Cursive Writing or is it Cursed Writing?

   I recently received a very nice note from a person who had read one of my columns a week or two ago. After reading it I put the note down for a minute but then picked it up again. The handwriting was beautiful. The note was not typed or printed, but written in cursive. It was obvious this person had learned cursive writing very well, way back when. Perhaps she had been a teacher, or maybe a calligrapher.
   I am not sure how many people today know what cursive writing is. So, in my best 'Jimmy Olsen' mode, I decided to do some investigating.
   The questions I needed to answer ...........”Is cursive writing still taught in schools? Do students spend hours upon hours practicing the hand motion for each letter and then put them together to spell a word?”    
   The answer was.............”not as much time as in the past.” Computers have changed how we write and students need to recognize letters as they would see them on a computer screen.
   Well, that makes some sense to me, but there must be more.
   I contacted some of my educator friends and posed the questions. The general consensus was that it takes too much time to teach cursive writing and there are so many more important things students need to learn (for the test, of course). With only so many hours in the day, 'something has to give.' Let’s give up handwriting!
   Again, that makes some sense to me, but I am not sure I like where this is heading.
   Children don't like to write any more because in some cases it means putting down their game boy or giving up the cell phone and texting. It was difficult enough to learn to print letters, now we have to transform them into cursive. For those students having difficulty writing, there is a program available called “Handwriting Without Tears.” Are those teacher tears, student tears or parent tears. (Remember the old report cards with a penmanship grade?)
   When I was in high school (that was the early 60's) most teachers required term papers and project  be typed rather than hand written. Even in those days the 'writing was on the wall!' If a student submitted a term paper that was hand written, points were deducted. I wonder how many moms or dads stayed up late at night to type that term paper the night before it was due. (Does spelling count?)
   Colleges have always been on the cutting edge when it comes to being innovative. Professors now want students to email there papers and projects. Saves space and saves a tree or two, but what about the experience of getting a paper returned, bathed in red ink? High school and even middle school teachers are beginning to follow a similar path.
   I am waiting in line at a local bank recently and the person ahead of me is cashing a check. The teller asks the person to sign the back of the check with a signature. A what? Can I print my name? Please?
   So to the person who sent me the hand written cursive note, I thank you, not only for the note but for a reminder of what may become a lost art.

What "if"...............

There is a commercial on television where the word 'life' is part of a product name and, as part of the advertisement, they highlight the word 'if' within the word 'life'. Very clever, and very true. Life  holds a series of 'ifs' for us and it is up to us to do what we will when confronted with those 'ifs'. How many times have you heard someone say...”what if I don't pass the test” or “what if I am late to the appointment.”

What "if " people said... “may I, please, and thank you?” Would it be a kinder world? Would people be more polite toward each other? Would there be less violence. Interesting to think about!

Baseball caps have become part of a wardrobe and a culture. But what "if"... a young man took off his cap upon entering a room or restaurant. What would happen if the young man removed his cap upon meeting someone new. Would that person thing more highly of the young man?

What "if."..politicians kept the promises they made during the campaign and worked as hard after the election as they did to get themselves elected. Now I know promises are hard to keep  and as a result, some might decide to make fewer promises or at least make ones they know they can keep.

What "if" on a given day, no one used a cell phone or a blackberry and just went about life as it used to be. A person was recently interviewed on his way from an eye exam. He was concerned that his sight was failing. He reported that he texts someone about every forty to fifty seconds. No wonder his eyesight is going bad. His texting  may have been preventing him from a daily schedule of personal hygiene as it appeared he needed a shower, a shave, and a comb. Come on, every forty seconds???

What "if.".. everyone stayed within the speed limits on the highways? Would there be fewer accidents and could money be saved with fewer police and lower insurance rates? So what "if "it took a bit longer to get to where your were going. Leave earlier?

What "if"... a law were passed to force families  to sit down and have dinner together once a week? Before someone comes unglued with my suggestion of government interference into everyday life, I know the law would never pass. I mean, look at the biker helmet law. And that one is designed to help save lives. Think about the potential positive outcomes of sitting down together as a family or with friends (for those who do not have families). You wouldn't have to text them for at least an hour!

What "if.".. stores were not allowed to be open on Sundays? Is it really necessary to  shop seven days a week? There once was a time when.........I think it was called the 1950's and most of us grew up OK!
And what "if", just for a minute each day, we stopped to think about how fortunate we are to be able to live and move about freely, wear what we want, think what we want, eat what we like and read what we enjoy.

Please feel free to send me your “what if”...........

Who will take care of me when I am old?

My dad passed away at age 91. My mother turned 92 last week. She recently moved from an assisted living center in Portland to one in Bangor. A bit closer for convenience and with current gas prices, it seemed to make sense.

Generations ago, aging family members would have lived at home, with care given by family members. There also seemed to be a nice social piece here too.

This is not going to be a column about moving, although there were a few interesting moments in the move. This is a '500 word ' take on life and how it is changing.

Today everything seems to be political. Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. Tea Party or Libertarian or any other group out there fighting for lower taxes, health care reform, fighting for less government or in some cases, more government , they all have one thing in common. The younger you are today, the likelihood is that you will live longer in the future, longer than any previous generation. The current life expectancy is 77.5 years, give or take a couple a couple of months. That is up significantly from just fifty years ago. It is no wonder the sixty-five and up generation is fighting to lower taxes and hold on to precious retirement dollars. Those of us in that group have a pretty good understanding of the future, primarily because the future for us has arrived and we know how expensive it will be. But, do we have to make 'living longer' a political issue. Lets see, those born in even years can live to an age of …while those born in odd years......

