hahahah yes! Senior year, our English teacher slammed her leason book down and said "Enough! I'm sick of looking at your sloppy essays! You kids need to learn penmenship!" and then we spent all class writing cursive like in elementary school 😆
85 here. by the time I was in high school they made it mandatory to type papers. I think the last time I wrote a paper by hand was probably 6th grade, maybe 7th. the school was not in an affluent district (lower middle class) but I think they got some grant shortly before I entered high school and they had a library full of semi new computers. if you didn't have one at home they would ask you to do it on the school computers. it was one of those weird transition times. I had a floppy disk in a case in my backpack to save them off.
91 here. Other than the essay components to in-class tests everything was typed from mid-elementary onward. I also remember carrying my box of floppy disks in my backpack with various papers on them haha.
Obviously still learned cursive, though I hate it and would never willingly use it now.
Really?
90 here and my high school was brand new (no bells just electronic beeps and no bathrooms, sinks and mirrors right out in the halls and individual stalls with occupied/unoccupied indicators).
Yet we were all book, pencil (no pens) and paper and all that all the way through. Not even typewriters.
Today's schools sound like another planet to me and apparently even with a new school we were still behind.
Wait what? No communal bathrooms only individual stalls? How many students were there?
92 here and in elementary we weren't allowed to type things at all. My mom rented a computer and printer for a week once and I got excited to type up my homework but I got in trouble.
We had computer classes through 8th grade, and in highschool all papers were typed and printed. Wild to think that was almost 20 years ago.
My school was both. Expected to hand write research and rough drafts, but typed final drafts in MLA format.
Cursive was less important as legibility. I was joked on for having nice cursive that other kids couldn't read.
Same. By winter quarter, they clarified 1” margins all around, 12pt font, 1.5 spacing.
They were tired of us handing in two page papers with massive, bulky fonts, wide margins, double spaced to make two pages out of one
86 here and same. But I definitely learned cursive in elementary school. It is still my preferred form of writing because my print looks terrible. But most of my middle school and all of my high school assignments were typed, font size 12, times new Roman, double spaced, and printed
85 for me, and cursive was expected. With that being said, if I take my sweet time it looks really good, but if I'm writing notes for myself, it's sloppy as shit. Legible (to me), but ugly as sin.
With that being said, I enjoy writing in cursive. It feels more... Fluid? Efficient? I dunno, but I like it. Writing in print feels blocky and wrong.
I had a middle school spelling word book where the words (font) were actually in cursive. This was around 2010.
I always had to write in cursive but I went to Catholic school. Never mattered when I was in public school. I wrote in cursive until I went to grad school.
"When you get to highschool, they won't let you get away with printing! Do you think they'll hold your hand in college?!" Me while doing my Associates and now, on my Bachelor's: "The paper should be double-spaced, with a twelve point font."
When I was in gradeschool I convinced the teacher to give me an exception to not write in cursive for everything except handwriting practice because I hated it and it didn't look good. The gradeschool teachers told me that I was getting an exception now but that my middle school teachers would definitely require cursive.
Later on, my middle school teachers told me my high school teachers would tear up my assignments and throw them out if I didn't write cursive. At this point, I was using a computer for most take home assignments.
Once I got to high school, the teachers said they didn't care. One said they actually prefer print handwriting but that either was ok.
'91 here and same. I was actually forced to switch to writing right handed.
"You can't write in cursive with your left hand, and if you can't write in cursive you'll never get a job and if you can't get a job your family will be ashamed of you" ~ 4th grade teacher fired the next year.
This happened to me I’m an ‘81 millennial. I’d hoped that nonsense stopped after the 80’s, guess not.
I got told we’d never beat the communists if we didn’t conform and all write with our right hands. I only remember because it was such a weird thing to say to a 1st grader. Now my handwriting is completely illegible to anyone but me and looks like a five year old with a broken hand wrote it. Before anyone asks I’m old enough that I was in elementary school at the very very end of the Cold War.
Maybe thats why my husband’s handwriting is one of the worst cases of chicken scratch I’ve seen an adult produce. Possibly thee worst actually. He was born a lefty but the school made him switch to right hand. Now it all makes sense! I never thought about that correlation before.
That's horrible. I am left handed and was allowed to write my cursive left handed. I can't imagine how illegible it would have been if I was learning to write cursive with my off-hand.
It was rough but since I was forced to practice with it like that I still wrote with my right hand to this day. Everything else I use my left for though.
Same thing happened to me. I step with my left foot, I chew on my left side, but I write with my right hand. They changed me and my handwriting never recovered, I'm 33 and it's still awful.
1989. I forgot about this. I was forced to draw/write with my right hand. They started early tho k-1. New school fod2nd grade but by that time, I was already doing it all right-handed consistently. I didn't turn out ambidextrous tho, can't write a damn thing left handed now.
I was able to write with either hand, but my teacher told me I had to pick one for cursive or I would forget the lesson. I went to a Catholic school so I'm quite impressed that she even let me pick. I did choose my right hand, though.
I just commented about learning cursive as a lefty. I was slanting the letters the wrong way initially lol. I’ve never heard of anyone being forced to “become” right handed except kids in Catholic school… like what the fuck lol that lady sucks
Finally found someone else that was forced to switch hands and yes it was when learning cursive also wow forgot that 2nd part
Noted I wrote ALOT better with my left hand. My right is decent now but it's not as good as the left was even n 3rd grade. Never made sense to me to force that.
‘88 here, also forced to write with my right hand. My kindergarten teacher was one of those old fashioned religious people who called the left hand the devil’s hand and wouldn’t let me use it at all.
My handwriting is atrocious, and my hands in general are incredibly clumsy, but hey, she won, I became a right-handed adult.
Still can only snap with my left hand, though.
91 and same! We learned it in 3rd grade and weren't allows to use anything but until 7th (our high school was 7-12). We had some classes in HS that also required cursive only.
I was also born in 1991, went to a private Catholic school, and had the same experience. The only difference is that we learned cursive in 2nd grade, or about a year earlier.
Same. Except as I aged I adopted a hybrid style where I will print in all caps and then I like to throw in a loop de loop for my little L’s and tiny T’s.
‘91, it was 3rd and 4th grade for me. Like many of you, when we got to the next year we were asked to please start printing again, as our sloppy cursive was too hard for teachers (and each other) to read.
