Since we're now moving away from the subject matter of the thread, and I think that everyone has had their say on the matter of cursive, let's close this discussion and move on.

Thanks.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[jebenson]

Thanks everyone! This discussion has been awesome!


I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[Stella740pl]

Sorry, I started typing this before you decided to close the thread - and, I believe, back on the topic, please allow me this one.

"Cursive" in the USA and Canada means something quite different from "joined-up writing" UK-style. It means having to write with loads of loops, with letter-forms made very differently from thier "printed" separate-letter counterparts (especially for b/f/k/r/s/z/CAPITALS) and with joining absolutely required for each and every lower-case letter throughout every word (even great long words like "antidisestablishmentarianism) ... which means, among other things, also requiring students never to finish (dot or cross) the letters t/i/j/x until after they get to the end of the word contianing one or more of these letter
...
In the vast majority (95+%) of American schools, you first "print" for a year or two and then, suddenly (usually literally overnight) you have to change to this "cursive" stuff: nothing in-between acknowledged or permitted or even given a name.

After reading Kate’s post, I realized that was never taught cursive writing.

I grew up in Soviet Union, Ukraine, and I was taught “joined-up writing” or “writing in-script”, whatever is the best translation, but not what you describe.

Actually, the word “cursive” is used there in somewhat different meaning – that left-to-right tilted type-face that you call ‘Italic’ in book printing and computer fonts (not in handwriting), we called ‘cursive’.

I cannot say about all former Soviet Union, but I believe that, at the very least, in Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia no school kids are taught printing for more than a few first months in school, and almost none of it in pencil, and all while exercising for joint handwriting (writing rows of meaningless letter details). Somewhere in the late fall of the first grade regular writing in script begins – using regular ball-point stick pen (in my school years, only purple ink was allowed; when my daughter went to school, blue was also OK).

The writing is kind of semi-joined, with some amount of loops, somewhat differently looking from their printed counterparts. Some level of joining is taught and desired, but never “absolutely required for each and every lower-case letter throughout every word”. And stopping to mark some letters (well, equivalent of English dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s) is not prohibited.

When I started to learn English in 5th grade (and they told us we are learning British English), we were informed that English handwriting is somewhat different from what we are used to in Russian, and that all the letters are supposed to be completely joined before you dot and cross, but we never spent much time actually doing that (the point was to teach to speak and read), so English handwriting most of us formed is quite similar to our Russian handwriting. I was surprised to read in Kate’s post that "Cursive" in the USA and Canada means something quite different from "joined-up writing" UK-style.”, because that all-joined style was what I was told about British writing.

My daughter attended elementary school there for just enough time to be done with printing and to just learn writing in script with a pen – not even to get proficient in it. Then we moved to USA, and for some time she had to regress to printing with a pencil before going back to writing in script, and using a pen. (I am almost sure, though, that never ever during her elementary school years I heard the word “cursive” in the meaning of joined handwriting – I believe, they were “writing in print” or “in script”.) So when short time after they actually started to “write in script”, the teacher excitedly informed me that she has the best handwriting in class – and she is writing not very calligraphic-looking, not so aesthetically-pleasing text with her left hand, and English was very new for her. (So, maybe, 2nd-3rd grade is not that early to start teaching joined writing of any kind – cursive, Italic, or whatever else – if for no other reason than to develop the children’s fine motor skills. I would say that 1st grade, or at the very least early second grade would be just right. Maybe even late kindergarten.

As for actual handwriting, no matter what you have been taught, you develop your own style of quick handwriting if you exercise is it often enough, for one reason or another.
Say, my father’s handwriting was almost print-looking, because he had done his fare share of technical drawing – the old-fashioned way, by hand, with pencil, and ink, and all the tools.

In my high school and college years (80’s) I had to write down (sometimes using my own shorthand system) the lectures, because good instructors almost always taught above and beyond of what’s in the textbook; and because you absorb information better when you actually write it down, and then have a chance to also read and review it. Should I mention that home or portable computers were not available to us? And also that they fail more often than your own handwriting.

In general, I am voting in favor of teaching kids any style of fast handwriting, be it “cursive”, “script”, “Italic”, “joined-up” - other than and besides the print writing. Shorthand is good if longhand is a prerequisite for it – let them learn proper spelling and grammar first.

 

[KateGladstone]

Re:

"... “writing in-script” ... "

In USA English, when we say "script [handwriting]" we mean the sme thing that we mean by "cursive [handwriting]" - but I have heard people from the UK use "script [handwriting]" to mean what the USA means by "print [handwriting]."


Re:

"in Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia no school kids are taught printing for more than a few first months in school, and almost none of it in pencil, and all while exercising for joint handwriting (writing rows of meaningless letter details)."

The same holds true in many European nations and some English-speaking nations/regions - much to the surprise of USA/Canadian people who see it or hear about it! (because here in North America we grow up believing that joining of letters cannot happen until age eight or so ... we believe this, probably, because of the very difficult joined-writing style that we have: a simpler style makes joining possible much, much earlier.)

