(teaching) Italic May Soon Be Illegal In The Usa

[KateGladstone]

Note: Topic title edited by moderator--"teaching" added. The topic seems to imply that teaching italic

could possibly become illegal.

 

Will Your Handwriting

Become Illegal Nationwide?

 

A handwriting program called "Handwriting Without Tears" (hwtears.com)--

in my professional observation and experience, one of the worst programs ever created

(see model-samples at http://www.hwtears.c...WT_Alphabet.pdf ) --

 

is now aggressively lobbying to make every detail of its own particular instructional method and writing styles required (with no exceptions) in all schools under USA law

(piggybacking on current White House efforts to create and impose a detailed national curriculum for USA schools).

 

Their founder announced this publicly 7 years ago (that they would be doing this),

at an event where I was present.

Thereafter I tried to warn others, but almost nobody thought she meant it.

Specifics:

 

HWTears has created, and is fully funding and operating, an innocuous-sounding Washington lobby-group called "Handwriting Standards" at http://www.handwritingstandards.com

(note the teeny-tiny copyright notice at the bottom of the page, to see which handwriting program owns that lobby-group!)

 

The lobbyists' web-site is designed to sound neutral on the surface,

but if you dig deeper and actually read their proposed standards,

these are verbatim quotes of particular details of the HWTears teaching sequence and even stylistic features

and they are very closely tied in with the HWTears.com web-site's own descriptions of the same endeavor --

to the point that, if the "Handwriting Standards" lobbyists succeed, no other program but HWTears will conform with the details of teaching method/style that their lobbyists are trying to have written into law.

 

In other words: the proposed national standards for school handwriting are very closely tied in with HWTears program sequence, to the point that they are basically a step-by-step, practically verbatim summary of that program's sequence/curriculum/practices and of no other.

This is clear if you are familiar, as I am, with the HWTears program materials/lesson plans/teacher-training sessions and if you read the lobby's proposed "Handwriting Standards" for yourself in the level-by-level blue links at http://www.handwriti...iting-standards and then the full document at

http://www.handwriti...20k-4_FINAL.pdf .

 

Of special note:

adopting those standards would make Italic illegal

in all schools throughout the USA.

Although the word "italic" is nowhere mentioned in the standards,

things required by the standards would prevent Italic from being used, because of the standards' stylistic requirements for loops, for particular types of curves, and so on (note particularly the contents of the standards for Grade Three and beyond: "Pre-Cursive and Cursive" skills in the PDF and at the above-referened blue links.)

 

Many of the people receiving this letter (and -- I hope -- passing it on to others of like mind)

use and teach Italic and have seen that it is a far better approach than the one proposed.

Others will have other concerns -- at least, about the ethics of the HWTears company before (and during) this campaign, and/or about other aspects of HWTears which some of you will have heard/seen me discuss.

 

If you care even a little bit about this, e-mail me at handwritingrepair@gmail.com (subject-line should include the words "Italic handwriting"_ and/or phone me at 518-482-6763 to decide what we must do, and how. We must act now.

Edited August 1, 2010 by Ann Finley

[watch_art]

i doubt it will make any real difference in schools anywhere...

 

it'll just be another program without teeth.

 

at least that's my opinion about it. could be completely wrong.

 

but in my art classes, i will be teaching some italic and penmanship lessons...

[Vargouille]

I don't like to get involved in politics much, but I would like to say a few things.

 

I cannot believe that someone would actually think that banning types of handwriting would be a good idea, even at a school level, especially when the alternative is, quite frankly, ugly. It is therefore flabbergasting that this group wants to pass a law making it illegal to write in any other manner than what they want us to learn, for the supposed reason of "helping". While I do agree that learning to write in print and cursive legibly is important, that does not necessitate such a draconian and limiting system to be mandatory in every single school across the nation.

 

I've already gotten too far entrenched in the argument about the system (which I will call "The Drek System" from now on), and now I need to do something else. Just my two cents.

[manythings465]

Simply, NO

I don't like this idea. :mad:

That's like writing without character.

[Edgar Allan Bo]

What an awful idea... but stil better than to ban all the handwriting

Edited August 1, 2010 by Edgar Allan Bo

[ginigin]

Arrest me now - that is ugly and I would never write like that! And if they try to make kids write like that, I guess I'll have a new "issue" to address in counseling.

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

i doubt it will make any real difference in schools anywhere...

 

it'll just be another program without teeth.

 

at least that's my opinion about it. could be completely wrong.

