Cursive...slip Slidin' Away

[TSherbs]

oops

Edited July 7, 2016 by TSherbs

[zwack]

I've had similar experiences during my school years, with one exception.

 

I went back to school for an MBA after about 7 years in industry. During those years, I specialized in QA and in fact spent time as a QA manager overseas. Fast forward to the MBA. Taking a basic level course in Finance. Exam included performing Decision Tree analysis to demonstrate which financial strategy to follow.

 

I showed my work on the exam. Came up with the correct answer (based on the solutions posted after the exam). Got ZERO credit for the decision tree analysis. Why? My work did not follow the format the financial whiz kids had come up with. I'd been doing decision tree analysis for years and used the format I knew and had been using. So it was determined that I did not know what I was doing!

 

This happened at Columbia by the way; not some third rate school.

 

Moshe ben David

Apparently you can get good teachers at third rate schools and third rate teachers at good schools.

 

I agree with inkstainedruth, that is the sort of bogus marking that needs to be done away with. If you had done something invalid then that would be one thing but using a different valid technique is another. I suppose one argument might be that the exam is aimed at testing how well you learned the course material. In which case the question should have made it clear that you had to use the method they taught you. But still that seems bogus to me.

[Moshe ben David]

 

That's pretty bogus. I would have challenged the professor on that. Especially at a top school like Columbia. It was clear that you knew what you were doing, even if the prof didn't know what he/she was doing.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Trust me. I did challenge. The prof backed up the grad student. Claimed the test was as much to see if I understood the approved approach as my ability to arrive at a solution. Which simply confirmed my impression of Wall St types...

[Cryptos]

Too funny to not post here! :lticaptd:

 

[kazoolaw]

When everything has been transcribed and digitized, when the paper records have deteriorated beyond the skills of anyone to decipher, being able to read cursive will be redundant anyway. I suspect that this is inevitable.

 

When everything has been transcribed we will be at the mercy of the ability, and the bias, of the transcriptionists.

 

I also have a perhaps irrational belief that somehing is lost by not being able to examine the original "document", which takes on a different shade of meaning in a digital form.

 

gary

[inkstainedruth]

Too funny to not post here! :lticaptd:

 

 

Even my husband (whose handwriting is atrocious) chuckled at this.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[rwilsonedn]

Too funny to not post here! :lticaptd:

 

 

Well, when life gives you lemons ...

ron

[amberleadavis]

I love the comic. Thank you.

[TSherbs]

haha!

[inkstainedruth]

Even my husband thought the cartoon was amusing (and his handwriting is completely illegible -- he got in trouble one timewith the company lawyer at a place he worked, signing the contract three completely different ways in the same document....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Fearsclave]

I certainly had to learn cursive when I arrived in Canada in the 50s. Even before that, in Hungary I was taught printing & cursive writing simultaneously, from grade one on.

 

From what I've been reading on FPN during the last few years, sadly this may not only be an American but also a Canadian phenomenon.

I am more familiar with the English speaking schools in my immediate area. Perhaps someone in Quebec Province or in another French speaking region could chime in about the teaching of cursive writing in their school systems.

I was taught cursive in Quebec in the late 1970's. Poorly, I might add...

[pajaro]

Most of the people I know who are in their forties or under spend a lot of time texting. Cursive gives some of them a headache. When I was working in IT in the 1970s to 2014, most written communication was email or printed messages -- printed by hand. Some of my subordinates couldn't read cursive. I printed notes to them and saved the cursive for myself. I use the Palmer method with some modification.

[praxim]

Reading a news report locally today, it seems "quite a lot" of children have trouble holding a pencil adequately to use it at all.

[wanders off to look for spectacles and a newspaper, muttering about youf of today]

[estie1948]

I am just old enough and just naive enough to not really understand how it is possible for people to not think this a big deal. How is it that finding the failure of an educated person to be unable to write cursive is, in anyway, acceptable?

 

-David (Estie).

[AndyYNWA]

I am just old enough and just naive enough to not really understand how it is possible for people to not think this a big deal. How is it that finding the failure of an educated person to be unable to write cursive is, in anyway, acceptable?

 

-David (Estie).

 

I can't see that not being able to write cursive is a failure. Those of us who can't write cursive, has not been taught in school.

However, not being able to read cursive on the other hand is a failure.

 

One thing I can't accept though, is when you have a totally illegible hand, no matter if it's print or cursive. Lots of kids today (and even when I went to school 20-30 years ago) have a really poor hand that takes forever to decipher.

[PaperGhost]

I think that for people who insist they can't read cursive it's more a case of 'won't' than 'can't'. Providing the handwriting is reasonable (and I've encountered illegible writing in both cursive and print) any adult claiming a reasonable level of literacy should be able to read it. I refuse to pander to such nonsense - if someone cannot read my handwriting it is not up to me to accommodate their illiteracy. Now get off my lawn!

[AndyYNWA]

I think that for people who insist they can't read cursive it's more a case of 'won't' than 'can't'. Providing the handwriting is reasonable (and I've encountered illegible writing in both cursive and print) any adult claiming a reasonable level of literacy should be able to read it. I refuse to pander to such nonsense - if someone cannot read my handwriting it is not up to me to accommodate their illiteracy. Now get off my lawn!

Agree

[inkstainedruth]

 

I can't see that not being able to write cursive is a failure. Those of us who can't write cursive, has not been taught in school.

However, not being able to read cursive on the other hand is a failure.

 

One thing I can't accept though, is when you have a totally illegible hand, no matter if it's print or cursive. Lots of kids today (and even when I went to school 20-30 years ago) have a really poor hand that takes forever to decipher.

 

Or else they're like my niece, who is around 30, and whose handwriting looks as if came from a 3rd grader.

Ruth Morrisson aka instainedruth

[pajaro]

Maybe we should just have faith in the future and let the young experience life as they may. They will manage. We in our time have managed without using stone tablets or clay tablets.

[maus930]

I have also noticed how some young people hold a pencil or ball point -- impossible --I don't see how they can even make an x to sign their name