In The Atlantic, Drew Gilpin Faust says that her students can’t read or write cursive writing:
It was a good book, the student told the 14 others in the undergraduate seminar I was teaching, and it included a number of excellent illustrations, such as photographs of relevant Civil War manuscripts. But, he continued, those weren’t very helpful to him, because of course he couldn’t read cursive.If the name rings a bell, Faust was the president of Harvard. The scene of instruction in these paragraphs: a Harvard classroom.
Had I heard him correctly? Who else can’t read cursive? I asked the class. The answer: about two-thirds. And who can’t write it? Even more.
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comments: 2
i heard this recently also as cursive is no longer being taught in schools. a former teacher told me that she would write in cursive in the classroom because she knew the students couldn't read it.
kirsten
Ooh — like a secret code.
I recall now that as the recording secretary for meetings, I would sometimes struggle to decipher signatures on the sign-in sheet. The only way I could figure out a couple was to read through to the department roster. (It was a large department.) I was never sure if these signatures were evidence of ineptitude or of trolling.
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