frauhahn

I taught for many years in SE Michigan, and some students had an absolute fit when I wrote cursive, since they hadn't been taught to read it (or use it). I had absolute fits when they would answer a question on a test misspelling words that were part of the question. Happened all the time! In a one year stint teaching English to 8th graders many years ago, I was called down by a superior for teaching diagramming-I felt it was necessary, since they didn't know a verb from a noun, let alone a pronoun. Their essays were attrocious! I was told that if they could speak English, they could write it. Funny-my grandfather could speak German fluently, but couldn't read or write it. One skill doesn't necessarily follow naturally from another. One often sees the problems this has caused when reading a newspaper. There are run-on sentences that have to be re-read several times in order to glean meaning. I'm coming to the belief that we need to go back to the one room school, where k through 6 would be taught together, the basics would be taught, the older ones would help teach the younger, and technology would be reserved until after the basics had been mastered. Handwriting, grammar and spelling are still necessary to communication, as are basic math skills and a knowledge of history and geography/social studies.

TanyaL

Please run for the school board in your district!

pocoellie

This is probably why if the younger generation do "write", it's actually more like chicken scratching. Regardless of the fact that they don't necessarily have to write checks, etc., there are many instances where you DO need to know how to write.Not everything can be done on the computer, what a shame.

Alu_Rathbone

I'm the college class of 2014, and most of the students in my class cannot handwrite, unless it's printing. I can do handwriting, but I'm also about 3 to 5 years older than my classmates (I'm 23). It's not always legible, but that is only when I'm writing quickly. I plan on teaching my children when I have them and my niece too... I think it's a valuable asset to have.

sewlisa

Yet one more reason to homeschool.

sewbeadit

Our schools still teach writing. After hearing the no cursive writing in the schools on the news, I was surprised that ours were being taught it.

DebbieJJ

My cursive writing is a LOT more legible than my printing! I asked our 6-yr-old great-niece if cursive is being taught in our small county school here, and she said no, not anymore. Such a shame, but she is so intelligent and ready to learn, that I think we can teach her here when she visits (she gets to spend one or two nights with us on most weekends. We have so much fun with her, and since we never had any children, we think of her as our granddaughter!)

Alu_Rathbone

They started teaching me when I was in 2nd grade. I think cursive is a required feature of schooling.

Scakes

Our granddaughter has learned cursive in school. She writes very neatly and reads it very well. They have their computer labs, etc too and I sometimes have to ask her for computer help. She's 11 now but learned cursive 2 or 3 years ago.

cathyvv

The problem with reliance on a calculator is that there are times when no calculator is available or it is extremely inconvenient to use one. At times like that, knowing the formula is useless unless you can do the math that you need to learn before you get to the formula.

Last year, my now 8 year old grandson, who is very bright, very advanced academically, and who I was homeschooling, told me he was smarter than me. Then he offered to prove it IF I would only give him the calculator. My response? "That will tell me how smart the calculator is!"

He was shocked. I wrote out some math addition problems, starting with adding 2 single digit numbers like 9 + 5, then went to adding 2 double digit numbers, like 25 + 37. He did fine on the single digit numbers, but without fail started adding the double digit numbers from the left most column. When I told him his answers were wrong and why, he asked me for the calculator so that he could show me that he was right.

He got the second shock of the morning. The calculator agreed with MY answers, not his! We spent the afternoon learning how to add from right to left and then checking his answers with the calculator.

The next day we had an almost identical learning experience with subtraction!

The next week, he again told me that he was smarter than me and didn't need to do schoolwork. I considered that for about 1/2 a second, then asked him, "If you're smarter than me, then why am I teaching you?"

Stunned silence. Then, resigned to his fate, he started the school day.