I miss the Palmer Method of penmanship. Yeah, I'm surprised, too.For those of you who didn't attend Catholic elementary school in, say, the sixties, the Palmer Method is a form of cursive writing that aims for smoothness and consistency via right-slanting, every-letter-connected, smoothly looped writing. Among its touted benefits is the ability to take quick, legible notes for an hour or more with little or no finger cramping.
Daily drills required students like me to write dozen of o's and as many m's. My capital e was supposed to be identical to my best friend Ellen's, and everyone's small g was supposed to curve at the same place.
Nowadays, such drills are considered individuality-quashing. Back then, they gave me and my peers a break from diagramming sentences or doing long division on the chalkboard.
That's why we never rebelled openly against the handwriting regimen--not even when the left-handers among us were forced to hold their pens in their right hands. Our rebellion was subtle: a spike rather than a loop or a straight-up rather than slanted letter. Our writing developed individual quirks but remained pretty legible.
My sudden nostalgia for the Palmer Method is due to the fact I've been reading a lot of student writing done with paper and pen—and it's harder than you'd think to decipher manuscript (not cursive) handwriting, especially when letters slant left, right, and stand straight up within the same word.
Some of the writing I see appears tortured; pens stab the paper here and skip there. Austin Palmer, the Palmer Method's founder, had it right: students exert more effort printing each letter separately than linking them in one fluid motion.
Do I want a return to endless penmanship drills? No, but I'd like to see school kids learn cursive for its ease of motion. Yes, I know keyboarding is a more important skill than handwriting in the twenty-first century, and I thoroughly appreciate email, laptops, and phones with itty-bitty slide-out keyboards.
That said, there are times when we must pick up a pen. Holding a pen or pencil shouldn't seem unnatural. Handwriting should be as effortless for school kids as typing. Manuscript writing may be easier for little ones to learn, but cursive's easier to write quickly and over a sustained period of time.
What's your opinion of cursive? Is it a pleasure or did you ditch it in favor of printing as soon as you left elementary school? Did you learn cursive in school or was it all manuscript, all the time?
27 comments:
It's strange to think that in less than one generation students have gone from knowing cursive to not learning it. My brother is a high school teacher and he has students who don't even know how to sign their names.
Pat, my daughter is in 5th grade and only knows how to write her name in cursive. She said she only learn cursive in 3rd grade, but they hadn't encourage them to continue writing in cursive. She was reading a book and it had a passage in cursive and she couldn't read it. I was kind of disappointed and decided that this summer I'm teaching them cursive myself.
Brandie
It's strange for me, too, Marcy. I now understand why I keep running into student signatures that are highly stylized but almost impossible to make out--signature signatures.
Brandie, I thought this blog post would take an hour to write. Three hours after I started it, I was still reading about parents upset because their kids didn't know cursive. I found this website encouraginghelpful, and if I were homeschooling, I'd start my handwriting lessons with it: http://www.drawyourworld.com/lessons/handwriting-styles.html
I know there's no such word as encouraginghelpful. Palmer devotees clearly find it difficult to use a delete key.
It never occurred to me that children wouldn't be taught cursive handwriting anymore, Pat. What a shame!
As a child my handwriting was so poor, my father (an elementary school principal) insisted I spend one summer learning good penmanship. He believed a person was judged by how they presented themselves and handwriting as well as proper grammar were extremely important.
I'll admit that to this day poor penmanship really puts me off and makes me wonder if the person is incompetent or sloppy. On the other hand, we recently received a thank-you note written in such stunning calligraphy I was blown away and saw our guest in a whole new light.
No matter how much technology takes over daily life, it will always be necessary to write legibly. Too bad writing beautifully is quickly becoming a lost art.
I learned this method of cursive writing in second grade, in public school, in the 70s. My daughter learned it in third grade (same school district, 30 years later), but they did not spend nearly as much time on it as we did. But she heard not long ago that they're no longer teaching it. It is indeed sad - who will read all that primary historical source material? :)
I had a PDA several years ago (before they were also phones) that recognized handwriting. It did much better with cursive than printing!
So cursive writing will soon be a code!
I learned cursive Palmer style in public school in second grade. By the time I was teaching, they'd bumped cursive to third grade. I think school systems (which also do their best to keep art out of the classrooms)are missing chances for eye-and-hand coordination practice. But I've never ever thought handwriting should be graded!
