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Thread: High school grad can't read cursive.

  1. Don't need no cursive, no long math, no printing ( we have printers for that ), No spelling class because we have spell check for that, Don't need Social Studies because there is less and less need to know any of that stuff, Geography?? Don't need it! Civics REALLY dont need that! History? Nope stupid. I taught Culinary Arts for 8 years to students from 18-60 years old. The number of young students that were incapable of performing 3rd grade math was amazing. Fractions? forget it Ratios??? Nope! Increasing or decreasing the yield of a recipe??? Ha! Teaspoons, Tablespoons, cups, quarts, gallons...may as well be speaking Greek or Latin and we dont need to be teaching that crap either. Bottom line I guess is that I dont know what they are teaching if they can't add, subtract, multiply or divide or even read aloud ( one more thing we dont need to pass on in schools ). Whether we use it or not as a society/empire/civilizations go thats how languages are forgotten and civilizations go away. While cursive isn't used much there are skills and habits formed from practicing it. Also as one poster noted he hated getting handwritten letters from his Grandmother my experience was just the opposite. I cherish those letters to this day. We dont write letters to our children today, just send them a text. I think its sad actually.

  2. #77
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    I'm not sure I want to chime in here or not, but as a college professor I deal with the outcomes of both home schooling and formal schooling (both public and private) on a daily basis. There is a distribution of skills in students in with each of those backgrounds. I have had home schoolers who do fabulously, but I also have had many who have difficulty with schedules/due dates, exam taking skills, and group work ability. Successful home-schooled students have a family that has committed to the process as a FULL-TIME endeavor, and use a complete syllabus. I have seen students with large gaps, with parents not wanting to teach some areas (because they don't understand it, or they think it is too hard). Granted, I have seem some districts omit topics because it is hard, or have a grading system where 50% is the lowest score allowed to be assigned (so the kids could possibly catch up, and save the state funding dollars for the district)

    I have heard of some school districts bringing back cursive (to get back to the original comment). I would much prefer them to bring back fractions and ratios. Chemistry (like the Culinary Arts mentioned earlier) is all about ratio and proportion. I had to get our math department to make sure to teach logarithms in College Algebra (logs are used a lot in chemistry). The math folks didn't like teaching them, and didn't think they were that useful because now we have calculators. i.e. since we don't need to use slide rules (which are log based) they don't need logs.

    John who teaches several sections of college general chemistry every year.

  3. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gregg Markowski View Post
    Teaspoons, Tablespoons, cups, quarts, gallons...may as well be speaking Greek or Latin and we dont need to be teaching that crap either. .
    Boy, I'm with you there! Can't get my recipes converted to weight-based units fast enough. Once I know how many grams or kilos of each ingredient I need I'm off to the races. No more scaling or conversion errors; no more mis-measurements because this salt is not milled exactly the same as that one and has a different density.

    Treating cooking the same way I treated my lab work (weighing most everything and going metric, getting rid of fractions) greatly improved my reproducibility as a cook and baker.

  4. #79
    Gregg, A fine and needed rant ! We are building big piles of ephemera.
    P.S. I said that out loud and someone walking by yelled “yeah! F Emeruh ! ”

  5. #80
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    Quote Originally Posted by mike stenson View Post
    Seems to me this is like complaining that the vast majority of people can't do math in hexadecimal. It's simply no longer relevant.
    I did not even know that people used to be able to do maths in hex.

  6. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kev Williams View Post
    Kids today more competent? Yes, I'll agree...

    More work ethic? mmm, not so much. Every sole proprietor shop owner I know can't keep an employee for more than a few days or weeks because they want to pick their own days off, can't be bothered to come in before 11am, give wares away to their friends, steal from them or just plain quit because working eats into their free time. "Internet Sensation" seems to be the most coveted job title these days...

    Just some of my life observations
    I have limited experience but thought will share.

    In IT/Software I have seen and have worked with people in range 22-65 years old. In all age groups I see equally ethical and unethical people.

    Based on current needs, education has evolved. Ethics and morals have not changed much.

    One thing I do see is that younger engineers are more aware, confident and vocal. There have been times when I have worked long hours just because work was to be done. I can see folks asking "why" or asking for compensation before putting in the hours.

  7. #82
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Turkovich View Post
    Please talk to Apple. The quality of their voice mail transcription service (on a Iphone 11) is horrendous.

    Interesting. I am fairly impressed with how accurate the voicemail to text function is. As always, garbage in, garbage out. I have a family member as an example . . . I can barely understand her on the phone (speaks to that missing 'reading comprehension and speech' requirement someone noted was missing from high school now) so I would not expect speech to text to work very well for her.

    It is easy to get on a rant with this. STEM schools for example. They potentially turn out functional, employable, meat-machines who have never heard of Salvador Dali, Shakespeare, Hayden, governmental structures, or economic basics. If the power goes out and their batteries run dry they could have trouble making something to eat let alone carrying on with higher level functions. Dang it! See how easy a rant can start
    Last edited by glenn bradley; 06-11-2021 at 10:24 PM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


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  8. #83
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    I have a family member as an example . . . I can barely understand her on the phone (speaks to that missing 'reading comprehension and speech' requirement someone noted was missing from high school now) so I would not expect speech to text to work very well for her.

