Being taught cursive writing fucked up my ability to write.
I used to write properly when I first went to school. It was neat and no one ever had a problem reading what I wrote.
I moved to another school at the age of 10 and they insisted on teaching cursive writing. My writing ended up a sprawl and my grades suffered. Within the space of a year I moved from the top of the class to the bottom.
I moved to another school and then to a secondary school. By the time I reached 15 I had been given 8 after school detentions just for bad hand writing. I have no idea why they thought making me stay an extra hour at school would improve my handwriting. But it also meant that I had an extra hour walking back from school because I missed my usual method of getting home.
Then finally the secondary school decided to employ a teacher specifically to teach people to write neatly and a small group of us were sent to extra lessons during the lunch hour. All the lessons did were to re-teach what I had originally been taught at the age of 5. It all quickly came back and my grades started to dramatically improve. If it wasn't for those special classes I would have probably been marked down in exams, which would have meant going to a crappier university, if at all and consequently poorer job prospects. I certainly wouldn't have gone on to do an MSc.
Examiners have to mark a whole stack of papers and if they can't see where to tick then you won't be rewarded with the extra points. The last thing they want to do is spend an extra 10 minutes deciphering handwritten text when they still have a hundred more papers to sort though.
The whole point of writing is to communicate. The more easily and efficiently you can communicate the less cognitive load is required in deciphering what is being written and the easier it is for the reader to think about what is being said. Flourishes and squiggles purely for the point of aesthetics is counter-productive because they make it less likely that the writing will be understood.
Cursive writing is evil and should be banned.
I used to write properly when I first went to school. It was neat and no one ever had a problem reading what I wrote.
I moved to another school at the age of 10 and they insisted on teaching cursive writing. My writing ended up a sprawl and my grades suffered. Within the space of a year I moved from the top of the class to the bottom.
I moved to another school and then to a secondary school. By the time I reached 15 I had been given 8 after school detentions just for bad hand writing. I have no idea why they thought making me stay an extra hour at school would improve my handwriting. But it also meant that I had an extra hour walking back from school because I missed my usual method of getting home.
Then finally the secondary school decided to employ a teacher specifically to teach people to write neatly and a small group of us were sent to extra lessons during the lunch hour. All the lessons did were to re-teach what I had originally been taught at the age of 5. It all quickly came back and my grades started to dramatically improve. If it wasn't for those special classes I would have probably been marked down in exams, which would have meant going to a crappier university, if at all and consequently poorer job prospects. I certainly wouldn't have gone on to do an MSc.
Examiners have to mark a whole stack of papers and if they can't see where to tick then you won't be rewarded with the extra points. The last thing they want to do is spend an extra 10 minutes deciphering handwritten text when they still have a hundred more papers to sort though.
The whole point of writing is to communicate. The more easily and efficiently you can communicate the less cognitive load is required in deciphering what is being written and the easier it is for the reader to think about what is being said. Flourishes and squiggles purely for the point of aesthetics is counter-productive because they make it less likely that the writing will be understood.
Cursive writing is evil and should be banned.