Being judged by our handwriting "back in the day" was SO wrong! I loved being artsy with swirls and open dots--and Mr. Hold-the-pencil-this-way Palmer and some of my teachers said NO. Luckily there were those embraced creativity as long at it was legible.
I believe handwriting will have a comeback someday. Maybe it will be considered "an art."
Excellent post, Pat! I will never show my signature to Lark, however. jk--or maybe not! :) I used to have beautiful handwriting if I do say so myself, but that's long gone(thank you, tennis elbow and life.)
Nancy Kay, don't worry about me seeing your signature. After years of practice, mine is totally unreadable.
I grew up in Europe and recall penmanship lessons but not many and certainly not as rigerous as you all have had. Hence my horrible, childlike scrawl!
You may want to take a sample and wave it in your children's faces and say: "is THIS how you want your handwriting to look?"
Wow Marcy, students who don't know how to sign their name? Okay. That's sad.
Pat, you and I must be around the same age. I did not attend a Catholic school, but I was drilled in the classroom during the sixties, ha, ha, ha, for writing proper Palmer Method cursive handwriting. Oh boy, did you bring back a memory. Great fun eh?
But at least we can say that we know how to write.
Not sign their name? Still can't get over that one. In high school no less. Sad.
I remember doing drills in school, but my penmanship is terrible now. It's an odd mix of print and cursive--and only half legible!
My boys were taught how to handwrite, then told to go ahead and print if they wanted to. Printing takes so much longer, I just don't understand why someone would choose to do so. OTOH, sometimes I can't read my own writing. LOL!
well my writing is pretty ugly to read, so I'm not surprised. I wish doctors would learn to print.
I not only learned penmanship in public schools in the suburbs of Milwaukee and later Miami, but I learned with a fountain pen and carried a bottle of ink (with a little well on the side for filling one's pen) until about sixth grade, when we were allowed to use cartridge fountain pens. I don't think ball points were permitted until junior high. I still "write" rather than "print" most of the time. I had no idea the "art" had vanished from the schools.
You're right, Lark, writing legibly is becoming a lost art. Kids today don't believe it's a skill they need because they expect to type no matter what career path they take.
I understand why your father pushed you to practice penmanship, but teachers know that students with tortured handwriting may turn out eloquent essays, and those with elegant penmanship may write nothing worth reading.
Jennette, apparently 41 states no longer require the teaching of cursive. Forty-one? I was stunned.
You know, I may have an easier time reading cursive because of my age. Maybe teachers in their twenties find it easier to read manuscript. In other words, I'm a lot like your old PDA.
Haha, Nancy. I'm going to be self-conscious signing into the next WHRWA meeting.
Like you, I think those old cursive lessons helped with eye-hand coordination. Like yours, my handwriting has deteriorated, and I can't blame tennis elbow. Do you think anyone would buy "dishwasher hands" as an excuse?
Hi, Sarah,
I'll wait and get you to sign your first book, and that's what I'll wave in front of my kids.
Karen, these are the kids who troubleshoot our computer and telephone problems. We're the ones who have to sign the checks.
Coleen,
A handwriting analyst might see traces of Palmer in my handwriting, but mine has morphed into something spikier and choppier.
I have two sisters and a brother. We attended the same elementary school and had some of the same teachers. My youngest sister's handwriting resembles mine but it even spikier. My middle brother and sister now print exclusively, but their printing is super legible.
Last night, I met up with a friend whose adult son had been diagnosed with dyslexia back in grade school. He'd been advised then to print rather than attempt cursive. His adult print style is fast and elegant, so there.
My daughters got the same "do-it-your-way" advice in school, Sheila.
I can almost always read what I wrote, but I'm often disappointed to find that it isn't nearly as brilliant as I'd thought it was.
I hear you, Louise, and wish doctors would type notes and prescriptions into a tablet.
I learned with a fountain pen, too, Kay, and remember how the blasted things leaked into my bookbag. I was an ink-stained wretch before I knew what the expression meant!
Those were the days.
I teach 7th and 8th grade and I require my students to take their tests in cursive. At first there is a lot complaining, but they fall back into pretty easily. Eventually they find themselves writing in cursive in other areas of life.
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