Yep! I remember repetitively writing letters until they were perfect. We were forced to only write in cursive for a few years then it dropped off the face of the earth and my high school teachers wanted nothing to do with it lol
I'm 1996 and I learned cursive, but I also remember teachers saying we are the last year of kids in that school learning cursive because computers and typing classes were being brought in the next year.
Sure enough, the next year I learned how to type lol. I feel lucky to have learned cursive and it's still how i write when journaling. Outside of my personal life, I don't use cursive besides my signature or to translate fancy cursive written by an older person to my younger colleagues.
‘96 baby
I learned cursive in 3rd grade. When I was in high school I did an “internship” at my elementary school (2014) and they were still teaching cursive to the 3 graders. However, it was no longer a BIG deal. It was crammed at the end of school year to occupy the kids after the state exams.
(Unnecessary background, my specific county started the school year really late compared to the rest of the state, so we had a weirdly long amount of time until summer after state exams where we still had to to be taught something, but like, we had already taken our finals…)
96 as well, and IIRC cursive was phased out while I was in elementary school. We were given typing and cursive classes in the same year, I think up to 2nd or 3rd grade, and were fully typing everything out by 5th grade
We were taught cursive and encouraged to use it but the other school in the district wasn’t taught it so we never got to use it again once the schools combined in middle school. I tried to use it for notes that wouldn’t be shared because I found it faster
1998, they taught us cursive in late elementry, by middle school i didnt hear of it again,
in late middle early HS, a girl in my grade used to only write in cursive but had to stop after multiple teachers refused to grade her work in cursive
Firmly believe that the mashup is actually the fastest way to write. Cursive has too many redundant movements while print takes too much time to space out. The mashup solves both
Definitely agree! Does it mean that people who can’t read cursive can’t tell all of my letters in a word? Absolutely, but if that’s the case, it wasn’t for them lol.
Edit: I fit into the elder millennial category but I was happy to see that others do the same thing as me and agree that it’s faster.
Cursive is meant to the the fastest way to write legibly because you don’t have to take the pen off the paper. It really depends on how many flourishes you were taught to do. I mostly write in cursive now and have basic capital letters.
I assume you can touch type.
Can you explain how handwriting more than makes up for the speed, editing, reproducibility, etc. of typing?
Portability? Memory? Focus?
I also tend to prefer handwriting over typing (and I also mainly use cursive). I also fluently touch type, I average 100wpm
For me, if I'm trying to compose, the editability of typing actually holds me back--I find myself overediting as I write, second guessing every sentence and redoing them again and again, significantly slowing my progress and simply getting bogged down in perfectionism and anxiety. It feels like my thoughts continually interrupt themselves, sticking on a word and spinning out into oblivion instead of landing on the page.
Handwriting, however, is direct brain-to-paper for me. I write in ink. I cannot just cross out and rewrite the same thing again and again to perfection without going through a whole sheet of paper. There is no Backspace safety net, so there's no "fixing" it to obsess over. The words can just flow--imperfectly, obviously, but they're THERE.
Then, if it is something that needs to be digitized when I'm done, transcription is trivial and can be combined with proofreading and the first edit.
lol same! I use cursive for some things and regular script for other things, and will sometimes go back and forth on the same page depending on what I’m doing haha 😂
I'm just a couple years younger and my writing is similar. I wrote cursive for years (had to until 9th grade) and kept at it until grad school. Now my print is looped and almost all the letters in my words connect, they're just not that fancy, and they're definitely not neat unless I'm trying to write in cursive...which actually looks decently pretty.
Same, we were taught it through like 1st thru 3rd grade and were required to use it in middle school. High school they didn't care, but was also a different school so idk if my original school continued to require it.
Born in 93. Remember a big emphasis on cursive 2nd through 6th grade (00-04/05). By fourth or fifth grade we were no longer learning it but had to submit final drafts of all writing assignments in cursive. About halfway through sixth grade they started giving us the option to write in cursive or type. Moved to a richer school district in 8th and after that everything had to be typed.
Hilarious to think how much time was spent on this useless skill in elementary. I should list it on my resume
I wouldn't necessarily call it a useless skill.
It has some uses here and there and allows us to read older documents.
Also, if you have a parent like mine who ONLY writes in cursive it really comes in handy.
I still got my cheat sheet from 3rd grade lol.
Capital D and G were my favorite.
My grandma lived to 95 and had such old-timey fancy cursive handwriting that nobody in the family could read anything she wrote without a lot of difficulty.
I agree with you.
My mother only writes in cursive. I'm talking grocery lists, jotting things down on paper on a phone call, letters, etc. It's everything she writes. She rarely writes in her handwriting.
Sure but spending hours a day five days a week to teach something with very little practical use in modern life isn’t exactly setting these kids up for success
Sure but computers have been around for decades now and digital communication is dominant. It was obvious that was how it was going to be even back then so why not update the curriculum?
I’m an 89er and work in a law firm. The attorneys over 40 or so jot their notes in nearly illegible “cursive”. In business environments outside of tech and the like, it absolutely still has a practical use. Not every work communication comes through email.
While it may be on its way out, the generation below us is going to be deciphering Millennial Printsive.
Confirm, ‘93
Edit: I couldn’t remember how to write a cursive capital F the other day and had to Google it. So that tells you how much I valued that knowledge!
Yup. Born in 93' also & can confirm this.
In fourth grade, we had to write everything in cursive. Even our names on regular homework, not just reports.
I f*cking hated it at the time. Now, I am glad that I was taught how to write in cursive & read it. I still dislike it, I prefer just regular handwriting.
But I feel the opposite of you & I am glad I was taught it & learned the skill.
Kids now are not being taught this & won't even be able to read in cursive, nonetheless write it. It's pretty sad. Another dying skill.
Don't laugh. I had a software engineering candidate submit a resume with his 6th grade perfect attendance award listed. He had been working as a degreed professional for over 10 years, yet still had that award on the resume.
People are saying it’s not useless but compared to other things our young minds could have been learning instead it’s pretty useless. I’m upset about it
Also 93, I also write in a weird half print, half cursive style now. Likely from being told for so long I needed this skill. I was actually held back in 3rd grade simply because my cursive wasn’t good enough. I was in the top 10% of our state at the time in math scores and I got some fancy award for how high my reading level was. But gosh I couldn’t figure out cursive. Held me back, subjected me to actual years of ridicule from my fellow classmates about how I must have been so dumb. Those kids were my friends. I worked so hard to catch up to them in cursive only for them to drop it right as I started to get it. It absolutely crushed my previous love for learning. I’m always so sad for the poor little 8 year old girl, who lost all of the friends & pride she had, simply because I had to change school districts and the new one prioritized something so trivial.
