random poll

[rm]

Super busy. Am suddenly curious about this. Apparently most kids entering college in the US this year don't know how to write in cursive. I suspect this is less a sign of the apocalypse than it feels like to me.

So, tell me things (as usual, poll is un-scientific and reflects my biases and experiences (and 49-year-olds can choose which age category they like better!) -- if the boxes don't work, my apologies and comments super welcome.):

[Poll #1607173]

Comments

[sethg]

When I was six, I went to a Montessori school that taught not just cursive, but italic. (I don’t know if this was a Montessori thing or just a weirdness with that particular teacher... she was weird in several ways...)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Italic is a goodness.

I didn't learn it. I did have to learn caligraphy though. I suppose in case I didn't marry well enough and had to address my own fucking invitations.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Oh, we did italic in art. But they started us on joined up handwriting at eight or so.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I learned deneelian (sp?) in kindergarten, then switched to a school district that did stick-and-ball (never learned the name for that kind of printing) until cursive in third grade. I use a kind of mix of the two, influenced by cursive shapes when efficient, when I print.

My middle school had a required vocational semeester: 6 weeks art, 6 weeks shop, 6 weeks home ec. After that we could make an elective selection as to which we'd like to take more of. After that two years, there were no vocational requirements in high school.

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

Oh god Deneelian style fucked up my writing for YEARS when I learned it in Kindergarten. I switch schools, learned how to print in first grade, and then skipped a grade and had to learn cursive in third grade (a year later)

I couldn't write legibly until I was twelve and taught myself.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I lucked out somehow; for me the fusion was a useful and productive look at the underlying logic of letter shapes. The result is that I do something pretty smooth that looks mostly like standard printing, but with little serifs from the Deneelian that increase legibility on things like distinguishing an I from an l.

I also had a head start on the cursive, since that's what Deneelian is pushing toward. Most of the kids were completely blindsided by the brand new loop in their letter k.