 

but in my art classes, i will be teaching some italic and penmanship lessons...

 

 

I've seen HWTears in operation. They use severely unethical marketing tactics to take over school after school: within the past 5 years, they have gone from doing maybe 2% of USA schools that teach handwriting to doing about 50% of USA schools that teach handwriting, even though their program is very accident-prone and says that speed is never, ever important. (I sat through a 6-hour HWTears training to find out more about them: Know Thine Enemy! About 1% of the training was actually about handwriting -- the other 99% was on how to persuade people to buy a handwriting program when they think it is no good.)

 

Their favorite tactic (they have many) is

to initially sell the program (including a WIDE range of required supplies that you can buy only from them) at an 80% discount --

then suddenly raise the prices after a contract is signed,

then again raise the prices back to the (very expensive) list-price (a 5x increase)

if any student is reported as not doing well with the program and needing something else to supplement/modify/replace it.

This, of course, makes the schools/districts want to report that ALL students are doing well, even though at least half of them are not.

 

The other tactics are rather more questionable, and therefore much less pleasant to discuss. I do not want to discuss them in a public forum, but will discuss them privately if asked.

Edited August 1, 2010 by KateGladstone

[KateGladstone]

Re:

... learning to write in print and cursive legibly is important ...

Why, Vargouille, do you think that learning two styles (print, then cursive) is important?

Does that mean that you'd object to learning just one style -- and giving it a greater or lesser number of joins, depending on what you're doing with it? (That, after all, is what the fastest and most legible handwriters tend to do.)

Edited August 1, 2010 by KateGladstone

[threeeye]

I bet that in daily use, this font will devolve into Spencerian because HWTears lacks rythm.

Connectors provide a smooth flow and timing for height and oval perspective.

Each letter being made at its own pace will cause that letter to lose association with preceeding letters.

The words of the sentence will stand at their own heights with no melody for the paragraph. IMHO

 

 

 

Don't worry. Be happy.

[Kabe]

Isn't that very close to the current handwriting taught to children anyway?

[KateGladstone]

Re:

I bet that in daily use, this font will devolve into Spencerian because HWTears lacks r[h]ythm. ...

From what I have seen of this style -- in the writings of people who had to learn it at their schools 5 or 10 or 15 years ago -- the survivors of HWTears never develop scribal rhythm unless they break with it entirely and take lessons in writing some other, actually rhythmic style.

 

HWTears writing does not "devolve into Spencerian" or into anything else worth doing and worth seeing -- instead, HWTears writing simply devolves.

[KateGladstone]

Isn't that very close to the current handwriting taught to children anyway?

 

That's one of the (many) problems with it!

 

(And the areas of difference are not areas of improvement.)

Kids in the USA/Canada today -- if they get to learn any handwriting at all -- get taught a variety of styles:

most of them a little bit better than HWTears,

a very few a lot better than HWTears,

and literally none of them worse than HWTears.

 

(I judge "better" and "worse" as follows:

 

/1/ is the model accident-prone or accident-resistant?

[HWTears' models are highly accident-prone]

 

/2/ is the model self-consistent or self-contradictory?

[HWTears is the latter: as you likely noticed, so are almost all programs in wide use]

 

/3/ does the teaching aim at, or ignore, the development of speed in legible handwriting and the maintenance of legibility in fast handwriting?

[HWTears believes that speed or its absence isn't relevant to handwriting at all. If -- for example -- a fourth-grader in HWTears writes 1 alphabet-letter per minute, according to HWTears this is perfectly functional handwriting and one should not ask whether perhaps it is too slow for practical purposes: no attempt is made to address the matter of rate, either for such a slow writer or for anyone else.)

[rollerboy]

Well Kate, maybe you'll have to open italic speakeasies to teach, or set up shop just across the border in Mexico. Hey, if you're driven underground your profits might go up ... no more taxes!

[LynnK]

Isn't that very close to the current handwriting taught to children anyway?

 

It's exactly the style I was taught in the US around 1988-89. I'd recognize that cursive D and G anywhere. All those loops! I dislike my handwriting today--it's very inconsistent--and am trying hard to learn italic.

[Ghost Plane]

Ugh! That's the <insert expletive here> they tried to teach me in the 60s/70s. Fortunately, my parents got to me first, but I have trouble with cursive capitals to this day and use the printed variants instead.

 

I would devolve into a discourse on the over-involvement of government in people's lives, but the board rules forbid political discussions.

[Vargouille]

Re:

... learning to write in print and cursive legibly is important ...