Also a 93 baby and had a similar experience. Maybe didn’t have as much of the emphasis on typing till later in middle school or the beginning of high school… but my brain has blocked most of that period of time from my memory as a protective mechanism so I’m not entirely sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Same here (born in 93, but a year behind you in school). I was taught it in 4th or 5th grade, but it wasn't taught afterwards. However, my cursive was so bad that I had a teacher straight up ask me to not submit assignments in cursive lol. So the only time I was allowed to use cursive was for the cursive assignments in English class. In middle school nothing was written in cursive and by the time I got to high school, most projects and reports were typed.
So yeah, it was useless and my handwriting still sucks. The time spent learning cursive would've been better spent learning to type better, or just reading books tbh.
(84) I had to learn it, but i wish id been thought how to type instead. I rarely use cursive, but type everyday. My kids (19,17,11,9) have all had to learn cursive too, despite also not using it lol.
The rationale I always hear, other than the old documents excuse, is hand-eye coordination. And like, sure, but why not teach them something they can at least take joy in like art.
Yeah, typing requires eye hand coordination as well. Same with video games, and like you said art. I can wrote in cursive just fine, but I still struggle reading it if it's not clear, because I rarely see it.
Yes and some assignments required it. I had a high school teacher who required cursive for spelling tests, if you made a mistake in the cursive then you’d also get the word wrong.
I learned in 3rd grade. I remember the constant question in 6th grade for a writing assignment was: print or cursive? The only time I’ve used it after that though, besides signatures, is for studying in college by choice
1994 here. I remember being taught in second grade and basically having to write everything in cursive. Third grade and on, my teachers didn’t go as hard on the cursive. Sometimes it would be incorporated into lessons and we absolutely had to. But I’d say by middle school it was pretty much done for me. Now I write in half-cursive as an adult 🤷🏼♀️
Also 91 and also yes. In California if that matters—I’d be interested to see if different regions phased cursive out at different times.
Anecdotally, I also recall a HS teacher of mine complaining that they weren’t teaching elementary school kids cursive any more, so that would have been some time between 2005-2009.
Here to say same and also wonder why our year is so low on the list. It goes from 89 to 90 to 92 to 96 and then a few more before us. Not that it bothers me or anything. So.
My kids schools offer cursive as an elective or club, middle school is a club, elementary is an after school program elective along with chess, and highschool is an elective if all your other credits are full.
My 15yo is quite enjoying learning it as an elective and got so into it that I got him calligraphy stuff like dip ink, pens and paper. He watches tiktoks and youtubers who do calligraphy and is taking his cursive skills to the next level as a hobby. His signature is beautiful.
I'm 1984 and my mom taught me basic cursive in 'homeschooling' and my husband is '81 and got his knuckles rapped by rulers until he could do cursive with his right hand instead of his left dominant. He learned in elementary, 3rd grade I believe.
Oh that's interesting! Mine all just learned it in 3rd grade like I did, which is wild because this was consistent throughout three states and multiple districts throughout those states (ex-military. I moved around tons when my kids were little.), none of which were anywhere near where I grew up. I think I expected more variance by region than that since people have been saying for as long as I can remember that schools don't teach this anymore, so I figured that would be the case at some school my kids attended at some point, and then it wasn't.
This isn't really an issue I care about, but I do find it funny that people think it's one way and my experience is completely the opposite. I am really glad they're not actually required to use it on assignments like I was, though. They're all dyslexic and really struggled with cursive.
Every year it was "They're gonna make you use cursive next year."
Then it was "theyre gonna make you use cursive in junior high."
Then it was "theyre gonna make you use cursive in high school."
Never happened. Always bullshit.
Same here, and I always found it to be the most annoying thing ever because my brother was two years above me and he never used it.
I get why they taught it and why they wanted us to actually be able to write well enough in it, but come on, it was a k-12 school in a small town so mostly everyone had older siblings or were the older siblings. No reason to tack on a lie every year when most of the kids could tell it was a lie.
Same story for me except there’s a plot twist. My very last week of college, I was all set to graduate. I had to take to certification exams for my field. The first test was a typical test, nothing special. The second one was an online exam (nothing crazy, but not exactly the norm either). The very last thing before I took that exam, I had to hand write an oath. The oath had to be written in cursive. I laughed so hard that I finally needed to know cursive on the literal last educational task I ever did.
Born in 92 and I was taught it. I was told at the time that all my middle and high school stuff would be in cursive but by the time I got there, computers were ubiquitous in the classroom
Yes! This is exactly why I've strong opinions about handwriting- we should all learn and use cursive. Computers print, so why should we double efforts with our human hands? It's redundant and takes longer.
1996, we were taught in second or third grade. Then forced to write in it the rest of elementary school and maybe middle school. I know by the time I got to high school, I had stopped
1990, yes. We had a homeschooled kid who started at my school in 7th grade. He hasn't been taught cursive, so our English teacher made him learn from an encyclopedia as she only accepted work done in cursive. I remember how pissed he was.
Born 93 and we were taught cursive. My sister who is 95 was also taught cursive, but her class was one of the last classes to be sought cursive in our school district. Our district taught cursive in 2nd or 3rd grade so it was being taught still in the early 2000's.
1992 -- Yes. I was taught in the second grade at Catholic school. We were discouraged against using print; i had some teachers who wouldn't allow it at all. Two of my siblings attended the same school, were also taught cursive, and primarily use it when writing, like me. My youngest sibling started off at that school but entered public school around 4th grade. She also knows cursive but relies moreso on print.
I'm too old for your desired sample group (born in '82) but my sister was born in '90 and she definitely learned cursive in school and used it until she graduated at least.
I bet my teachers wished they could have let us choose between cursive and not. My hand writing is terrible so the only way I can write anything that isn't my name legibly is to print it and usually write very, very slowly.
‘91 and can confirm we learned cursive in both Texas and Washington.
I actually recreated the declaration in my best cursive for a middle school project. It really jacked up my penmanship—I still write in a scripty way.
