Changes in Young Worlds

[JustGeorge]

I recently had a school staff lament to me that the first graders she worked with no longer use pen and paper; rather, its all on their chrome books. And too much, she felt, at that. "5 page book reports! For seven year olds! They should be out getting their hands dirty, not staring at screens!"

At yearly doctor's visits, you're often asked about screen time, and how much your kids are using. This was never asked when I was growing up, but the screens were limited then. Its not uncommon now to see a toddler with a tablet. My own little guy watches his cartoons on a laptop; we haven't even got a TV.

I hear the generation above me complain that the kids aren't learning cursive anymore. I remember learning it, but hated it, and find it almost obsolete in my world, save for an old letter or two a person might want to read. I could see keeping it around as an elective, but not required learning.

What are some changes in how the young(I'm talking pre-teen) learn and process now as opposed to your day as a child? What do you think is better? What is worse?

 

[Stevicus]

I recall some people having real hissy fits over the idea of having calculators in the classroom.

Learning cursive was hell. I don't know what misguided cretin ever came up with that **** and decided to impose it on schoolchildren.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I recently had a school staff lament to me that the first graders she worked with no longer use pen and paper; rather, its all on their chrome books. And too much, she felt, at that. "5 page book reports! For seven year olds! They should be out getting their hands dirty, not staring at screens!"

At yearly doctor's visits, you're often asked about screen time, and how much your kids are using. This was never asked when I was growing up, but the screens were limited then. Its not uncommon now to see a toddler with a tablet. My own little guy watches his cartoons on a laptop; we haven't even got a TV.

I hear the generation above me complain that the kids aren't learning cursive anymore. I remember learning it, but hated it, and find it almost obsolete in my world, save for an old letter or two a person might want to read. I could see keeping it around as an elective, but not required learning.

What are some changes in how the young(I'm talking pre-teen) learn and process now as opposed to your day as a child? What do you think is better? What is worse?

Cursive isn’t taught anymore? It was when I was in elementary. It’s pretty easy, just some lines connecting the letters with a few weird shaped letters like S and, that’s the only one I can think of.

I don’t like how kids are doing everything on the computer these days. There should be moderation.

 

[JustGeorge]

Cursive isn’t taught anymore? It was when I was in elementary. It’s pretty easy, just some lines connecting the letters with a few weird shaped letters like S and, that’s the only one I can think of.

I don't remember it being difficult, just tedious. Even at 9(which was when I was taught), I remember thinking "why the hell am I learning this?"

I don’t like how kids are doing everything on the computer these days. There should be moderation.

I don't care for it, either. While computers and technology are a part of our modern world, there's a lot more to life, and I don't think that's being properly modeled for our little ones.

 

[Valjean]

Cursive is fast and convenient. It's an efficient way of writing.
Do you think there's always going to be an internet, or even electricity?

 

[JustGeorge]

Cursive is fast and convenient. It's an efficient way of writing.

I disagree. I always found it illegible from most but the neatest of writers, and a general pain in the hindquarters. But! To each their own.

Do you think there's always going to be an internet, or even electricity?

Of course not. However, this thread is more of a review between what the poster experiences now as opposed to when they were a child and their feelings on the changes, not to pretend that things will always stay the same.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Cursive is fast and convenient. It's an efficient way of writing.
Do you think there's always going to be an internet, or even electricity?

Ex-primary teacher here. Just declaring that in case it makes me biased I don't think this conversation requires any qualification.

Never got the cursive thing. It always seemed a holdover to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for teaching kids to write, and write legibly, but cursive doesn't seem central to that. We even tweaked our cursive in Victoria whilst I was going through Uni, so teachers had to learn the 'improved' cursive, including more natural shaping of letters. It seemed an exercise in navel-gazing to me, and doubt it made a single iota of difference to learning. There was, of course, the need to produce a whole lot of new learning materials, etc, though.

The things I'd lament more include less rote recall of times tables from 1 to 10. The 11 and 12 thing is arbitrary, but 1 to 10 is key to aid more complex problem solutions. My daughter is Year 9 (freshman high in US terms I think) and the algebra she does is becoming more complex. She often gets things wrong despite working out answers correctly due to a basic computational error at the final hurdle. For example, having eventually worked out that 4x = 32, she determines X as being 7. She does all the hard parts, and falls at the last. That is of course anecdotal, but seems a common issue.

