“But won’t you at least need to know cursive to sign a check?”
“What’s a check?”
I actually wrote a letter to the newspaper saying that I thought cursive was a useless skill, like semaphore, but a lot of people pushed back with (what I thought was) nonsense about eye-hand coordination, etc.
My kids learned cursive writing (Catholic school) and have beautiful handwriting. One went to a jr. high at a K-12 school where no penmanship was taught and the papers they posted on bulletin boards and other showcases were horrible blobs of chicken scratch and messy printing. When my daughter went to a public high school and was taking notes in cursive, a TEACHER asked what she was doing and if it was some kind of witchcraft. This teacher was an idiot, but still, to not even recognize cursive writing?
I use cursive a lot in my life as I’m often reading old deeds and documents, usually from microfilm, and usually a reverse image. It would be embarrassing to have to ask a 60 year old secretary to read the documents for me.
Without cursive writing skills, american kids at least can write using block letters. Nowadays in china (in japan, too), because of the prevalence of keyboard use, the chinese are forgetting how to write chinese characters:
Do students still have to write the SAT pledge or agreement in cursive? When D took ACT and SAT exams in 2013 or 2014, she heard a lot of complaints by other test takers they didn’t know (forgot) how to write in cursive. She learned and used cursive in Montessori.
Cursive wasn’t really necessary even back then. I skipped the grade they taught cursive. It never occurred to them that I wouldn’t be able to handle the tests in which they dictated passages and we were to write down in cursive and so I got a D in penmanship (in 4th grade). Other than that, I’ve never really needed cursive. I just printed until I took typing for secretaries early in high school.
Cursive was always slow and painful for me, so I printed as soon as they would let me. I’ve pretty much forgotten how to write it fluently, but still can usually read it on scanned in genealogy documents.
S17 uses cursive for taking notes because it’s faster for him, and his printing was always misaligned. Our public elementary teachers still teach it around 3rd grade, mainly because they feel the kids will at least occasionally need to know how to read cursive for one more generation. They don’t spend a lot of time on it, though. Both my kids had teachers who said, “Don’t worry about penmanship so long as I can read it. Once you are out of school, you’ll only use pencils for grocery lists.” Well, now there’s an app for that.
Typing is less painful to teach, because there are fun games for the kids to play at that age.
Public libraries here still use Dewey Decimal System, but there’s not much to learn, since you just look up the topic in the computer. In the old days, it was useful to know the general topic for the 500s or whatever. College libraries use the Library of Congress system.
The police thing is very tricky issue. Unfortunately I agree if you are ‘targeted’ - being at wrong place and wrong time and easy way to charge someone? @shawbridge has some sage advice about dealing with a power like the police.
I do know where a police file from major crimes was totally stolen (in the old days) - fairly large city; man left his wife for dead after bashing her head in and left in a big pool of blood and barely alive - she had a big brain injury but survived; however due to her now disability, he got custody of their minor daughter but then she was able to choose her mom in a few years when she was older. He probably paid off a buddy in the PD. He barely spent a few hours behind bars. She cannot read a newspaper or book due to the injury; almost living poverty level. However she has family, and her daughter had navigated the situation.
At age 58 I have never had to change a tire. 19 YO DD just changed one last night with H supervising (she had hit a pothole and the tire blew out). Now getting tire rim repaired while using the spare.
There are a lot of character building skills that one needs to learn along the way. Know when/where/how to ask for help. If one starts teaching practical things from early years, hopefully the child will continue observing and learning.
You want the ‘big picture’ decisions made w/o big derailment. Small decisions and consequences are part of everyone’s learning path.
Regarding the police. When I was in Boston, my car was missing. After a month, I went to a police station in Boston, pound my fist and demanded the police to find my car that I thought was stolen. Ha, they laughed at me and reminded me gently “you do not pound your fist at police”. I didn’t read any book about police power yet. But they were half laughing, not seriously threatened me. But that was lesson learned for my younger self.
It has a lot of stuff about how to avoid attracting profiling attention from police officers as well as how to act around police officers. If you can get the look inside preview to show pages 153-154, you will see a list of the kind of things that attract profiling attention from police officers or make it more likely to get arrested on contact with police officers. Page 156 also shows the kinds of areas that police tend to make arrests in.
I learned this in elementary school, never used it after. Learned it again at Job Corps as an office administration trainee, never used it after relearning it. It just isn’t something people today use much.
I only learned this from being a library nerd. I only learned the Library of Congress System from being an academic library employee.
Define typing. Most people I know finger peck (and I’m talking 18-22 year olds), rather than using the home keys method (what people usually think of as typing). I learned the home keys method in middle school and again at Job Corps, and I never used it because I didn’t feel comfortable with it.
My parents never taught me that stuff, and that seems to be an increasingly common situation with dual income households. Saying it should be taught at home sounds good in theory, but I can’t imagine it working out well in practice.
I have no problem with kids playing dodgeball if they want to, but as a mandatory activity? A lot of people really hate having things thrown at them, and that’s a perfectly acceptable way to feel. We played it when I was a kid, and I hated it. I don’t know how schools are doing it now, but when I was at Job Corps dodgeball was allowed and popular, but nobody had to play it if they didn’t want to. That’s how it should be.
I think that people need to know how to type effectively. I was taught how to type in sixth grade with a program that measured both speed and accuracy. (And of course, the teacher checked for proper hand position.) It is ridiculous how many people just use their pointer fingers; it’s too ineffective. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for people to type faster than 40 wpm, either. Perhaps I’m just odd, but that’s my personal opinion.
Just curious… Can bad typing technique be effectively overcome with later training? Or do bad typing habits get ingrained?
I never had formal typing training-- just picked it up. I can type pretty fast, but have to glance down at the keys quite often. I make A LOT of errors.