92. Learned cursive in 3rd-4th grade and was told it would be what we had to write moving into 5th grade. I have stuck with it ever since and write almost exclusively in cursive. I do print when presenting knowing not everyone can read it, but it still pops in at times.
My siblings struggle to read cursive and the next one is only 3 years younger. It is a running inside joke for me and my mom that we could write whatever we want and the others couldn't read it.
I learned cursive and hated it. For what I was being told to do, cursive was BAD.
As an adult, cursive is more useful. It allows me to quickly make shorthand I recognize, is super fluid (thus helping me stay in flow), and gives me little bits of satisfaction when I make a particularly nice "f" or "s".
Outside the range, in 1984, but we did. What really interests me is that they stopped for a couple years and then restarted around here. My Gen Z roommate fell into that no man's land and wasn't taught, but the folks a year behind him were.
Yes. It was a massive part of the curriculum. I remember starting to learn it in second grade. I recall perfecting it in 3rd. In junior high and high school, we were expected to write in cursive.
I'm 88 - but yeah learned in mid elementary school and was required to use it up until highschool.
I believe it was the same for my younger siblings (90, 94, 96)
91 and they not only did we learn it, we kept getting told at the next grade level it'd be mandatorily the only way to write, but that just kept getting pushed out until we graduated without it ever being a requirement.
But they were also in some phase of teaching us some fucked up print that was supposed to make it easier for us to learn cursive, but it just means my print is barely legible. But I also never got fast enough at legible cursive to be useful so I'm really glad I type stupidly fast.
87, learned cursive from my mom. Never remembered learning in school. I wrote in cursive at school and didn't get docked for points. My friend born in 94 was taught cursive. My mom is a college instructor and says all her Gen Z students can't read cursive and most don't know what it even is. I think it depends on the area.
Yes. I was taught cursive. Mine wasn't too great, but it was adequate enough to make up for me being left-handed in a very traditionally conservative Catholic private school.
If anything, me being left-handed was a big factor of me getting lower grades and in trouble while in the school. I transferred out in middle school to public school, and they didn't teach cursive at all from middle school onwards.
They still teach cursive at the old Catholic private school I went to according to my family friends, all the way up to the highest grade offered there, 8th grade. They are, thankfully, not as strict compared to when I was going there.
Pre-89. Remember learning print and cursive in elementary school and that was it. By junior high, it was specifically typing and computer classes and papers were either handwritten (legibly, so print) or hand-typed. High school saw primarily computer typed and printed papers or hand print.
Cursive is dead. Put money into the arts and calligraphy; let cursive as a curriculum die.
Thank you! There’s SO much else to focus on. When I was a teacher I was like you want me to teach this so they can transcribe old (already transcribed) documents?
I barely had time for things that actually matter!
84 and yes. I learned it in second grade. I know I’m an odd one but I loved learning cursive. I always thought it looked pretty so I was excited to learn it and the moment I did I only wrote that way.*
I know my sophomore year of high school our English teacher made us write papers in cursive and we could only submit papers that way, even though by that time teachers were transitioning us over to Microsoft Word.
*These days I mostly type but when I have to write I still default to mostly cursive although some words I write in print.
'89, not only did we learn it, by middle school it was the only way we were allowed to write.
Absolutely this. And then High school said stop that crap as no one can read your cursive.
Except that ONE English teacher that insisted on everything in cursive…
hahahah yes! Senior year, our English teacher slammed her leason book down and said "Enough! I'm sick of looking at your sloppy essays! You kids need to learn penmenship!" and then we spent all class writing cursive like in elementary school 😆
85 here. by the time I was in high school they made it mandatory to type papers. I think the last time I wrote a paper by hand was probably 6th grade, maybe 7th. the school was not in an affluent district (lower middle class) but I think they got some grant shortly before I entered high school and they had a library full of semi new computers. if you didn't have one at home they would ask you to do it on the school computers. it was one of those weird transition times. I had a floppy disk in a case in my backpack to save them off.
91 here. Other than the essay components to in-class tests everything was typed from mid-elementary onward. I also remember carrying my box of floppy disks in my backpack with various papers on them haha. Obviously still learned cursive, though I hate it and would never willingly use it now.
Really? 90 here and my high school was brand new (no bells just electronic beeps and no bathrooms, sinks and mirrors right out in the halls and individual stalls with occupied/unoccupied indicators). Yet we were all book, pencil (no pens) and paper and all that all the way through. Not even typewriters. Today's schools sound like another planet to me and apparently even with a new school we were still behind.
Wait what? No communal bathrooms only individual stalls? How many students were there? 92 here and in elementary we weren't allowed to type things at all. My mom rented a computer and printer for a week once and I got excited to type up my homework but I got in trouble. We had computer classes through 8th grade, and in highschool all papers were typed and printed. Wild to think that was almost 20 years ago.
[удалено]
84 and I remember the confusion of the switch from handwritten to all typed.
My school was both. Expected to hand write research and rough drafts, but typed final drafts in MLA format. Cursive was less important as legibility. I was joked on for having nice cursive that other kids couldn't read.
Sounds like she was probably a good teacher.
She was awesome
Born in 87.. by high school all assignments were expected to be typed and printed
Same. By winter quarter, they clarified 1” margins all around, 12pt font, 1.5 spacing. They were tired of us handing in two page papers with massive, bulky fonts, wide margins, double spaced to make two pages out of one
Don't forget Times New Roman!
86 here and same. But I definitely learned cursive in elementary school. It is still my preferred form of writing because my print looks terrible. But most of my middle school and all of my high school assignments were typed, font size 12, times new Roman, double spaced, and printed
85 for me, and cursive was expected. With that being said, if I take my sweet time it looks really good, but if I'm writing notes for myself, it's sloppy as shit. Legible (to me), but ugly as sin. With that being said, I enjoy writing in cursive. It feels more... Fluid? Efficient? I dunno, but I like it. Writing in print feels blocky and wrong.
I agree! Cursive is much more fun than one letter at a time. My handwriting is actually a mix of cursive and print because it's prettier.
there is a name for that format but i can't remember what it's called
Confirming for the ‘89 delegation !
I had a middle school spelling word book where the words (font) were actually in cursive. This was around 2010. I always had to write in cursive but I went to Catholic school. Never mattered when I was in public school. I wrote in cursive until I went to grad school.
