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My kid, 11, is learning cursive now in public school. I agree it's outdated, but I'm glad, still. What sucks is that sometimes she asks for help, and me, not

My kid, 11, is learning cursive now in public school. I agree it's outdated, but I'm glad, still. What sucks is that sometimes she asks for help, and me, not having written it in 20 years, don't remember all the letters(Capital F, J, etc). She also asked why n has 2 hills and m 3. I told her I didn't know, and always wrote them 'incorrectly', and that gave her confidence to do the same. At the end of the day, while I'm all for preserving traditions and such, agree cursive is a useless skill. Even before computers dominated everything, it felt like a weird thing that didn't save much time, and made everything harder to read.

Dylan16807 4y ago
> She also asked why n has 2 hills and m 3. I told her I didn't know, and always wrote them 'incorrectly', and that gave her confidence to do the same. It's because cursive n has two downstrokes, and cursive m has three downstrokes. Counting by hills has issues when the letter before it has a high exit. You can end up with barely a hill or no hill at all. Consider oe vs. one (vs. ae), if you're cutting out the 'extra' hill. You can make it work but it gets pretty subtle.
ogogmad 4y ago
The UK "joined up" handwriting has the same letter forms as the keyboard I'm typing on. I guess it's functional but less beautiful. Maybe not very traditional.
latexr 4y ago
If you agree the skill is outdated and useless, why are you glad they’re making your kid learn it?
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Not everything is life that is old and not immediately effective is “useless”. For example, snowboarding is “useless” and “inefficient” and contributes almost nothing practical to one's life in a pragmatic sense, however it's still fun and millions of people enjoy it. Some people may enjoy reading and writing traditional cursive and that's okay as well.
  - latexr 4y ago
    > Not everything is life that is old and not immediately effective is “useless”. Agreed. But I’m not the one who described cursive as “outdated” and “useless”, the parent poster did. I used their exact words. That’s what made me curious: they used negative words to refer to the skill, yet reacted positively to their kid learning it. If their answer is “I’m glad my kid is learning it because they’re having a blast”, more power to them! But is that the reason? My comment isn’t a gotcha, it’s a genuine question to understand the reasoning behind an (at first glance) cognitively dissonant¹ situation. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
- silisili 4y ago
  Useless, by definition, was a poor choice of word, apologies. I meant something more akin to something you'd likely never need to use as a life skill or for employment in today's world. One of my favorite trips as a kid was to some museum that displayed civil war letters. They were all beautifully written in cursive. For reasons like that, I'm glad tp have learned it, and hope she finds such things as interesting as I do one day.

Dylan16807 4y ago

> She also asked why n has 2 hills and m 3. I told her I didn't know, and always wrote them 'incorrectly', and that gave her confidence to do the same. It's because cursive n has two downstrokes, and cursive m has three downstrokes. Counting by hills has issues when the letter before it has a high exit. You can end up with barely a hill or no hill at all. Consider oe vs. one (vs. ae), if you're cutting out the 'extra' hill. You can make it work but it gets pretty subtle.

ogogmad 4y ago

The UK "joined up" handwriting has the same letter forms as the keyboard I'm typing on. I guess it's functional but less beautiful. Maybe not very traditional.

latexr 4y ago

If you agree the skill is outdated and useless, why are you glad they’re making your kid learn it?

stjohnswarts 4y ago
Not everything is life that is old and not immediately effective is “useless”. For example, snowboarding is “useless” and “inefficient” and contributes almost nothing practical to one's life in a pragmatic sense, however it's still fun and millions of people enjoy it. Some people may enjoy reading and writing traditional cursive and that's okay as well.
- latexr 4y ago
  > Not everything is life that is old and not immediately effective is “useless”. Agreed. But I’m not the one who described cursive as “outdated” and “useless”, the parent poster did. I used their exact words. That’s what made me curious: they used negative words to refer to the skill, yet reacted positively to their kid learning it. If their answer is “I’m glad my kid is learning it because they’re having a blast”, more power to them! But is that the reason? My comment isn’t a gotcha, it’s a genuine question to understand the reasoning behind an (at first glance) cognitively dissonant¹ situation. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
silisili 4y ago
Useless, by definition, was a poor choice of word, apologies. I meant something more akin to something you'd likely never need to use as a life skill or for employment in today's world. One of my favorite trips as a kid was to some museum that displayed civil war letters. They were all beautifully written in cursive. For reasons like that, I'm glad tp have learned it, and hope she finds such things as interesting as I do one day.