Cursive writing (script) is not required any more in Hawaii schools. It’s been dropped as a requirement and will only be taught at the discretion of each school’s principal.
Not that it’s going to be a big change, for cursive writing was only given a minimum of time in the classroom up to now. The state’s standards required that by the time students reached fourth grade, they be able to write legibly in cursive.
No more, now that the State of Hawaii Dept. of Education has adopted the national Common Core State Standards, since adopted by most states (44) when the standards came into being a couple of years ago.
To me, it’s another sign that we’re dumbing down on education. Cursive writing requires thinking before putting words down on paper. Keyboard entries are too easily corrected, and kids these days are relying more and more on automatic grammar and spelling corrections in word-processing programs.
Kids gotta learn how to read and write. It’s the foundation of education. And when one-fourth of kids 9-17 believe texting counts as reading, it just goes to show something’s wrong. Cursive writing requires thinking before writing.
Whatever’s wrong with that?
I thought I was the only one who was upset over the loss of cursive. Glad to know I'm not alone.
ReplyDelete