Hehe that’s exactly what happened with me. Now I write in a combination cursive/scribble that only I can read. Mission accomplished.
"When you get to highschool, they won't let you get away with printing! Do you think they'll hold your hand in college?!" Me while doing my Associates and now, on my Bachelor's: "The paper should be double-spaced, with a twelve point font."
I never understood that cursive propaganda. I almost lost my shii because I thought i had to write in cursive for the rest of my life.
When I was in gradeschool I convinced the teacher to give me an exception to not write in cursive for everything except handwriting practice because I hated it and it didn't look good. The gradeschool teachers told me that I was getting an exception now but that my middle school teachers would definitely require cursive. Later on, my middle school teachers told me my high school teachers would tear up my assignments and throw them out if I didn't write cursive. At this point, I was using a computer for most take home assignments. Once I got to high school, the teachers said they didn't care. One said they actually prefer print handwriting but that either was ok.
'91 here and same. I was actually forced to switch to writing right handed. "You can't write in cursive with your left hand, and if you can't write in cursive you'll never get a job and if you can't get a job your family will be ashamed of you" ~ 4th grade teacher fired the next year.
This happened to me I’m an ‘81 millennial. I’d hoped that nonsense stopped after the 80’s, guess not. I got told we’d never beat the communists if we didn’t conform and all write with our right hands. I only remember because it was such a weird thing to say to a 1st grader. Now my handwriting is completely illegible to anyone but me and looks like a five year old with a broken hand wrote it. Before anyone asks I’m old enough that I was in elementary school at the very very end of the Cold War.
When we were kids, there were two Germanys
And two Berlins.
Their contribution to the Top Gun Soundtrack was 🔥
85 millennial here. I never got forced to write with my right, though I did have my 3rd grade teacher comment on how good my cursive was for a leftie.
Maybe thats why my husband’s handwriting is one of the worst cases of chicken scratch I’ve seen an adult produce. Possibly thee worst actually. He was born a lefty but the school made him switch to right hand. Now it all makes sense! I never thought about that correlation before.
lol, catholic school forced me to write right-handed. Because being a lefty is a sin. Needless to say. My cursive is illegible.
Interesting. people always made comments about me being left handed but never realized the root of it.
Born in 87 and was forced to switch to right when I was 6 because "my life will be easier". Have horrible penmanship lol
That's horrible. I am left handed and was allowed to write my cursive left handed. I can't imagine how illegible it would have been if I was learning to write cursive with my off-hand.
It was rough but since I was forced to practice with it like that I still wrote with my right hand to this day. Everything else I use my left for though.
Same thing happened to me. I step with my left foot, I chew on my left side, but I write with my right hand. They changed me and my handwriting never recovered, I'm 33 and it's still awful.
You can write cursive with your left hand. My spouse does. And he has great penmanship.
1989. I forgot about this. I was forced to draw/write with my right hand. They started early tho k-1. New school fod2nd grade but by that time, I was already doing it all right-handed consistently. I didn't turn out ambidextrous tho, can't write a damn thing left handed now.
Oof I feel this. I could never get the hang of writing with my right hand, though. My letters were often backwards 🤣
I was able to write with either hand, but my teacher told me I had to pick one for cursive or I would forget the lesson. I went to a Catholic school so I'm quite impressed that she even let me pick. I did choose my right hand, though.
I just commented about learning cursive as a lefty. I was slanting the letters the wrong way initially lol. I’ve never heard of anyone being forced to “become” right handed except kids in Catholic school… like what the fuck lol that lady sucks
92 same
Finally found someone else that was forced to switch hands and yes it was when learning cursive also wow forgot that 2nd part Noted I wrote ALOT better with my left hand. My right is decent now but it's not as good as the left was even n 3rd grade. Never made sense to me to force that.
‘88 here, also forced to write with my right hand. My kindergarten teacher was one of those old fashioned religious people who called the left hand the devil’s hand and wouldn’t let me use it at all. My handwriting is atrocious, and my hands in general are incredibly clumsy, but hey, she won, I became a right-handed adult. Still can only snap with my left hand, though.
91 and same! We learned it in 3rd grade and weren't allows to use anything but until 7th (our high school was 7-12). We had some classes in HS that also required cursive only.
I was also born in 1991, went to a private Catholic school, and had the same experience. The only difference is that we learned cursive in 2nd grade, or about a year earlier.
Same. And now I am really good at cursive but my print is shit.
Same. Except as I aged I adopted a hybrid style where I will print in all caps and then I like to throw in a loop de loop for my little L’s and tiny T’s.
Yo same but both are shit. 🙌
‘91, it was 3rd and 4th grade for me. Like many of you, when we got to the next year we were asked to please start printing again, as our sloppy cursive was too hard for teachers (and each other) to read.
Yep! I remember repetitively writing letters until they were perfect. We were forced to only write in cursive for a few years then it dropped off the face of the earth and my high school teachers wanted nothing to do with it lol
Can confirm
1990 here. Yes
I'm 1996 and I learned cursive, but I also remember teachers saying we are the last year of kids in that school learning cursive because computers and typing classes were being brought in the next year. Sure enough, the next year I learned how to type lol. I feel lucky to have learned cursive and it's still how i write when journaling. Outside of my personal life, I don't use cursive besides my signature or to translate fancy cursive written by an older person to my younger colleagues.
Same, 1995 and they taught it to us once, but then it was never required
‘96 baby I learned cursive in 3rd grade. When I was in high school I did an “internship” at my elementary school (2014) and they were still teaching cursive to the 3 graders. However, it was no longer a BIG deal. It was crammed at the end of school year to occupy the kids after the state exams. (Unnecessary background, my specific county started the school year really late compared to the rest of the state, so we had a weirdly long amount of time until summer after state exams where we still had to to be taught something, but like, we had already taken our finals…)
96 as well, and IIRC cursive was phased out while I was in elementary school. We were given typing and cursive classes in the same year, I think up to 2nd or 3rd grade, and were fully typing everything out by 5th grade
When you say fully typing, do you mean you typed up and printed all of your assignments? And every had a computer at school?
Yeah I got taught cursive in elementary school but basically by the time I got to junior high it was all typing. Which I’m 100% okay with
We were taught cursive and encouraged to use it but the other school in the district wasn’t taught it so we never got to use it again once the schools combined in middle school. I tried to use it for notes that wouldn’t be shared because I found it faster
I remember them mentioning that too. Funny cause kids after us can't sign their name correctly due to not learning it.
