Week 48: Cursive originally uploaded by Greg Williams

This morning I came across this article in Inside Higher Ed, a site I’ve been following since my days working at Century College long ago. While I no longer work in higher ed and as of the day before yesterday I no longer have any more schoolwork to do until The Rooster and The Koala bring it home, I just haven’t yet removed the feed from my soon to be dead RSS reader (RIP Google Reader). The topic of the article was on how college professors should object to schools no longer teaching cursive writing and why.

From the article:

Many public schools no longer teach cursive writing; 46 states no longer mandate that districts must teach cursive in their language arts core curriculum. This comes from the mistaken logic that our keyboard-happy society has made cursive a relic of the past that students no longer need. Numerous public schools now teach only printing, and some don’t even bother with lower and upper case – just block letters. Roman Catholic schools still demand cursive, and good for them. For the foreseeable future, kids who don’t have cursive will be at a competitive disadvantage. I’m surprised parents aren’t on the pitchfork-and-torch brigade over this, but I’d like to suggest that college professors should be (especially if they have kids).

The author’s reasoning comes down to a few major points:

1. Handwritten note-taking and essay testing is faster in cursive and the argument that typing is faster is negated by the Blue Book essays.

2. Technological failures.

3. Good listening skills are negated by using technology.

4. The claim that writing is MUCH faster than typing.

5. Technology is a classroom distraction.

As someone who has learned cursive, is a big tech person, and who can type well in excess of 100 WPM, I take great offense to this entire article. Not because I don’t agree with many of the author’s assertions in a vacuum but when looked at overall, it’s a bunch of hooey:

1. What’s the difference if writing now takes longer? Split the essay test up over two days. I had tests like that all the time in Undergrad History courses.

2. People lose pens, paper, etc all the time. Technology failure is not limited to devices that plug in.

3. Doodling, drooling over the opposite sex, sleeping, and simple daydreaming all do the same exact thing.

4. You can probably write faster than I can type but I have some big added benefits such as the writing being legible and it being easily transferrable and stored.

5. See #3.

When I was in school learning about the contents of cells, my father noted to me that when he was in school they learned of the nucleus and the cell well, that’s it. By the time I was in school there were like 30 different things we needed to memorize. This is just one example but it shows the amount of learning required of students in school. Do we really have time to waste with them learning an antiquated and basically useless handwriting scheme just because historians won’t be able to easily read the cursive of old in archives? Personally, as a previous student and a parent of soon-to-be students, I say let cursive die the death it’s meant to die–one with just as little dignity as I had with Mrs. Reade yelling at me for not tracking the dotted lines on her purple smeared mimeographed sheets.

What do you think about this one? Do you pine for cursive lessons in school and believes students of the future would feel the same way? Can you type faster than you can write especially over longer times? Is this really the death of society or just another bump in the road as we move on and leave relics of the past behind? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

According to this Dakota County Criminal Complaint two alumni of a Burnsville school decided to “take a trip down memory lane” and vandalize the building after a few drinks. They later attempted to flee after police responded to an alarm at the school.

From the complaint:

On or about August 9, 2012 at approximately 1:00 a.m. officers with the Burnsville Police Department were dispatched to a school located on the 400 block of 134th Street located in the City of Burnsville, County of Dakota, State of Minnesota on the report of an alarm.

Upon arrival, officers set up a perimeter around the building. An officer on the north side of the building heard what sounded like a door opening and shined his flashlight at the door. Upon doing so, the officer observed two males inside of the school. The officer advised the males to lie on the ground and indicated that they were under arrest. The suspects shut the door and ran back into the school. A few seconds later, an officer positioned in the front of the school advised that two males had just run out of the front door of the school and across 134th Street. Officer located a microwave lying on the floor of the staff lounge and mustard all over the refrigerator. In addition to the damage in the staff lounge area, officers observed damage to the steel door located on the roof.

A K9 officer was called in to assist in locating the suspects. The first suspect was apprehended in a residential area hiding in a childrens playhouse. The suspect was identified as JUSTIN SCOTT MCGUIRE, date of birth 9/10/90. Paramedics were called due to the canine apprehension and an officer stayed with McGuire at the hospital.

McGuire was read his Miranda warning and agreed to speak with the officer. McGuire reported that he had been inside of the school and did not have permission to be inside of the school. McGuire reported that he and his friend Zach had met for a couple drinks and then decided to “take a stroll down memory lane” and entered the school through a door on the roof of the building. McGuire admitted that he dumped out a couple cans of pop in the staff lounge and emptied a bottle of mustard all over the refrigerator in the staff lounge. McGuire admitted that he had fled from the police stating it was either “flight or fight” and he didn’t want to fight the officers.

The actions of these two are ridiculous but I want to know why it was so easy for two drunken idiots to break into the school in the first place. While there were no details of how the entry occurred, if they broke a window it would seem as if it would be mentioned in the report considering the heavy emphasis on the overturned microwave and other damage caused by soda and condiments. So was a door simply left unlocked or a window left open by someone working in the summer to get the school ready for the year? Is this a common occurrence?

What do you think about this one? Do you wonder if our schools are left unlocked by those who utilize them throughout the year and thus left vulnerable to theft and vandalism? How about the use of the K9 unit when the mayor and the rest of the council has decided those public safety resources are not important enough to fund appropriately? Are you surprised by the preliminary voting results for Burnsville’s mayoral race with Willenburg trailing Kautz (instead of the other way around as it was four years ago)? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on below!