Re purple ink used officially in Eastern Europe: I saw this a while ago when visiting Russia (during the year of the coup, and then a year after the coup). Whenever I had to use a post-office and I did not have a pen, the clerk would provide a dip-pen and a bottle of bright purple ink. In the USA/Canada, schools have traditionally restricted students to only black, blue, or blue-black ink (considering other colors frivolous, except for red which the teacher uses). But nowadays, in many schools, the teachers use purple or green felt-tip pens for their corrections (on the theory that this presents a more friendly image than bright blood-red) and the students may use any color but purple or green or whatever other color the teacher uses.


Re:
"English handwriting most of us formed is quite similar to our Russian handwriting" -
I see evidence of this in the handwriting of Russians/Ukrainians living in/visiting the United States. Almost always, they write the lower-case letter "k" with a short stem, as one writes it in the Cyrillic alphabet, and not the tall-stemmed "k" of the Roman alphabet (used for English). Some of these short-"k" writers have said to me, "Well, the textbook showed a tall 'k' but we didn't really bother trying to copy that detail because a short 'k' is understandable" ... others have said: "Our English textbooks were printed in Russia and they showed a short 'k' because most people in Russia who write English write it with a short 'k' because that is more familiar to us" (As one person said: "You could say that we learned our Englishfrom an author who wrote his English handwriting with a Russian accent.")
According to rumor, some USA employers have a prejudice against hiring Russians/Ukrainians ... so they look for "k"s in the handwritten parts of job-applications, and then throw out any applications with Cyrillic-style "k"s or other signs of a "Cyrillic accent" in the handwriting.

Surprisingly for me, I have also seen this short "k" in the handwritings of Lithuanians in the USA, even though Lithuanian (like English) uses the Roman alphabet. It turned out that many Lithuanian schools teach (or formerly taught) English from textbooks printed in the USSR/Russia ... and these textbooks of course had their examples of English handwriting prepared by a Russian!

I entirely agree that:
"Shorthand is good if longhand is a prerequisite for it ... " - in fact, at least one American shorthand-system (the "EasyScript" system) strongly recommends that the students should take a handwriting- or calligraphy-course before they begin to study EasyScript. (This matters more for EasyScript than for most shorthand-systems because EasyScript uses no symbols other than handwritten letters of the alphabet - for instance, the letter "h" in EasyScript writes the word "the" ... so if you do not write the letter "h" legibly you will miswrite the word "the" every time you use it ... )

 

[CRilliterate]

I just read both long posts and I still can't understand what was that you ladies explaining or proving or what?
And why Russia? Is this parallel to Russia means anything to anyone? Except Stella who was born there I remember. But why example Russia? With all respect, CR

 

[SantaMufasa]

CR, the reason that experiences from Russia and other countries appear here is to compare and contrast elementary-school-handwriting experiences with those of the U.S. and Canada, and to illustrate that children can grow up both literate and undamaged without exposure to cursive.

C'mon, man, keep up !!! <grin>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[Stella740pl]

Kate,

I saw this a while ago when visiting Russia (during the year of the coup, and then a year after the coup). Whenever I had to use a post-office and I did not have a pen, the clerk would provide a dip-pen and a bottle of bright purple ink.

Those dip pens and bottled ink (black in some post offices) for many decades exist mostly in post offices - I haven't seen it almost anywhere else. In big post offices, you don't have to ask for it, they are there on the tables for free use by anyone. I believe, they still use it because no one ever steals it, for purpose or by mistake! As for schools, they switched to ball-point stick pens, mostly with replaceable core, many decades ago. Students used purple, and teachers used red.

Re: handwriting with a Russian accent"

Well, my "k" is usually tall, and it was shown long in the textbook. As far as I can remember, the name of the guy who wrote the textbooks we used was Richard Dixon - not exactly a Russian last name, even though I suspect he lived in Russia for some long time and spoke Russian, too. I also think that his textbooks were in use long before and long after I went to school. I think, "the textbook showed a tall 'k' but we didn't really bother" or even "didn't really paid attention if it is tall or not" is more likely explanation than "our textbooks were printed in Russia and they showed a short 'k'".
It's not "k" that I write differently. It's a lot of other things - like capital "Q","A","G", and my stopping to cross or dot, etc.

Surprisingly for me, I have also seen this short "k" in the handwritings of Lithuanians in the USA, even though Lithuanian (like English) uses the Roman alphabet. It turned out that many Lithuanian schools teach (or formerly taught) English from textbooks printed in the USSR/Russia ... and these textbooks of course had their examples of English handwriting prepared by a Russian!

Well, not so surprising for me. Until recently, they were part of Soviet Union, and learning Russian was mandatory. As many people whose first language was Russian lived there, you can imagine the influence. As for books, at some points, I believe, school curricula were the same for the whole country, and at other times, in many Soviet republics it was probably not economically sound to write their own books and create their own curricula for many common subjects. Even though they had their own programs for some specific subjects, they still copied the others.

According to rumor, some USA employers have a prejudice against hiring Russians/Ukrainians ... so they look for "k"s in the handwritten parts of job-applications, and then throw out any applications with Cyrillic-style "k"s or other signs of a "Cyrillic accent" in the handwriting.

