I happen to like writing in cursive. I acknowledge potential bias based on socialization blah blah blah I was raised that way blah blah blah, but I genuinely find cursive more pleasant to write than print due to the lack of having to torturously pick up my pencil for every single new letter.
Furthermore, your proposal contains no consideration whatsoever on the effect of backlit screens on eye function.
I’m torn about this. I’m not sure if I have an above averagedly crippling internet addiction or if other people here just don’t consider it as problematic, but I don’t think a personal computer at age 5 would have helped me.
Wouldn’t say an utter waste of time. Cursive capital letters get used in higher math occasionally, e.g. for families of sets. If you don’t remember how to write them, you end up having to re-learn them sooner or later. Being able to write a perfect cursive G on a chalkboard is the mark of a great professor.
Waste of time for most people, though.
Edit: soooo many people are taking this as a serious argument in favor of learning cursive (and getting massive karma for poking holes in it)! That’ll teach me to make frivolous comments.
Anyone who needs to learn to write a cursive G can spend a week learning it in their higher math class, rather than spending two years of their life in elementary school.
Well, first of all, being a great professor has nothing to do with educating students effectively, it’s all about research. Whether that’s a good thing or not is a different argument.
But to take your argument at face value, chalkboard tricks can help you be an effective teacher. I think a professor teaching math without writing anything at all (and without slide shows or other visual aids) would be less than 50% as effective as normal, even if everything else was perfect, and I’ve seen teachers whose boardwork is sufficiently terrible that they may as well not write anything. Writing on a blackboard requires quite a few “chalkboard tricks”, though a cursive G probably wouldn’t be one of the more common ones. It is important, however, to cultivate a handwriting in which “z” and “2”, “t” and “+”, “w” and omega, “l” and “1″, etc. are easily distinguishable.
Chalkboard tricks do not a great professor make. But I would expect that the correlation is quite high, considering the potential benefits.
I’ve only taken a half-dozen college-level math courses but I don’t think I’ve seen any cursive letters yet. If we were going to teach kids cursive in case they one day take higher-level math, we should also be sure to teach them the Greek letters because those are used all the time. Of course the vast majority of people don’t need to, don’t want to, and won’t ever take higher level math, so I’d say that teaching kids cursive is an utter waste of time. The time spent teaching cursive could be put to so much better use (e.g., more time devoted to science instruction), and while it’s a bit awkward to learn to write new letters at a later age, I much prefer it to the endless cursive drills.
They aren’t illiterate in nations that care a bit more about their children’s education. In Ukraine, for example, you must be able to write sentences and recite your multiplication tables up to 100 to be admitted into first grade.
I was functionally illiterate at the age of five despite considerable parental investment in my education, and considering that I had achieved a twelfth grade reading level by third grade, it certainly wasn’t for a lack of aptitude.
With sufficient training from an early age, I would not be surprised to hear that most five year olds can learn to write basic sentences, but I would be very surprised if most can be trained to follow written statements at the same conversational level they’re capable of by that age.
Children should have netbooks at age 5, and never learn cursive.
I happen to like writing in cursive. I acknowledge potential bias based on socialization blah blah blah I was raised that way blah blah blah, but I genuinely find cursive more pleasant to write than print due to the lack of having to torturously pick up my pencil for every single new letter.
Furthermore, your proposal contains no consideration whatsoever on the effect of backlit screens on eye function.
I’m torn about this. I’m not sure if I have an above averagedly crippling internet addiction or if other people here just don’t consider it as problematic, but I don’t think a personal computer at age 5 would have helped me.
Cursive is an utter waste of time though.
Wouldn’t say an utter waste of time. Cursive capital letters get used in higher math occasionally, e.g. for families of sets. If you don’t remember how to write them, you end up having to re-learn them sooner or later. Being able to write a perfect cursive G on a chalkboard is the mark of a great professor.
Waste of time for most people, though.
Edit: soooo many people are taking this as a serious argument in favor of learning cursive (and getting massive karma for poking holes in it)! That’ll teach me to make frivolous comments.
Anyone who needs to learn to write a cursive G can spend a week learning it in their higher math class, rather than spending two years of their life in elementary school.
Here I thought being a great professor was about educating students effectively, not chalkboard tricks.
If I’m trying to evaluate professors, it’s a lot easier to see how well they write “G” than how well they educate.
Well, first of all, being a great professor has nothing to do with educating students effectively, it’s all about research. Whether that’s a good thing or not is a different argument.
But to take your argument at face value, chalkboard tricks can help you be an effective teacher. I think a professor teaching math without writing anything at all (and without slide shows or other visual aids) would be less than 50% as effective as normal, even if everything else was perfect, and I’ve seen teachers whose boardwork is sufficiently terrible that they may as well not write anything. Writing on a blackboard requires quite a few “chalkboard tricks”, though a cursive G probably wouldn’t be one of the more common ones. It is important, however, to cultivate a handwriting in which “z” and “2”, “t” and “+”, “w” and omega, “l” and “1″, etc. are easily distinguishable.
Chalkboard tricks do not a great professor make. But I would expect that the correlation is quite high, considering the potential benefits.
I’ve only taken a half-dozen college-level math courses but I don’t think I’ve seen any cursive letters yet. If we were going to teach kids cursive in case they one day take higher-level math, we should also be sure to teach them the Greek letters because those are used all the time. Of course the vast majority of people don’t need to, don’t want to, and won’t ever take higher level math, so I’d say that teaching kids cursive is an utter waste of time. The time spent teaching cursive could be put to so much better use (e.g., more time devoted to science instruction), and while it’s a bit awkward to learn to write new letters at a later age, I much prefer it to the endless cursive drills.
Keep in mind that most kids are practically illiterate at the age of five, which makes the usefulness of a netbook sharply limited.
They aren’t illiterate in nations that care a bit more about their children’s education. In Ukraine, for example, you must be able to write sentences and recite your multiplication tables up to 100 to be admitted into first grade.
You mean you have to know 97x98 and so forth? . . . Wow, I’m not qualified to be a Ukrainian first-grader.
Do they have mandatory pre-first-grade education?
I was functionally illiterate at the age of five despite considerable parental investment in my education, and considering that I had achieved a twelfth grade reading level by third grade, it certainly wasn’t for a lack of aptitude.
With sufficient training from an early age, I would not be surprised to hear that most five year olds can learn to write basic sentences, but I would be very surprised if most can be trained to follow written statements at the same conversational level they’re capable of by that age.