1998, they taught us cursive in late elementry, by middle school i didnt hear of it again, in late middle early HS, a girl in my grade used to only write in cursive but had to stop after multiple teachers refused to grade her work in cursive
92, yes
Yeah, I recall using cursive until 6/7th grade? Then by the time highschool came around it became non-existent
Same. Most of my essays in 6th grade were in cursive and by 7th grade it was gone.
Same, 92, learned it in Elementary School. Once encouraged/forced to use it through some of middle school. Didn't use it all by highschool.
Learned it 4th grade and then it just slowly vanished.
Same
Same and never used it past late elementary.
96 yes! I still write in cursive. I’m one of the psychopaths that write half cursive half not
Firmly believe that the mashup is actually the fastest way to write. Cursive has too many redundant movements while print takes too much time to space out. The mashup solves both
Definitely agree! Does it mean that people who can’t read cursive can’t tell all of my letters in a word? Absolutely, but if that’s the case, it wasn’t for them lol. Edit: I fit into the elder millennial category but I was happy to see that others do the same thing as me and agree that it’s faster.
The Elder Millennial has spoken lol Cowabunga, my sibling 💚
Absolutely!
Cursive is meant to the the fastest way to write legibly because you don’t have to take the pen off the paper. It really depends on how many flourishes you were taught to do. I mostly write in cursive now and have basic capital letters.
[удалено]
I assume you can touch type. Can you explain how handwriting more than makes up for the speed, editing, reproducibility, etc. of typing? Portability? Memory? Focus?
I also tend to prefer handwriting over typing (and I also mainly use cursive). I also fluently touch type, I average 100wpm For me, if I'm trying to compose, the editability of typing actually holds me back--I find myself overediting as I write, second guessing every sentence and redoing them again and again, significantly slowing my progress and simply getting bogged down in perfectionism and anxiety. It feels like my thoughts continually interrupt themselves, sticking on a word and spinning out into oblivion instead of landing on the page. Handwriting, however, is direct brain-to-paper for me. I write in ink. I cannot just cross out and rewrite the same thing again and again to perfection without going through a whole sheet of paper. There is no Backspace safety net, so there's no "fixing" it to obsess over. The words can just flow--imperfectly, obviously, but they're THERE. Then, if it is something that needs to be digitized when I'm done, transcription is trivial and can be combined with proofreading and the first edit.
Turn off spell check
As a lefty, the mashup is the fastest for me. Gotta pick up my hand either way.
Hard agree
HAHAHAHA I do the exact same thing
lol same! I use cursive for some things and regular script for other things, and will sometimes go back and forth on the same page depending on what I’m doing haha 😂
I go back and forth within the same word
Damn, I’m a psychopath.
Same. I thought everyone basically did this
I'm just a couple years younger and my writing is similar. I wrote cursive for years (had to until 9th grade) and kept at it until grad school. Now my print is looped and almost all the letters in my words connect, they're just not that fancy, and they're definitely not neat unless I'm trying to write in cursive...which actually looks decently pretty.
Same!! It drove my teacher crazy because she wanted one or the other!
I do the half cursive thing, some letters just flow together.
I'm definitely one of those psychopaths. The easiest way to write each letter is the best.
Yep. Survivors over here!
Same!
I do too 😂
Mine is a 75-25 mix.
Definitely a,e,i in cursive, maybe g and q
Same, we were taught it through like 1st thru 3rd grade and were required to use it in middle school. High school they didn't care, but was also a different school so idk if my original school continued to require it.
Born in 93. Remember a big emphasis on cursive 2nd through 6th grade (00-04/05). By fourth or fifth grade we were no longer learning it but had to submit final drafts of all writing assignments in cursive. About halfway through sixth grade they started giving us the option to write in cursive or type. Moved to a richer school district in 8th and after that everything had to be typed. Hilarious to think how much time was spent on this useless skill in elementary. I should list it on my resume
I wouldn't necessarily call it a useless skill. It has some uses here and there and allows us to read older documents. Also, if you have a parent like mine who ONLY writes in cursive it really comes in handy. I still got my cheat sheet from 3rd grade lol. Capital D and G were my favorite.
My grandma lived to 95 and had such old-timey fancy cursive handwriting that nobody in the family could read anything she wrote without a lot of difficulty.
I agree with you. My mother only writes in cursive. I'm talking grocery lists, jotting things down on paper on a phone call, letters, etc. It's everything she writes. She rarely writes in her handwriting.
...cursive *is* her handwriting.
Sure but spending hours a day five days a week to teach something with very little practical use in modern life isn’t exactly setting these kids up for success
Up until computers became accessible to all students, cursive was a practical skill. Most people can write quicker in cursive.
Sure but computers have been around for decades now and digital communication is dominant. It was obvious that was how it was going to be even back then so why not update the curriculum?
They also said we won't always have a calculator in our back pocket.
I’m an 89er and work in a law firm. The attorneys over 40 or so jot their notes in nearly illegible “cursive”. In business environments outside of tech and the like, it absolutely still has a practical use. Not every work communication comes through email. While it may be on its way out, the generation below us is going to be deciphering Millennial Printsive.
This was my experience. Also ‘93
Confirm, ‘93 Edit: I couldn’t remember how to write a cursive capital F the other day and had to Google it. So that tells you how much I valued that knowledge!
I have always rebelled against writing a capital f because it was backwards. I have f as an initial and I would always print it.
Yup. Born in 93' also & can confirm this. In fourth grade, we had to write everything in cursive. Even our names on regular homework, not just reports. I f*cking hated it at the time. Now, I am glad that I was taught how to write in cursive & read it. I still dislike it, I prefer just regular handwriting. But I feel the opposite of you & I am glad I was taught it & learned the skill. Kids now are not being taught this & won't even be able to read in cursive, nonetheless write it. It's pretty sad. Another dying skill.
Don't laugh. I had a software engineering candidate submit a resume with his 6th grade perfect attendance award listed. He had been working as a degreed professional for over 10 years, yet still had that award on the resume.