It is probably mostly a rumor. There are so many ways to recognize a Russian-speaking person, you don't need handwriting. Very often a name or the accent alone are enough, but there are many more. (And if you came to the country older then some threshold age, you still can change you handwriting - and you name, if you wish; but almost never you can get rid of the accent.) For many people you can see "Russian accent" in a typed text - sentence structure, word choice, etc.
What kind of jobs are those, anyway? In most cases I had to send my resume (not exactly hand-written, you know - but with the name of my school in it), then someone called me on the phone (either a recruiter, or a hiring manager), then they called me in for an interview or two, then possibly sent me an offer, and only when I agreed and came to work first, I had to fill out all those hand-written applications. Only very rarely I did have to fill something out upfront, but all while I am there and they could talk to me. Come on - short 'k'? Don't you hear my accent? Don't you see my resume?

 

[Stella740pl]

"If it is true that in Russia they all have short 'k's, then it simply shows that in Russia they must all have this undesirable low ambition and low self-esteem...If a whole nation writes a letter in a particular way, this must say something about their national character..."

Uumm... So if a nation/language doesn't have anything like western alphabet, or just doesn't have some sounds or some letters at all, what then does it say of them? Say, Greek doesn't have "sh" sound, and some Asian languages have problems with "l" and "r" sounds - and also don't have letters in your traditional understanding, what can you make of it then?

In any case, most of my friends and relatives who came here young enough to learn English to some acceptable level, maybe also break some habits, etc. work on good, competitive, ambitious positions. And in all my workplaces I saw many other Russian-speaking people. So if some companies would go to such trouble of hiring handwriting analysts and all that short "k" BS of a process - just to discriminate, do I really want to work for them, anyway? You know the answer.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Discussions about handwriting based job descrimination, or the relationship between handwriting and ambition are deserving of their own threads.

Let's continue those discussion in threads focused on those subjects.

Thank you.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
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[sha76]

Thank you Kate, I learned a lot from your posts. I've just googled for examples (about time, I know, but it honestly hadn't struck me before that there'd be anything worth googling for!) & I'd say that most people I know probably write with a mix of cursive & italic. One point though, I was always taught the pen never leaves the paper before you've finished the word. We were taught to print up to the age of about 7, but did spend a lot of time copying repeating, linked patterns, which prepared us for joined up writing.

NB My handwriting is atrocious, I must find time to check your website out properly!

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[KateGladstone]

Re:

"I was always taught the pen _never_ leaves the paper before you've finished the word."

That habit characterizes much school instruction in handwriting. However, according to the Berninger/Graham research (and other evidence - providable on request), the habit in question does *not* characterize high-speed high-legibility writing.
Besides the speed/legibility degradation that the "never lift within words" rule provokes, that rule also makes it impossible (with certain letters) to finish one letter before starting the next: making for some raqther problematic sequences of motion.
With this rule and the word "tomatoes," for instance, rather than finishing "t" before you start "o" you have to actually first write something that looks like "lomaloes" and then only finish the "t"s *after* you have already gotten to the "s" and therefore naturally feel primed to hurry on to the next word instead of now having to go back again to the word you have just written ... so you either sloppily leave it "lomaloes" as many people (particularly doctors!) do in their scribal hurry, or you dutifully go back and finish the "t"s but if you want the "t"-crossbars to end in their proper places (on the "t"s rather than over the "o"s or somewhere else off-target) at this point you have to really slow down in order to make that happen without losing time from the rest of your writing.
When I speak with teachers/others who fiercely defend this rule, I challenge them to "practice what they preach" by writing out some long words within their daily vocabulary
(e.g., I might ask a doctor to write a sentence containing
"thyroidectomy" and other lengthy medical terms -
for a science-teacher I might ask him/her to write a sentence with
"tyrannosaurus" and several other names of dinosaurs) ...
and we see together if they can actually write it at high speed, in a completely legible manner, *without* consciously or unconsciously lifting the pen at some point
(to cross "t" or "x", to dot "i" or "j", or to avoid soem difficult join)
Almost always, if they wrote the sentence legibly/unambiguously at a high speed, they turn out to have lifted the pen at one or more points within a word (the same thing that, if they teach, they forbid the students to do) - if they write legibly and really do comply with the "never lift in words" rule, they turn out to have written very slowly.
(Once I received an elegantly handwritten letter from a teacher who doubted me on this. She wrote: "Never in my life since age 7 have I lifted my pen within a word or allowed any student of mine to do so. No adult, anywhere, would write in such a manner." Looking through her letter, I noted numerous small pen-lifts between words - with typically no more than 3 - 4 consecutive letters actually joining in any word of hers. So I sent her back her original note, with an enlarged copy, and with and with little red arrows on the enlarged copy pointing to all the pen-lifts! She wrote back that my letter had shocked her, but that she had since looked through a magnifying-glass at other samples of her writing and the writing of other adults she considered good handwriters .. and she had to concede that yes, indeed, like most people she lifts the pen within words whether she wants to admit to it or not.)