Time Travel to 1917

[FreeThinker]

Chalkboards from `1917 were discovered in an Oklahoma City high school that reveal teaching from a century ago. THEY DON'T TEACH CURSIVE WRITING ANYMORE?????

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/chalkboards-lessons-1917-uncovered-oklahoma-school-n375866

[Merkin]

I love it. I hope they spray them with fixative. Well worth saving!

Nope, no more cursive. Sigh. The Palmer Method for teaching handwriting is a dead duck. All those exercises in elementary school: Circle, circle, circle; slant, slant, slant. My fingers cramp even to think of it. Guess we'll be teaching the kids to text with their thumbs...

[Cole Parker]

Chalkboards from `1917 were discovered in an Oklahoma City high school that reveal teaching from a century ago. THEY DON'T TEACH CURSIVE WRITING ANYMORE?????

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/chalkboards-lessons-1917-uncovered-oklahoma-school-n375866

When I was in middle school, which was Jr. High back then and grades 7-9 rather than 6-8 which is now the norm, I had a cursive writing class. Big class with old desks with inkwells in them. We were not forced to use quill pens at least. But we had to make a series of oval O's so the teacher could watch how we were rotating our wrists, hands and grips. We were taught all the cursive letters and exactly how to make them, both upper and lower case. All our writing at school after that was supposed to be in cursive. That was back in the '50's. I don't know when they stopped teaching it.

C

[JamesSavik]

1917 was the year of Spanish flu and the end of WWI.

[DesDownunder]

Cole, that was how we were taught in Australia, too. We had copy books of perfect cursive writing that must have been written by celibate monks.

The customary dipping of the girl's pigtails in the inkwell scored extra marks for the boys who did that...usually red marks across their backsides.

[Pedro]

By the time I was in school in the early 60's the teaching of copperplate or cursive in the UK had or was falling out of fashion. So my handwriting is suitably appalling.

I am often amazed by the handwriting of generations before mine. Even 'the hoary handed sons of toil' often have nice handwriting. It may no longer be true cursive as their own style has developed over the years, but still puts mine to shame.

[Rutabaga]

I started out in Los Angeles city public schools in the late 50s, where the attitude toward handwriting (and particularly cursive writing) was pretty casual. In 1960, in the middle of third grade, my family moved back east, to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. In this school system there was an obsessive focus on handwriting, and I suffered mightily because of my poor preparation. I made it through (though I still don't understand why a capital 'Q' is supposed to look like the number '2') but it was always a struggle.

I think cursive writing can be beneficial because unless a person actually knows shorthand it is the quickest way to get words written down, as when taking notes. But maybe kids don't take notes any more. My current handwriting would not win any beauty contests but it's serviceable. I find that I have to slow down enough, when taking notes, to make sure that I will be able to decipher what I wrote.

R

[Hoskins]

Mid to late 60's elementary school in michigan, we were taught all aspects of cursive writing, using pencils and ball point pens. We weren't allowed to erase, though.

Since then, after like, 10th grade in high school (so mid 70's), I haven't used it since except when signing my name.

[Merkin]

I've always thought that children were taught cursive so they could write elegant and thoughtful Thank You notes for gifts received from grandparents and other family members

[Cole Parker]

Probably these days they send emails.

Or tweets.

C