Writing in cursive, the great lie of my education!

Saw cursive mentioned in another thread and did not want to take it off the tracks. Cursive was the great lie of my education. A few disclosures.

I am 33 and graduated high school in 2002. Graduated with my BA in 2007.

We started learning cursive in 3rd grade. It took most of the year from what I remember. When it was taught to us we were told that cursive is going to be all we use for the rest of our schooling and possibly our life.

In middle school and high school everything had to be typed or printed. In college everything had to be typed.

I can sign my name. That is about it. If you asked me to write this post in cursive I do not think that I could do that. If you asked me to read it in cursive I probably could but not nearly as easily as if it is typed or printed. Seems everyone adapts their own style when it comes to cursive.

Now for the 2nd great lie of my education. My math teacher telling me I’m not always going to have a calculator in my pocket…

I am curious though. Those of you who are older is there anything major you remember being taught that you hardly used outside of school?

I am curious though. Those of you who are older is there anything major you remember being taught that you hardly used outside of school?

We were actually talking about this this weekend. My FIL was originally taught ITA(Initial Teaching Alphabet) in school. He still blames it for not being able to spell properly. Reading a sentence written in ITA is a brain bender when you’re used to plain English.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet

Right now at work I’m involved in a side project….transposing written records into a computer. Most of it is cursive, and completely unintelligible. It looks like the seismograph before the earth quake happened. The other person wrote in big circles and all the characters overlap. Wonderful.

I remember how hard they hammered spelling into us. Then along came spell check.

SR

Jonesy wrote:

I can sign my name. That is about it. If you asked me to write this post in cursive I do not think that I could do that.

I haven’t even signed my name in cursive for several years. I am 66 years old and haven’t used cursive in my work for the last twenty years. I’ve gotten so accustomed to signing my name in “printed” form, that is how I sign everything including drivers license and other legal documents.
EXCEPT,,,,,,,,,,, my passport! Got my renewal kicked back because the passport office would not accept how I had “signed” my name. They insisted it was NOT a legal signature BECAUSE it was not in cursive. Even after I told them to check it (how I “signed”) against my drivers license and all my social security documents, they still insisted my passport had to be signed in cursive.

I even played the “disabled” card and asked; “what would the procedure be if I had suffered a stroke and lost my ability to write in cursive and could only manage to print? Would I need a written doctors excuse?” This question did cause her to leave me on hold for a bit while she presumably checked with someone. Her answer when she got back was “We can only accept a “written” signature.” I again told her that is how I write now, today, I don’t do cursive. (I eventually “signed” my name as best I could, trying NOT to print and resubmitted)

Your BA must not involve much math, science or engineering. If you don’t have to understand mathematics, calculators are great, but if you are in a field where you actually have to understand mathematics, your teacher was correct. I’d never encourage my children not to study mathematics because I don’t want their future limited.

We were actually talking about this this weekend. My FIL was originally taught ITA(Initial Teaching Alphabet) in school. He still blames it for not being able to spell properly. Reading a sentence written in ITA is a brain bender when you’re used to plain English.

Ha, I remember being taught ITA in first or second grade. ITA All The Way was the mantra of the day when it first came out. The idea was to make it easier to understand how to spell words with sh ch or how different letters could sound/be pronounced by creating a new letter/combination of letters. In essence it was more or less a training alphabet. It wasn’t that difficult to learn but it was out of use by the time I reached the next grade grade.

Though I rarely use it these days I can still write and read long hand writing.

The metric system is coming. One day that’s all we’ll be using. Good thing we learned that in school too.

You don’t need to spell correctly or solve math problems anymore. You only need to know how to use a phone!

biggill wrote:

The metric system is coming. One day that’s all we’ll be using. Good thing we learned that in school too.

I would venture a guess that most (more than 50%) of the products manufactured today are being made using metric specifications and dimensions. Every product field (cars, trucks, washing machines, toasters, appliances,TV’s, toys, fishing reels) all use more and more metric fasteners now days.

You need required foreign language and art credits to graduate but nothing in technology, engineering, or industrial tech. RIP OFF

Huntindave wrote:

I would venture a guess that most (more than 50%) of the products manufactured today are being made using metric specifications and dimensions. Every product field (cars, trucks, washing machines, toasters, appliances,TV’s, toys, fishing reels) all use more and more metric fasteners now days.

I’m in manufacturing and every project specified in metric is also translated to imperial. It’s been 30 years since I was told this and yet here we are. The only reason some manufacturing companies use the metric system is because they likely have plants or divisions in other countries. Otherwise it is inefficient to use it.

Even in Canada where the metric system is used they still use the imperial system heavily.

Unless there’s some help from the government, the imperial system isn’t going anywhere.

biggill wrote:

The metric system is coming. One day that’s all we’ll be using. Good thing we learned that in school too.