Basic spelling is clearly worse than it was years back. My second daughter, Year 7, sometimes has issues despite constantly using spellcheck and Grammarly, because she gets the first few letters of a word incorrect, so the laptop can't even suggest the right spelling.

Again, anecdotal. But that seems to broadly line up with what former colleagues are telling me too, and both my girls are above average (but not amazing) students in terms of their marks.

The third thing is more technology based. When helping my daughter with algebra, I was struck but just how clunky the interface was, and how many clicks she needed to make when answering algebra questions. She was supposed to show how she worked out a problem, but for each line of workings she'd need to insert an equation via a drop down menu, she'd need to insert a symbol for X (factor), since the equation would assume X was a variable and format it differently. She'd need to highlight anywhere that was a power, and set it manually to superscript. She's fast at all that, but it's a barrier to actually showing working I believe. I can only imagine what less diligent students do, and I found it onerous and slow.
(Sure, it was an unfamiliar interface for me, but I'm a solution architect in the ERP space, and have a lot of IT experience)
If tech is making things more time consuming that paper, we have to ask who we are helping and why, when using tech.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I value beautifully written notes. I only wish I could reciprocate.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

I value beautifully written notes. I only wish I could reciprocate.

Me too, and also creating my own greeting cards for friends and family. I find it easier for me to touch-type on a keyboard, as holding a pen in my hand makes my hand cramp up.

There's always calligraphy fonts that one can download and use:

6345 Free Calligraphy Fonts · 1001 Fonts

Calligraphy is an ancient writing technique using flat edged pens to create artistic lettering using thick and thin lines depending on the direction of the stroke. The height of calligraphy was reached in the middle age, where monks developed the narrow writing style called gothic, allowing more...

www.1001fonts.com

"Black Chancery" is one of my favorites, because it looks both elegant and kind of gothic.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Me too, and also creating my own greeting cards for friends and family. I find it easier for me to touch-type on a keyboard, as holding a pen in my hand makes my hand cramp up.

Beautifully wrought calligraphy is artistic and suggest that the writer cares about the message and the recipient(s).

And then, on the other hand, there are my attempts at cursive Hebrew.

 

[Koldo]

Cursive is fast and convenient. It's an efficient way of writing.
Do you think there's always going to be an internet, or even electricity?

If/when we run out of eletricity for good, we are going to have much bigger problems than people not knowing the cursive. We can take for granted that is not going to happen.

 

[ChristineM]

Calculators were banned from exams although you could use them in certain classes with the teachers approval.

Calligraphy was not taught, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because i couldn't write...

 

[RestlessSoul]

In Japan (and probably some other cultures) there is a long tradition whereby calligraphy is taught and practiced an art form.

 

[RestlessSoul]

 

[Twilight Hue]

Cursive is fast and convenient. It's an efficient way of writing.
Do you think there's always going to be an internet, or even electricity?

Cursive is also essential for legal signatures and the like.

I can't imagine just how dumb it looks for a person to just print their name instead of signing it on a legally binding document.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If/when we run out of eletricity for good, we are going to have much bigger problems than people not knowing the cursive. We can take for granted that is not going to happen.

Wait till the earth is hit by another massive burst from the sun.

It's going to happen at some point and all electronics are going to be useless.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Cursive isn’t taught anymore? It was when I was in elementary. It’s pretty easy, just some lines connecting the letters with a few weird shaped letters like S and, that’s the only one I can think of.

I don’t like how kids are doing everything on the computer these days. There should be moderation.

It's unhealthy to be that dependent.

 

[Koldo]

It's unhealthy to be that dependent.

We would just go back to using this:

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

Beautifully wrought calligraphy is artistic and suggest that the writer cares about the message and the recipient(s).

And then, on the other hand, there are my attempts at cursive Hebrew.

Cursive Hebrew always looked (to me) like stenographer's shorthand. On the other hand, the ancient Hebrew script with the crowned letters that you see in the holy books is beautiful. I see that in your profile picture -- although when I first came here, I couldn't make out what it said because both ends of the word are cut off in that circle. Have you thought of making that into a banner for your profile? A banner would display the entire word of "shalom."

Here's a pic of the Shema prayer on a golden pendant that I have. I thought it was beautifully creative the way the artist got all the Hebrew words in the circle like that (even though I don't think I can read them all.)

 

[JustGeorge]

Cursive is also essential for legal signatures and the like.

I can't imagine just how dumb it looks for a person to just print their name instead of signing it on a legally binding document.

Nobody looks.