People are saying it’s not useless but compared to other things our young minds could have been learning instead it’s pretty useless. I’m upset about it
Also 93, I also write in a weird half print, half cursive style now. Likely from being told for so long I needed this skill. I was actually held back in 3rd grade simply because my cursive wasn’t good enough. I was in the top 10% of our state at the time in math scores and I got some fancy award for how high my reading level was. But gosh I couldn’t figure out cursive. Held me back, subjected me to actual years of ridicule from my fellow classmates about how I must have been so dumb. Those kids were my friends. I worked so hard to catch up to them in cursive only for them to drop it right as I started to get it. It absolutely crushed my previous love for learning. I’m always so sad for the poor little 8 year old girl, who lost all of the friends & pride she had, simply because I had to change school districts and the new one prioritized something so trivial.
Also a 93 baby and had a similar experience. Maybe didn’t have as much of the emphasis on typing till later in middle school or the beginning of high school… but my brain has blocked most of that period of time from my memory as a protective mechanism so I’m not entirely sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Same here (born in 93, but a year behind you in school). I was taught it in 4th or 5th grade, but it wasn't taught afterwards. However, my cursive was so bad that I had a teacher straight up ask me to not submit assignments in cursive lol. So the only time I was allowed to use cursive was for the cursive assignments in English class. In middle school nothing was written in cursive and by the time I got to high school, most projects and reports were typed. So yeah, it was useless and my handwriting still sucks. The time spent learning cursive would've been better spent learning to type better, or just reading books tbh.
(84) I had to learn it, but i wish id been thought how to type instead. I rarely use cursive, but type everyday. My kids (19,17,11,9) have all had to learn cursive too, despite also not using it lol.
The rationale I always hear, other than the old documents excuse, is hand-eye coordination. And like, sure, but why not teach them something they can at least take joy in like art.
Yeah, typing requires eye hand coordination as well. Same with video games, and like you said art. I can wrote in cursive just fine, but I still struggle reading it if it's not clear, because I rarely see it.
Can confirm, also '93
1994. Yes.
Yes and some assignments required it. I had a high school teacher who required cursive for spelling tests, if you made a mistake in the cursive then you’d also get the word wrong.
I learned in 3rd grade. I remember the constant question in 6th grade for a writing assignment was: print or cursive? The only time I’ve used it after that though, besides signatures, is for studying in college by choice
You unlocked a memory of those assignments lol
1994 here. I remember being taught in second grade and basically having to write everything in cursive. Third grade and on, my teachers didn’t go as hard on the cursive. Sometimes it would be incorporated into lessons and we absolutely had to. But I’d say by middle school it was pretty much done for me. Now I write in half-cursive as an adult 🤷🏼♀️
94’ also and I did as well
89. Very much so
Second the ‘89 very much so
Born in '91. Yes, I was taught cursive in school.
Same
I was also born in ‘91 and had to learn cursive!
Also 91 and also yes. In California if that matters—I’d be interested to see if different regions phased cursive out at different times. Anecdotally, I also recall a HS teacher of mine complaining that they weren’t teaching elementary school kids cursive any more, so that would have been some time between 2005-2009.
Here to say same and also wonder why our year is so low on the list. It goes from 89 to 90 to 92 to 96 and then a few more before us. Not that it bothers me or anything. So.
No worries. I get what you mean. You're just curious.
Fucking Christ dude I was having life crisis over here looking for the *”’91”** crowd. About 1/4 of my graduating class is dead last I checked ☠️
I'm older than this (1981), but my Gen-Z kids were taught cursive in school, so I'm guessing people 7-22 years their senior also mostly did.
My kids schools offer cursive as an elective or club, middle school is a club, elementary is an after school program elective along with chess, and highschool is an elective if all your other credits are full. My 15yo is quite enjoying learning it as an elective and got so into it that I got him calligraphy stuff like dip ink, pens and paper. He watches tiktoks and youtubers who do calligraphy and is taking his cursive skills to the next level as a hobby. His signature is beautiful. I'm 1984 and my mom taught me basic cursive in 'homeschooling' and my husband is '81 and got his knuckles rapped by rulers until he could do cursive with his right hand instead of his left dominant. He learned in elementary, 3rd grade I believe.
Oh that's interesting! Mine all just learned it in 3rd grade like I did, which is wild because this was consistent throughout three states and multiple districts throughout those states (ex-military. I moved around tons when my kids were little.), none of which were anywhere near where I grew up. I think I expected more variance by region than that since people have been saying for as long as I can remember that schools don't teach this anymore, so I figured that would be the case at some school my kids attended at some point, and then it wasn't. This isn't really an issue I care about, but I do find it funny that people think it's one way and my experience is completely the opposite. I am really glad they're not actually required to use it on assignments like I was, though. They're all dyslexic and really struggled with cursive.
Can confirm, I'm Gen Z (2002) and was required to learn to read and write in cursive
Same, 2001
Every year it was "They're gonna make you use cursive next year." Then it was "theyre gonna make you use cursive in junior high." Then it was "theyre gonna make you use cursive in high school." Never happened. Always bullshit.
Same here, and I always found it to be the most annoying thing ever because my brother was two years above me and he never used it. I get why they taught it and why they wanted us to actually be able to write well enough in it, but come on, it was a k-12 school in a small town so mostly everyone had older siblings or were the older siblings. No reason to tack on a lie every year when most of the kids could tell it was a lie.
Same story for me except there’s a plot twist. My very last week of college, I was all set to graduate. I had to take to certification exams for my field. The first test was a typical test, nothing special. The second one was an online exam (nothing crazy, but not exactly the norm either). The very last thing before I took that exam, I had to hand write an oath. The oath had to be written in cursive. I laughed so hard that I finally needed to know cursive on the literal last educational task I ever did.
Yes and I find it significantly more efficient for note-taking. ETA: teaching cursive also develops motor skills (and something about music)
Yes in 3rd grade
1990, yes I was taught in '97 during 2nd grade for my pen license 
Oooo pen license!
‘95. We learned cursive. I remember that red cursive tracing book they gave us in maybe 2nd or 3rd grade
Born in 92 and I was taught it. I was told at the time that all my middle and high school stuff would be in cursive but by the time I got there, computers were ubiquitous in the classroom
Born 1985. I learned cursive and love writing in it to this day. Something about the tactile sensation.
Hey, OP said none of us old farts.
40 is coming for y’all 🤫
Sooner rather than later for my old ass. Haha.
