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

[mieronna.livejournal.com]

I'm not from the US, but since you said somewhere up-thread people from other countries can also chime in, I did vote.

I didn't learn any of the skills apart from cursive, because I didn't go to schools that taught them. We have a very odd hierarchical school system here in Germany - which I hate with a passion, btw - and I went to the schools where you can get the kind of diploma (kind of like the British A-levels) that allows you to enter University. We didn't have any practical classes at all, apart from arts&craft but I don't suppose one wood figurine in 8 years counts as woodworking ;)
I think you can take classes like sewing, metalworking etc. in the other types of schools (that are geared more towards people who are going to learn a trade or similar) but I wouldn't know if the options pupils have there are influenced by gender.
Driving is not taught within the school system at all as far as I know.

We all learned cursive in primary school in grades 1-2 and it was obligatory to write with a fountain pen until at least grade 5. In fact most people I know kept using fountain pens all throughout their school time and some of our teachers insisted we use them for our A-level exams, because apparently it's more readable than ballpoint pen writing. Fountain pens do force you to connect letters more.

I think I wrote some mix of cursive and print by the time I was 12 or so and I still do. Many people my age (23) do still use more or less the cursive we were taught in school, though it's shifting more towards a kind of mix.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

it was obligatory to write with a fountain pen until at least grade 5.

Same here! In fact, I still use fountain pens a lot more than the average, though much less now than before.