Then my biggest walleye is 71.12.

I switched schools after second grade. The school I left taught cursive writing in third grade while the school I joined had taught it in second. So I ended up just pretending I knew what they were talking about and taught myself along the way. My cursive sucks. But as we’ve come to know, it ended up not mattering since we were typing everything soon anyway.

I think part of a well-rounded education includes learning things you’re not going to use in daily life. Many subjects teach us valuable information which is good to know and be familiar with, but might not be directly applicable to our chosen career paths or daily life. I don’t remember a damn thing from geography class and since I’m not a big traveler it really hasn’t impacted my life. I loved learning about writing, language, and punctuation though – and still get a kick out of explaining to people the difference between “good” and “well”.

Part of a well-rounded education also includes learning things outside of school. From books, alternative classes, your elders, role models in activities your interested in, etc. Education is eternal and when you stop learning, you stop growing as a person.

Great post, Sharon!

Cursive capitol Q. Begin.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Huntindave wrote:</div>
I would venture a guess that most (more than 50%) of the products manufactured today are being made using metric specifications and dimensions. Every product field (cars, trucks, washing machines, toasters, appliances,TV’s, toys, fishing reels) all use more and more metric fasteners now days.

I’m in manufacturing and every project specified in metric is also translated to imperial. It’s been 30 years since I was told this and yet here we are. The only reason some manufacturing companies use the metric system is because they likely have plants or divisions in other countries. Otherwise it is inefficient to use it.

Even in Canada where the metric system is used they still use the imperial system heavily.

Unless there’s some help from the government, the imperial system isn’t going anywhere.

I just retired after 38 years in tool and die. Only reason english measurements are used is to accommodate all the measuring tools already in use. This is rapidly going by the wayside. Every CNC machine today is built to metric dimensions, the table sizes, tee slots, hole spacing, everything on that machine is metric. The only machines still used that are set up in english are old and needing replaced.
Yes the software associated with the metric CNC machines will allow the operator to run in english but the machine will actually be making the moves in metric.

In the tool and die shop, we build the equipment used to build the end consumer product. Everything going out our shop (3rd largest tool and die in the US) in the past ten years was built in metric. And Yes, we also have divisions world wide, it is a world market today and we (the U.S.) must compete on the world market’s terms.

The metric system is already here and has been for some time.
I have a B.S. in chemistry and everything that I studied in chemistry (and most sciences) was in the metric system and while working as a chemist, everything was also in the metric system. Later in life, I attended grad school and studied rockets, satellites, space travel, the planets, stars, etc., and everything associated with outer space. Again, everything was in the metric system.
The metric system is quite simple to learn and I find it much easier to use than the imperial system. The metric system is already here and has been for some time.
The only reason the U.S. has not already switched is because the majority of the U.S. infrastructure is based upon the imperial system making the jump to the metric system would be extremely costly.
It’s a problem.

I recall the metric system being taught as it was going to become the norm. In fact MN speed limit signs had MPH and KPH for a year or two…then they just vanished.

I feel that was my first class in magic.

Jonesy wrote:

Now for the 2nd great lie of my education. My math teacher telling me I’m not always going to have a calculator in my pocket…

I am curious though. Those of you who are older is there anything major you remember being taught that you hardly used outside of school?

I see so dang many phones fall into the water or out of a pocket and out of trusses to the floor.

Just a few observations from my early stages of being an old Fart, and I see Sharon hit on some of this. In the game of life, its not always what you have memorized as the “final answer”, its having the pathway open to get there. All those math formulas that “I will never use” Way too funny. I see people everyday calculating something, and it all goes back to figuring out those pesky formulas. Some are simple and some are more complex, but people do more math than they ever thought they would.

Excluding the “I Don’t Get It” crowd, I think most people learned how to find information. Ya, many of us now just Google it. But realistically, I think those that have done well for themselves learned how to sift through information effectively. The fact that Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind probably has not generated one cent of income for me. However, because I understand Authoring and Co-Authoring, it makes it very easy for me to identify other papers or engineering reports that I need to find. Or when I find an error on a FEMA GIS map, knowing how to identify the individual who made the mistake and how to write a persuasive letter to encourage them to correct it.

We were taught a lot by memorizing a lot of useless facts. But 30+ years later of being out of school has taught me just how important it is to understand HOW to find those facts

Honestly the more students are exposed to everything they can find out what they do and don’t excel at. We always gravitate to every one needs to learn everything why not a general exposure and more time spent on what a person does really well on. Thank god I don’t need geometry in my line of work never was able to grasp it.

I’ll reverse the theme a bit as Sharon said it best above.

Algebra – when am I ever going to use this when I grow up?

