Anonymous wrote:Teach at home.

Learned cursive and typing at home

It's kind of a useless skill. Kudos to MCPS for recognizing this.

No cursive in our MCPS ES. We ended up teaching it at home.

In Virginia, it’s part of the third grade curriculum. I teach third amd my students love it. They’re so proud of what they can do.

Went to school with Americans. Teacher had to repeat a sentence about 5 times. What in the world were the students they doing? Printing. Couldn't memorize the sentence either.

Anonymous wrote:Is this really a question? You can teach your kid how to sign their name in cursive if it bothers you so much. It should take all of 15 minutes. Or even easier, show their name in one of the cursive fonts in Microsoft word and have them copy it.

OP is like one of the people mourning the lost art of calligraphy. Move on. Kids shouldn't be wasting time learning cursive-when the US is so far behind in STEM education.

US is behind in everything, including cursive. Your kids can learn typing, cursive, printing, geography, history, a foreign language and STEM. They are in school 2-3 hours longer than ours.
The world learns all of it plus 3-4 languages. Your kids don't get the chance.

Anonymous wrote:Is this really a question? You can teach your kid how to sign their name in cursive if it bothers you so much. It should take all of 15 minutes. Or even easier, show their name in one of the cursive fonts in Microsoft word and have them copy it.

OP is like one of the people mourning the lost art of calligraphy. Move on. Kids shouldn't be wasting time learning cursive-when the US is so far behind in STEM education.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Stem is not an end all be all, it is part of a larger educational mileau.

As an example, Japanese children learn to write kanji (Chinese characters) hiragana and katakana (two different syllabaries one for Japanese words and one for foreign words) plus they learn English. They learn 4 different written scripts. They excel at STEM, they don’t touch a computer in school until highschool.

Learning is learning. Our children need to learn to write and to write, it helps their brain develop which helps them become proficient at other tasks. Kids needs play and recess too. The need to learn rote math skills (not Common Core abstractions when their brains are not developed for abstract thought). These rote skills are building blocks upon which the higher mathematic principles are formed.

Do we want our children to be educated adults or robots?

PS teacher with kids in PS now

My daughter attended a small private through 3rd grade where she learned cursive. She was the only one who could write in cursive when she switched to public. My son's public never taught it. I paid his OT to teach him one summer before he hit 3rd grade. Prior to learning cursive, he hated writing. Now, in grade 4, he fills a page.

It's unbelievable how lazy we've become as a society.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unfortunate because printing is slow and laborious

Print-signing PP here. It isn't when I do it.

of course

b/c you're special and when there's a full moon, you sprout angel wings

Hilarious to see these parents justifying elimination of teaching a useful skill. The public school vs private school kids will be obvious in one more way...who can properly handwrite a thank you note. Love it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grade daughter has gorgeous handwriting. When she signs her name, it gives me such joy. Sad that most parents will never experience this.

My son has terrible handwriting, as do I. Every day I give thanks for modern computing which means that he won't have to spend time trying to perfect handwriting when it's not useful in the adult world.

So.....you never write personal notes? Your kid will never write a letter? Not even a note?

Mcps doesn't teach handwriting let alone cursive!

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grade daughter has gorgeous handwriting. When she signs her name, it gives me such joy. Sad that most parents will never experience this.

+1 I taught my son cursive using Handwriting Without Tears in third grade. I encourage him to write a few paragraphs a week in cursive. He's in fifth grade now and has beautiful cursive penmanship.

Anonymous wrote:It is stupid. Cursive is easier than printing. There are a number of studies linking learning with writing. The upside is that you and your spouse have a secret language. Just write things in proper cursive and your kids will be clueless.

Printing is writing. No one is going to stop teaching kids how to print. Learning one way of writing (printing) is easier than learning two ways of writing. And in their spare time, maybe Johnny can improve his abilities in writing and arithmetic.

It is stupid. Cursive is easier than printing. There are a number of studies linking learning with writing. The upside is that you and your spouse have a secret language. Just write things in proper cursive and your kids will be clueless.