What was the point of learning cursive in school?

I remember thinking this same thing when I was in like the 9th grade. The funny thing is our teachers back in middle school were telling us how high school and college classes would make us write in cursive. It never happened lol.

Today i don't know a single person other than the occasional old person who still writes in cursive. Other than writing my name, I don't write anything in cursive. Haven't since about 8th grade lol.

Lol. Other threats I remembered.

- 3rd Grade, you'll be writing everything in pen next year, except for math.

- 4th Grade, you're not going to be allowed to use calculators at all next year

- 8th Grade, when you get to high school teachers won't tolerate tardiness. Your classes might be all the way on the other end of the school and they won't care.

- Senior Year, When you get to college you're going to have to study 3 hours for every hour you're in class. I'm sorry but no one does that. There are people that study a lot but no one goes to class 15 or 18 hours a week and then studies for 45 to 54 hours outside of class during that same week. Except for people that are literally addicted to studying and academics.

3 hours of studying for each hour of class to do well? - College Confidential (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/574993-3-hours-studying-each-hour-class-do-well.html)

Also teachers "lock the door right after class starts" so people who are late are forced to miss class. I didn't have a single teacher that did that.

I just tried writing a few sentences in cursive and I feel I did okay for the most part, but it's also irrelevant considering I haven't written a handwritten letter since I was writing to my brother while he was in boot camp and I probably won't be writing any handwritten letters in the future. Cursive is just outdated in the internet age, I'm not suprised schools are getting rid of it.

F cursive.

So pointless.

Lol. Other threats I remembered.

- 3rd Grade, you'll be writing everything in pen next year, except for math.

- 4th Grade, you're not going to be allowed to use calculators at all next year

- 8th Grade, when you get to high school teachers won't tolerate tardiness. Your classes might be all the way on the other end of the school and they won't care.

- Senior Year, When you get to college you're going to have to study 3 hours for every hour you're in class. I'm sorry but no one does that. There are people that study a lot but no one goes to class 15 or 18 hours a week and then studies for 45 to 54 hours outside of class during that same week. Except for people that are literally addicted to studying and academics.

3 hours of studying for each hour of class to do well? - College Confidential (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/574993-3-hours-studying-each-hour-class-do-well.html)

Also teachers "lock the door right after class starts" so people who are late are forced to miss class. I didn't have a single teacher that did that.

I've done that. It was only once or twice for particularly troublesome folks. I haven't done it often.

I bet my teachers would be irate that I write in ALL CAPS all of the time.

Always.


Why? I work in finance and a lot of Government forms require it, plus it helps cut down on errors in interpretation.

Also, it looks neater.

I started doing it in my first accounting job out of college, for a construction/prop mgmt company in MD. The owner actually asked I use only CAPS and it's become a way of life for me.

My handwriting is neater than most peoples', as it needs to be when you're working with numbers and money.

F cursive.

So pointless.

I don't know if the pun was intended but I found calling it pointless quite hilarious.

You have to remember, a lot of historical documents were written in cursive, so it's still important to at least teach kids how to read in cursive. They may find reading these documents would be like trying to read something in a foreign language.

It has also been proven that children with learning disabilities or certain intellectual disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, have benefited greatly from learning to write in cursive. The cursive writing seems to help develop fine motor skills, and has helped those children to understand better how words are formed (since cursive letters are written together) than writing individual letters.

Even though I am in Computer Information systems, I would never want to be a slave to the technology - and I think we are starting to teach ourselves and our children to be just that. That is why I don't buy the excuse that we're doing more and more "writing" on computers which makes cursive obsolete. What about writing signatures? While, yes, we don't always use perfect cursive to write our signatures, cursive does help to establish our identities when it comes to our signatures. It's a heck of a lot easier to copy someone's signature that is written mostly in print than it is a cursive signature. Even though we might be moving into the point of replacing hand written signatures with passwords and thumb prints, you still have to fall back to the good ol' fashion hand-written stuff if your computer system goes down.

So, I'd say even though cursive may not be as important to learn as say math or science, it still serves a very useful purpose in our society.

I bet my teachers would be irate that I write in ALL CAPS all of the time.

Always.


Why? I work in finance and a lot of Government forms require it, plus it helps cut down on errors in interpretation.

Also, it looks neater.

I started doing it in my first accounting job out of college, for a construction/prop mgmt company in MD. The owner actually asked I use only CAPS and it's become a way of life for me.

My handwriting is neater than most peoples', as it needs to be when you're working with numbers and money.

ONE OF MY BIGGEST PET PEEVES IS TRYING TO READ SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS. It’s horrible.

I agree with dirtbag that part of the reason we learn stuff is so that we learn how to learn stuff. I also agree with everything skinsguy says. Ill add that cursive probably falls under the arts category and while I probably place the arts as the least important subject taught in school I think its important everyone gets an opportunity to be exposed to as many different subjects as possible.

Im a firm believer that everyone has different natural talents and strengths and that people who excel in one particular thing should try and develop that skill as much as possible. Everyone needs to be well rounded but if youre naturally bad at math it’s a waste of time to try and become a mathematician.

When it's typed in all caps, I agree with you, but written...it's very legible and when you're dealing with codes and crap on forms...it helps it never to get mis-read.

I've just done it so much at work, it's carried over to the rest of my life. I guarantee my handwriting is more legible than 99% of people.

I CAN write in cursive if I need to. I'll usually save it for when I want to hang up a sign at work and don't want anyone to know it was me who wrote it...ha. Works every time, they know my writing but when they see the cursive...I'm never suspected because it looks like a woman wrote it.


I used to do Calligraphy when I was young, still do occasionally for special crap. However, cursive in everyday matters...unnecessary.

I can write in cursive but it does not hide my spelling mistakes and poor grammar. For that reason why take Algebra? Never helped me sell insurance.