Answer – all the time and it’s crazy how often. Sucked at geometric proof but use proofs and if/then logic statements all day long.

I have terrible penmanship and my cursive is a joke. Had a sage 2nd grade teacher back in 88-89 who told my parents “don’t worry, by the time he’s in the workforce everything will be done on computers.” So some educators saw that future pretty clearly.

Oh, and my kids go to a school that still teaches cursive. They’re required to do all of their spelling assignments and tests in script.

Having been a high school science teacher for a while now, when students ask me, “when will I ever use this?” I often respond by saying: “if you’re not going into a science/math related field, maybe never. But you’re learning how to learn and interpret the world around you, which you will do every day of your life.”

Sharon wrote:

I think part of a well-rounded education includes learning things you’re not going to use in daily life. Many subjects teach us valuable information which is good to know and be familiar with, but might not be directly applicable to our chosen career paths or daily life. I don’t remember a damn thing from geography class and since I’m not a big traveler it really hasn’t impacted my life. I loved learning about writing, language, and punctuation though – and still get a kick out of explaining to people the difference between “good” and “well”.

Part of a well-rounded education also includes learning things outside of school. From books, alternative classes, your elders, role models in activities your interested in, etc. Education is eternal and when you stop learning, you stop growing as a person.

Tim J wrote:

Having been a high school science teacher for a while now, when students ask me, “when will I ever use this?” I often respond by saying: “if you’re not going into a science/math related field, maybe never. But you’re learning how to learn and interpret the world around you, which you will do every day of your life.”

Winners ^^^^.

Exactly right. The most precious commodity these days is knowing how to learn. The fancy term is “learning agility”.

The “we learned stuff we never used” guys are forgetting one thing: The future is VERY tough to predict with any level of precision. The only thing that you can accurately predict about the future is that it will NOT be the same as today.

Yes, we learned cursive when I was in 3rd grade and we didn’t learn to type until I was in 8th grade and my typing class was the first year where boys had to learn to type too, before that typing and other “secretarial” classes were for girls only.

Obviously, had you known the future back then, you would have very rightly said we should have been spending way more time learing keyboarding and at a much earlier age. But nobody would have every believed we’d all own powerful computers including one that fit in the palm of our hand. You would have been called crazy for ever predicting such a thing would happen and happen so soon.

I came upon a Popular Mechanic magaine from the 1920s and in that magazine was an article attempting to predict what the future would be like in the year 2020. It was very interesting both for what they got right and what they got wrong.

I was amazed that they correctly predicted that in the year 2020 flying would be commonplace as a means of travel. They predicted huge aircraft could carry hundreds of passengers at a time. They got it exactly right, except…

The picture showed an illustration of a happy family leaving the “air port” (as they called it) and in the background, the “air port” was full of huge Hindenburg style airships. I’ll bet had you asked anyone in 1920 if you should become an airship mechanic they’d have said absolutely. It’s the career of the future.

Grouse

Huntindave wrote:

Yes the software associated with the metric CNC machines will allow the operator to run in english but the machine will actually be making the moves in metric.

There in lies my point. As long as we have software and computers to convert instantaneously, there is no reason to convert.

I agree that metric measurements are far more common than they used to be, but since there is absolutely no exposure to the general public, we will never see it as commonplace.

The company I work for does a lot of international business and a huge portion of our sales go to international oil and gas projects. You’d be shocked at how much imperial units are used internationally in oil and gas.

Fluid/hydraulic connections are almost unanimously imperial units world wide.

I’m not trying to downplay the importance and positive impact the metric system would have for us, I’m just suggesting that without a government push, nothing will ever change.

I still want to meet the guy who thought it was a good idea to mix Imperial and Metric hardware at random under the hood of a car. Yup, I want to meet him and slap him a bunch of times.

SR

My degree proved to my potential employers that I was teachable, then they taught me how to do my job, which didn’t really fall back on anything from school.

Steve Root wrote:

I still want to meet the guy who thought it was a good idea to mix Imperial and Metric hardware at random under the hood of a car. Yup, I want to meet him and slap him a bunch of times.

SR

I guess you should be grateful that some like 13mm and 1/2″ match up. Lol!

SuperDave1959 wrote:

I guess you should be grateful that some like 13mm and 1/2″ match up. Lol!

Ummm, not in my world.

As far as the general public being exposed to and using metric, all of our fishing electronics are set up to use in metric if we choose. Our cars will display everything in metric. I switch between MPH and KPH and back with one push of a button. Digital controls on stoves and ovens will display metric. Your smart watch or fit bit is programmed for metric.

Metric is all around us, all we need to do to “convert” is just USE it.

I write in cursive every day. Looking back, don’t recall it being hard to learn. Also, how would you forge an out of school note in block printing? No adult printed back then!

-J.