(From The Hartford Courant/The Associated Press)
As DARIA CARUSO's high school seniors watched the
1959 Alfred Hitchcock film NORTH BY NORTHWEST in an advanced English class, one scene, in particular, puzzled them. On the screen was a paper note, a message handwritten in cursive script.
The message was pivotal to the plot, but, for many of the students, it might as well have been written in a foreign language.
"They couldn't read the message," said Caruso, a teacher at West Hartford's CONARD HIGH SCHOOL. "I had to back up the film and read it to them."
Relying more and more on email, blogs, web sites, instant messaging and other electronic forms of communication, students at all levels are forgetting the fine art of handwriting, educators say.
Cursive script, the graceful looping style that connects one letter to another, might be going the way of the inkwell and the fountain pen.
Handwriting Is Losing Its Presence In Classrooms
[Now this is VERY sad.]
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3 comments:
I'm not convined this is such an awful thing. Certainly not a surprise. Heck, even back in high school as s freshman, our English teacher gave us an extra day on all essays/papers if they were typed.
It is similar to the arguement which you and I do agree on about linear vs. non-linear editing. For those that never learned to write things out long-hand, they may experience the same trouble telling a complete story or thought, and you do end up with "jammed together fragments" of words instead of pictures.
Still, for me who writes like a doctor (sadly minus the paycheck though), I'm all for reading something more legible than even fairly well-written cursive.
-tg
Of course, with a reply like mine full of typos I'm not doing my arguement any favors....
TG,
I totally understand your point of the linear thinking mind vs the non-linear thinking mind with regard to writing. Those days of sitting down and typing out a letter on a typewriter are long over!
What really got to me was this was an ADVANCED ENGLISH class and these kids couldn't even read the cursive! Come on!?! I wonder how these kids or college students today would be like writing an essay in one of those "little blue books" in college. They'd have to start at the beginning and write all the way through linearally. Think they could do it? I hope they have a lot of pencils and erasers.
In this age email and computers, type-written items definitely are the way to go. Still, the romantic in me still wants to see cursive remain for items like holiday cards, romantic letters to your sweetie, and personal correspondences.
A hand-written note (cursive or not) is still warmer than a cold written email.
Rob
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