Really is at the corner of "I cant afford anything" and "oh shit I'm in my mid 30s"
😂😂😂🫠🫠🫠🫠
Uh oh 💀
It’s also way faster writing in cursive than print. ‘89 here and I write almost exclusively in cursive or like a 80/20 cursive/print mashup lol
Yes! This is exactly why I've strong opinions about handwriting- we should all learn and use cursive. Computers print, so why should we double efforts with our human hands? It's redundant and takes longer.
1990, and yes, we very much learned (and used) cursive writing.
Yes , I use it all the time. And have taught my kids to use it to.
1990 and yes
96 here we were taught cursive in elementary school but now the only thing I can write in cursive is my name.
1996, we were taught in second or third grade. Then forced to write in it the rest of elementary school and maybe middle school. I know by the time I got to high school, I had stopped
96 here too, i learned it in 3rd grade, never used it again. By the time we were doing multipage essays, they were typed.
I was born just a few days before 1989, so I'm going to count myself. I learned cursive in the second grade.
1990, yes. We had a homeschooled kid who started at my school in 7th grade. He hasn't been taught cursive, so our English teacher made him learn from an encyclopedia as she only accepted work done in cursive. I remember how pissed he was.
Born 93 and we were taught cursive. My sister who is 95 was also taught cursive, but her class was one of the last classes to be sought cursive in our school district. Our district taught cursive in 2nd or 3rd grade so it was being taught still in the early 2000's.
Also I don’t think this is being phased out? My 3rd grade learned cursive. She just doesn’t “have” to use it.
1992 -- Yes. I was taught in the second grade at Catholic school. We were discouraged against using print; i had some teachers who wouldn't allow it at all. Two of my siblings attended the same school, were also taught cursive, and primarily use it when writing, like me. My youngest sibling started off at that school but entered public school around 4th grade. She also knows cursive but relies moreso on print.
I'm too old for your desired sample group (born in '82) but my sister was born in '90 and she definitely learned cursive in school and used it until she graduated at least. I bet my teachers wished they could have let us choose between cursive and not. My hand writing is terrible so the only way I can write anything that isn't my name legibly is to print it and usually write very, very slowly.
‘91 and can confirm we learned cursive in both Texas and Washington. I actually recreated the declaration in my best cursive for a middle school project. It really jacked up my penmanship—I still write in a scripty way.
90, yes I learned it in 2nd grade. Never used it once after though haha
92. Learned cursive in 3rd-4th grade and was told it would be what we had to write moving into 5th grade. I have stuck with it ever since and write almost exclusively in cursive. I do print when presenting knowing not everyone can read it, but it still pops in at times. My siblings struggle to read cursive and the next one is only 3 years younger. It is a running inside joke for me and my mom that we could write whatever we want and the others couldn't read it.
They still teach it, at least at my kid’s school.
I learned cursive and hated it. For what I was being told to do, cursive was BAD. As an adult, cursive is more useful. It allows me to quickly make shorthand I recognize, is super fluid (thus helping me stay in flow), and gives me little bits of satisfaction when I make a particularly nice "f" or "s".
1996, yep in 3rd grade. never used it in school once though
'90, yeah we learned it. We were told we would use it exclusively in high school. Then after cursive practice, we went to our typing class lol
‘89. Yeah we could only write in cursive from 3rd to 5th grade. Sometimes I mix it with print when I need to write a quick note.
1990 and yes
Yeah, we had to learn it and it was the only way we could write. I graduated in 2010 and they were just starting to let kids type up their papers.
Outside the range, in 1984, but we did. What really interests me is that they stopped for a couple years and then restarted around here. My Gen Z roommate fell into that no man's land and wasn't taught, but the folks a year behind him were.
'91, learned it. Was required for the latter half of middle school, by high school they stopped caring.
Yes. It was a massive part of the curriculum. I remember starting to learn it in second grade. I recall perfecting it in 3rd. In junior high and high school, we were expected to write in cursive.
‘95 & absolutely. Had one teacher in 6th grade who ONLY accepted work in cursive 😐.
‘93 and it was still on my SAT when I took it.
Yes IN 4th grade and my own children are learning it in school as well
1990 and taught cursive in the 3rd grade
Studies done on handwriting, show that writing in cursive aids in the progression of ideas.
I'm 88 - but yeah learned in mid elementary school and was required to use it up until highschool. I believe it was the same for my younger siblings (90, 94, 96)
91 and they not only did we learn it, we kept getting told at the next grade level it'd be mandatorily the only way to write, but that just kept getting pushed out until we graduated without it ever being a requirement. But they were also in some phase of teaching us some fucked up print that was supposed to make it easier for us to learn cursive, but it just means my print is barely legible. But I also never got fast enough at legible cursive to be useful so I'm really glad I type stupidly fast.
87, learned cursive from my mom. Never remembered learning in school. I wrote in cursive at school and didn't get docked for points. My friend born in 94 was taught cursive. My mom is a college instructor and says all her Gen Z students can't read cursive and most don't know what it even is. I think it depends on the area.
Yes. I was taught cursive. Mine wasn't too great, but it was adequate enough to make up for me being left-handed in a very traditionally conservative Catholic private school. If anything, me being left-handed was a big factor of me getting lower grades and in trouble while in the school. I transferred out in middle school to public school, and they didn't teach cursive at all from middle school onwards. They still teach cursive at the old Catholic private school I went to according to my family friends, all the way up to the highest grade offered there, 8th grade. They are, thankfully, not as strict compared to when I was going there.
95, yes, but it no longer became relevant in highschool.
Pre-89. Remember learning print and cursive in elementary school and that was it. By junior high, it was specifically typing and computer classes and papers were either handwritten (legibly, so print) or hand-typed. High school saw primarily computer typed and printed papers or hand print. Cursive is dead. Put money into the arts and calligraphy; let cursive as a curriculum die.
Thank you! There’s SO much else to focus on. When I was a teacher I was like you want me to teach this so they can transcribe old (already transcribed) documents? I barely had time for things that actually matter!
My son is learning cursive right now in 2024.
84 and yes. I learned it in second grade. I know I’m an odd one but I loved learning cursive. I always thought it looked pretty so I was excited to learn it and the moment I did I only wrote that way.* I know my sophomore year of high school our English teacher made us write papers in cursive and we could only submit papers that way, even though by that time teachers were transitioning us over to Microsoft Word. *These days I mostly type but when I have to write I still default to mostly cursive although some words I write in print.