Saturday, February 8, 2014

Learn Everything

I have been reading for some time that schools are backing away from teaching cursive writing.  I happen to think that is a mistake.

I am interested in genealogy.  I spend quite a bit of my time searching through census records for clues to my ancestors.  I can access records online from 1850 to 1940.  Once in a while I will find a census that is filled out using hand printed letters.  But nearly all were hand written - in cursive - by the census taker, who went door to door to gather the information.  The census tells me where my ancestors were living in a given year, how many of the children were living at home, which ones had married and started families of their own.  Many of the pages tell me if my ancestors owned their land, the state or country where they were born as well as their parent's origins, and what they were doing to make a living.  I would be totally wasting my time if I couldn't read the census pages.

Another source of information for me are old letters that my parents saved over the years.  I found this postcard in my Grandmother's Bible.



My father had sent it to her when he and his brother arrived in Helena, Montana - traveling from Minnesota - to look for work during the Depression.  He reports that both had found jobs picking potatoes, and that she shouldn't write to them because he didn't know how long they would be there.  If I couldn't read cursive, it would be gibberish to me and I wouldn't know what my father and his brother had done to earn money for the family.

I found this letter among my Dad's things.  It was written to him by his mother, who was visiting her oldest daughter and her family.  This is the first page of a three-page letter.


If I couldn't read cursive, I wouldn't know that Grandma had a sense of humor.  I was only 9 years old when she died, and I don't remember her humor.  She says that everybody there has colds except herself and Lois (her daughter).  She goes on to say that maybe they are too ornery to take on a cold or too slow to catch one.  Then she tells about seeing a bear come out of the woods at the edge of the yard and she speculates that had Lois' husband or son been there, they would have shot it.

So much of the material that I transcribe to enter in my genealogy program is hand written in cursive.  I don't transcribe all of the letters or stories that I have found, but place them into binders.  I have no idea if any of my grandkids will develop an interest in family history.  But if they do, are they going to be able to read about their ancestors if the material hasn't been entered in a computer?

Personally, I believe it is important to know who those people were who came before.  We are the sum of all of them, and if the grandkids don't learn the basics, how on earth are they going to know who or where they came from.  I hope they learn Everything that they can.  It would be a terrible shame if they were dumbed down so much that they have no clue about those who contributed to who they are now.

10 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure about hand writing teachings any more. I would not be surprised if they still did with all the computer classes these days.

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  2. Any teacher that supports removing the teaching of cursive is not really a teacher.

    Teaching requires improving knowledge. Removing access to a treasure trove of information - including the original text of the Constitution - is reprehensible. Anticipating a good result from such things is lunacy.

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  3. Rob...I'm not sure about education in Minnesota - I need to ask my kids about it. But I have read that in other states, cursive writing is or has been phased out. I guess I hate to see kids not being able to learn a skill that could be useful. Computers crash. Pens and paper don't.

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  4. Jess...I completely agree. My little tin foil hat self thinks it is probably part of the dumbing down process. And if I write in longhand, using pen and paper, nobody but me can see it unless I show it to them. Not so with our computers these days.

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  5. I am so thankful that my 2 grandsons are being home schooled. DD is teaching them "everything" so that they will have a very broad understanding of whatever may come up in our world. She's a stickler on details! :)

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  6. CottonLady...It is wonderful that your grandsons are being home schooled. It is the only way to make sure kids learn what they should learn, and not propaganda.

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  7. Amen...it used to be that if you didn't write in cursive teacher would hand the work back and say do it again in cursive...to many things going wrong!

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  8. Mary.....Sometimes I just have to back away before my head explodes from the insanity around me! I don't understand why anyone would think that NOT teaching the basics is a good thing.

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  9. These letters are precious. And Vicki . . . not just precious to your family . .
    Those cursive messages from the past are touching and funny records of the people that made this country what it is.

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  10. Cathy...The way I see it, the old records - census, birth and death records, etc - are important for they give the facts of ancestor's lives. But the letters and stories that they wrote - all by hand and mostly in cursive - are what gives us insight to their personalities. They are a treasure. And it would be so very sad if generations to come couldn't even read them.

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