Why, Vargouille, do you think that learning two styles (print, then cursive) is important?

Does that mean that you'd object to learning just one style -- and giving it a greater or lesser number of joins, depending on what you're doing with it? (That, after all, is what the fastest and most legible handwriters tend to do.)

 

Yes and no. While learning one distinct style of cursive is all fine and dandy within people who know the script, and looks nice because it is distinctive, it would probably become complete gibberish to most people who do not know that form of cursive (ie suetterlin). Then, you would need to know a form of print that is as close as possible to the accepted Roman form. That is my opinion, and you are welcome to disagree.

[donwinn]

Fortunately for penmanship in the US, in fact, there is nothing to deduce that italic is in any way threatened outside schools. Overly broad and incorrect statements to draw attention detract from the credibility of the information presented.

 

I am not a proponent or detractor of either italic, or HWT; however, I am a detractor and opponent of marketing strategies and tactics described above. The marketing actions should be investigated by the FTC, as they investigated Microsoft for similarly heinous marketing practices.

 

The good news is that most government schools do not have enough time to teach HWT, and they will likely be no more effective at teaching penmanship than they have been since the 1960s. With all the accretion and bogus information required to be taught to students, penmanship has already been given short shrift. If HWT is the only method allowed to be taught in schools, it will create a booming aftermarket in materials such as italic methods, and alternatives.

 

The law of unintended consequences will probably work against HWT, and in favor of italic, and other alternatives. Plus, the initiative applies only to government schools, leaving private education to actually excel more than they already do.

 

Donnie

[sumgaikid]

Fortunately for penmanship in the US, in fact, there is nothing to deduce that italic is in any way threatened outside schools. Overly broad and incorrect statements to draw attention detract from the credibility of the information presented.

 

I am not a proponent or detractor of either italic, or HWT; however, I am a detractor and opponent of marketing strategies and tactics described above. The marketing actions should be investigated by the FTC, as they investigated Microsoft for similarly heinous marketing practices.

 

The good news is that most government schools do not have enough time to teach HWT, and they will likely be no more effective at teaching penmanship than they have been since the 1960s. With all the accretion and bogus information required to be taught to students, penmanship has already been given short shrift. If HWT is the only method allowed to be taught in schools, it will create a booming aftermarket in materials such as italic methods, and alternatives.

 

The law of unintended consequences will probably work against HWT, and in favor of italic, and other alternatives. Plus, the initiative applies only to government schools, leaving private education to actually excel more than they already do.

 

Donnie

 

 

+1..............I wholeheartedly agree.

 

 

John

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

It's exactly the style I was taught in the US around 1988-89. I'd recognize that cursive D and G anywhere. All those loops! I dislike my handwriting today--it's very inconsistent--and am trying hard to learn italic.

 

Where in the USA in 1988-1989 were they teaching a vertical cursive?

Re the D and the G -- many other USA programs form their cursive D/G/other letters like this one.

The (truthful) observation about "All those loops!" is funny,

because HWTears advertising/publicity

(including the public appearances of its founder and other spokespeople in news-stories about handwriting)

nowadays claims

/a/ that HWTears has no loops in its cursive,

/b/ that HWTears doesn't change letter-shapes in going from manuscript to cursive,

and

/c/ that HWTears is the only program about which these things are true.

(What the ... #$%* ... ?!?!)

Of course, they didn't start saying any of those things until Italic started getting attention.

What can one say about the integrity of program whose corporate agents publicly misrepresent, not only others' methods, but their own method?

Congratulations, anyway, on finding and learning Italic. My signature has some helpful links.

 

 

 

 

[LynnK]

Re:

 

 

Where in the USA in 1988-1989 were they teaching a vertical cursive?

 

 

Maybe I'm mistaken, and it was a very similar style? This was a public school in NJ. On a second examination, the only letter that I can find that's different is the capital Q -- we were taught something that looks like a 2. I thought it was upright because I don't remember being taught to slant anything, but again I could be misremembering. I definitely write upright now. The hardest part of learning italic has been making my o shapes more oblong and tilted, and not perfect upright circles. That, and getting all my vertical lines to sit at the same angle. But maybe I can't blame elementary school after all. :-)

 

Edited to add: My mistake! A web search makes me think it was most likely D'Nealian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian. First grade was printing, and second was cursive, which seems to agree with the wiki article. Aside from the upright vs. slant, a lot of it looks really similar (to my untrained eye, at least).

Edited August 1, 2010 by LynnK