I'm in late 30s, my handwriting is atrocious so word processing was a godsend.
I don't have kids but my understanding is they no longer teach cursive writing in grade school. Admittedly, I tend to print more often than I hand-write.
I have an "old school" doctor...he's in his late 60's and has many of the older habits (including making his patients wait for 2 hours when you have a scheduled appointment but that's a different story). A few weeks ago, he wrote a prescription (in cursive) that I had to get filled. I stopped at Walgreen's and the pharmacist (early 20's) said she couldn't read his writing so she had to wait until the next day to call him to verify the prescription. I thought she was nuts - I read out the prescription to her and she said she didn't feel comfortable with that. I took my prescription and drove down the street to the next pharmacy....an older pharmacist. She read the prescription and said no problem, it would be about 15 minutes.
It's had me wondering...has cursive handwriting gone the way of calligraphy? Is it reserved for more personal notes and cards to friends (that their kids might not be able to read)?
The Federal no child left behind act caused elementary schools to drop cursive writting almost all together.
i think we should have a cursive font as a choice on the computer.
Uh...I graduated high school in 2003. We were still writing multi-page essays left and right. In 6th grade we had a mandatory class called "Composition Writing," but it started heavily in 8th grade (which for me was 98-99) and continued through high school, drilled through our heads that it was a skill we needed to perfect to have success in college. We had to memorize "TSFFWW" - "The Standards for Formal Written Work" - which involved writing in pen with a correct heading, title, indentions for paragraphs and numbers, before we turned things in. Even when we started to write longer papers on computers, writing longhand was still considered paramount in English class.
I'm sure it's different now, and maybe mine was the last generation for it, but it was definitely still being taught in the early '00's.
And in terms of the thread, yes...I always have, and still do, write in cursive.
Granddaughter, who is 17 now, loves my old Royal portable typewriter that she couldn't find the number 1 on.
"Muuuum ... I asked grampa where the '1' key is, and he told me to go to 'ell!!"
I went to a public school. Didn't have the money for private. I think this issue just varies district to district and state to state in terms of what's taught.You either went to a very good public school with a strong academically oriented school board or a private school. Most public schools followed the path I described. Yes, I am a public school teacher who had the benefits associated with a growing up in a parochial school setting.
My daughter had an english teacher that made the kids use cursive for all their assignments! I thought that was great. I recently picked it back up some. I have to slow way down to make it legible though. Not a bad thing I am beginning to realize.
I had to get the signature of an 18 year old girl while at work the other day. When I asked her to sign the paper and she ended up printing her name to which I responded "your signature, you can't print it." She replied back with something along the lines of, "what, like my grandmother writes?" Apparently a lot of young people don't know, don't care, and were never properly taught. I'm only 25 though and remember learning it in school. It makes me wonder when they quit teaching it down here.