    It is easy to get on a rant with this. STEM schools for example. They potentially turn out functional, employable, meat-machines who have never heard of Salvador Dali, Shakespeare, Hayden, governmental structures, or economic basics. If the power goes out and their batteries run dry they could have trouble making something to eat let alone carrying on with higher level functions.
    This is not new. There have been people like this through out time Immemorial. Some of my coworkers from my generation were occasionally nothing more than a seat warmer who could do some of the basic functions of the job. Then there were those who would just leave it for the next guy to finish or make it go away with a pencil, aka pencil whipped it.

    Then there are those who are good at some things but not others.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  9. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anuj Prateek View Post
    One thing I do see is that younger engineers are more aware, confident and vocal. There have been times when I have worked long hours just because work was to be done. I can see folks asking "why" or asking for compensation before putting in the hours.
    This is an important distinction lost on some of our older readers. "Kids these days" are quick to recognize (and reject) employers that consider them disposable. Remember when grocery clerks and meat packers were hailed as essential workers?

    This particular outrage has generated responses from clutching pearls to condemnation of an education system that most of us know sweet F-A about. Other than wedding invitations, deciphering cursive is about as commonplace as decoding cuneiform tablets.

    The intelligent response to a pointless task is to step around it.

    This generation of school kids is considerably smaller than the last (I would argue that they're smarter) and well aware of what is ballast to be jettisoned. If you're an employer that can't keep staff, it's because what you're offering is the equivalent of cursive writing: high difficulty, little compensation.

    The attitude voiced here, "Well I had to, so they should too!" is already overboard.
    Last edited by Jim Matthews; 06-12-2021 at 5:19 PM.

  10. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Matthews View Post
    The attitude voiced here, "Well I had to, so they should too!" is already overboard.
    The owner/trainer at the first place we had our horses years ago took that attitude. She never could accept why so many of the kids (and adults) moved on, some suddenly, some after finding "greener, more pleasant pastures". She often expected young teens to work for pennies for long hours even on extremely hot, humid days with "adult responsibility" while berating them verbally with frequency and her style was yelling and screaming while training, too. Why? Because she said that's what she had to go through "coming up". It made her very angry that people left and she refused to connect the dots that her attitude predicated on her expectations and actions was the cause. So I agree...just because I learned cursive starting in second grade "back in the day" is not a good reason that my kids should have had to learn it in school at a time when its use has waned to nearly dis-use. This is a different time. (I also agree about fair compensation for work)
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  11. #86
    It started with cursive and veered off in many directions but there is a common theme.
    It's not just saying "do it because we had to" or getting the response "why should I do a pointless task". There is usually a purpose behind the task that is not evident until later on.
    Ever see the Karate Kid, wax on, wax off?
    Younger people don't yet have to wisdom that comes with age to know that it's not a pointless task, or how to read or write a note without a smart phone. At a fundamental level it boils down to learning the basics.
    We had the alphabet above the blackboard in block and cursive.

  12. #87
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    We had an interesting visitor yesterday. She is a French teacher, with about 30 years of experience.

    I asked her how often she went to France. She said she didn't nearly go as much as she did years ago, because for several years, she hasn't had one student willing to do a family stay. That is where one student goes to live with a family for a couple of weeks, where they only speak French.

    She said she used to have whole classes go, and still hears from those students, from years ago, who still remember how wonderful the experience was. For several years, she has not had one student "brave" enough to go do a family stay. She said they just want to go on trips now, if they can hang out with their friends.

    Not that it applies to this at all, but it might.

  13. #88
    I have read every post but I did read a lot of them. sorry if someone else brought it up. So are high school graduating class of 2021 can't read these1-MyxcFbsksImVrUuMHnvuqg.jpgshopping.jpgHow sad and unacceptable
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  14. #89

    read

    cursive.jpgmy message is to short
    If the Help and advice you received here was of any VALUE to you PLEASE! Become a Contributor
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  15. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom M King View Post
    We had an interesting visitor yesterday. She is a French teacher, with about 30 years of experience.

    I asked her how often she went to France. She said she didn't nearly go as much as she did years ago, because for several years, she hasn't had one student willing to do a family stay. That is where one student goes to live with a family for a couple of weeks, where they only speak French.

    That seems like the way to become functional/proficient in any language

    She said she used to have whole classes go, and still hears from those students, from years ago, who still remember how wonderful the experience was. For several years, she has not had one student "brave" enough to go do a family stay. She said they just want to go on trips now, if they can hang out with their friends.

    "but I saw a movie/video/facebook post where a high school student like me did something like this and was never seen again" Some of are scared of our own shadows and not good at risk assessment

    Not that it applies to this at all, but it might.
    ---------------------------------

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