How will the next generation survive Middle School where, "all of your assignments will need to be written in cursive and in pen" (Mrs. Bowen, my 3rd grade teacher).
How will the cashier know if you really are who you say you are if she doesn't have a signature on a receipt to examine and compare to the one on the back of your credit card?
Worst of all, what happens when my future child and I go to Disneyland and we see his favorite character from the Little Mermaid? "Oh Ariel!," my son will say, "You are an explosion of sex appeal! I would love to remember this magical moment forever by having you sign your name in this autograph book." Imagine the heartache my son will feel and the embarrassment young Ariel will feel, as she tells my son that she can't autograph his book because her school thought teaching cursive wasn't worth several hours of a six hour school day repeated over the majority of 180 school days during a child's most impressionable year of school.
Not even a mermaid would want to be part of that world.
I'll be honest. I could have gone without learning to divide without a calculator (when will I ever have that constraint?) and I never learned much from watching educational videos*. To my 3rd grade mind, Bill-Nye the science guy was way too white for me to give any credibility to what he was teaching and was I really supposed to take literature advice from this guy?
But while we are on the subject, can you think of a better cop out than a teacher putting in an educational video? Even a 9 year old could see through that one. Then, as the credits are rolling, the teacher says, "Okay kids. Now you will work on a craft to give to your mother while I read you a Roald Dahl book. That could maybe qualify as productive, having someone read to you out loud. My teacher had the book on tape and she had the "class president" press play.
Worst of all, what happens when my future child and I go to Disneyland and we see his favorite character from the Little Mermaid? "Oh Ariel!," my son will say, "You are an explosion of sex appeal! I would love to remember this magical moment forever by having you sign your name in this autograph book." Imagine the heartache my son will feel and the embarrassment young Ariel will feel, as she tells my son that she can't autograph his book because her school thought teaching cursive wasn't worth several hours of a six hour school day repeated over the majority of 180 school days during a child's most impressionable year of school.
Not even a mermaid would want to be part of that world.
I'll be honest. I could have gone without learning to divide without a calculator (when will I ever have that constraint?) and I never learned much from watching educational videos*. To my 3rd grade mind, Bill-Nye the science guy was way too white for me to give any credibility to what he was teaching and was I really supposed to take literature advice from this guy?
But while we are on the subject, can you think of a better cop out than a teacher putting in an educational video? Even a 9 year old could see through that one. Then, as the credits are rolling, the teacher says, "Okay kids. Now you will work on a craft to give to your mother while I read you a Roald Dahl book. That could maybe qualify as productive, having someone read to you out loud. My teacher had the book on tape and she had the "class president" press play.
I actually respect elementary school teachers a lot and slamming them is not my prerogative. All I want to say is, the majority of class time in public schools is wasted. Why not waste it learning cursive?
*In 10th grade, my biology teacher put in the video sexual encounters of the floral type to teach the class about pollination. Just watch the first 90 seconds of this thing. What's with the narrator's voice? The background music? Who funded this project?
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ReplyDeleteI gave up signing my name in cursive, cause upper case G's are inexcusably ugly. There's no way to make a cursive G look attractive, without people saying to you, "So your name is Mrant? Really?"
ReplyDeleteI just sign my name in Japanese now. Sure it's nerdy that I sign in Japanese, but it means I don't have to use cursive anymore. And I'm not John Shumway, so I'm okay with that.
I'm all about a block signature like 3-4 year old wrote it. I'm convinced computers have turned cursive obsolete, I can barely read it anymore. I'd rather try my luck reading the cyrillic alphabet than cursive these days.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part of the SAT was when they made you write stupid oath about not talking to other people about the test all in cursive. Cursive is an ancient code read and understood only by wizards.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Mr. Bean in Dr. Colorado's spanish class? There are still certain times where those educational videos come in handy. I loved "no tie Fridays!"
ReplyDeleteMi encanta Mr Bean como Dr. Colorado encanta's chocolat.
ReplyDelete