As a result of living longer, people may be forced to work longer. Can you imagine getting up and going to work each day at age eighty. There are some mornings I can barely move now. At eighty? I know there are some eighty year olds who do work. But my guess is they do it because they want to, not because they have to. A little extra cash in the pocket is a good thing. But the future? Those dollars may have to pay the everyday bills.

I also assume that the younger generation, like those before them, are not preparing for those glorious days of retirement, a time when your income will come from social security and retirement accounts that might have been managed by a Bernie Madoff type or someone similar, seeking to insure his or her own retirement happiness.

Today, the 'kids' as they are often called, are buying houses, raising families, and paying for college educations as they should. They probably will not have the resources to take care of mom and dad. (Just an aside. When I went to college, the tuition rate was $4300 per year. Today that rate, at the same school, has grown to $21,800. Imagine forty years from now?)

A younger generation will have spent time texting and facebooking, avoiding most human face to face interaction. Social cues will become a thing of the past, just like hand writing, the telephone and library books. In the 'home' where they may live, paid by those retirement accounts and social security if you are one of the fortunate to still be in the system, they stare vacantly at those sitting across from them in the dining room, not knowing what to say except OMG or LOL.

So for the legislators out there, I propose the following: LD 100, An Act to Prevent People from Growing Old.. You can get anything passed!!

School Days

  

          Miss Carr was a tough second grade teacher. She would pace around the room while we did our math problems, spying over our shoulder and if we made a mistake, would gently tug on our ear indicating that we had made an error. Poor Justin! His ears were so misshapen from all the tugging that I suspect even today it is difficult for him to look into a mirror without remembering Miss Carr.

          After the assignment was done, we moved to the next activity, the endless math drills, memorizing the multiplication tables. The drills went on for ever. The 17 X  table was a real challenge. Is there anything today that requires us to multiply anything by 17, anywhere?

          Next was spelling. Everyone would go to the front of the room for the dreaded spelling bee. There was only one chance to get it right. If you missed it, you sat down. Last one standing got a prize, usually an eraser. The consequence of not being last resulted in no recess and extra words to learn. Becky had so many erasers she was able to sell them to earn extra milk money.

          After spelling…. Cursive  writing. Yes, in the second grade. There were to be no spelling errors. Her favorite topic was “What I see out of my bedroom window’. Looking back, that was a strange topic. But she was an old spinster  so maybe it made sense. Maybe she had no window in her bedroom.  Maybe she had no life beyond school.

          My point is that if you are over the age of thirty five, your school experience probably consisted of spelling, drill, writing, math and more drill. Should a phone call go home, life could become very uncomfortable with extra time in your room thinking about what you had done wrong?

          The end of the year always brought excitement and relief, but only after ‘Parent Day’ and the poem we had to memorize and recite as the closing activity. I think I remember “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”.

          Fast forward fifty years. The chairs are not fastened to the floor. The constant drills in math and spelling are gone, although maybe they should have continued. Green shades on the windows have been replaced by curtains and blinds.

        Miss Carr is long retired. The teacher in the front of the room is better trained in learning theory and curriculum. There are new ways to measure student progress. The charts above the blackboard with the cursive alphabet are gone. Blackboard?  What’s a blackboard?

          Each classroom has at least one computer and depending upon the grade level, each student might have his or her own. During those fifty year there were new techniques tried; inventive spelling, modern math, phonetic spelling, reading groups, no reading groups, mastery tests, remedial instruction, diagnostic testing. Some innovations  survived, others crashed and burned.

          Fifty years later, children are still children, though. Yes, they have very different experiences than you and I had because the world is different. But some things should remain constant. Good teachers are important, and so are good parents, interested parents.

What would you do?

  I wrote this almost three years ago. But in recent weeks, several events have occurred make the topic even more relevant today. With that said.....I hope you don't mind reading this again and asking yourself the question "What would I do?"

    I have come to the conclusion that most of us walk around in  total denial. We deny that we are overweight or that we spend too much money on useless 'things." We make all kinds of promises that we have no intention of ever keeping, and when confronted or challenged as to why we did not keep the promises we are quick to blame it on someone else or that the weather was bad or the moon was in the wrong position in the sky.
   Sometimes living in denial can have life threatening consequences. What would you do if you knew that a neighbor or friend was living a lifestyle that eventually would kill him or her. You discover that the neighbor or friend had been and still continues to be an abuser of drugs, perscrition to boot! What would you do? The family knew something was wrong. but... Do you do or say nothing and hope that something miraculous happens and the person does not die of an overdose or from some other health complication caused by the abuse?
    What would you do if you found that a child of a friend or relative was involved in criminal activity? Would you report the activity to the police or say something to the family?     
     What would you do if you discovered that someone you knew had become an alcoholic. Would you ride in the car with him or her after they had "spent a night on the town"? Would you allow your children to ride home with them. After all, it's only about one mile to the house?
     You discover that a good friend of the family has become an obsessive gambler, entering the local  casino daily. You have seen him  stealing money from friends and family. What do you do?
     On  recent trip the the grocery store you notice a car parked in the shadows of the building. The car belongs to the most popular teacher in school. In the car not only do you see the teacher, but see see a young student as well. Should  you approach the vehicle, call the police or just ignore the situation and deny that anything is going on, After all it is really none of you business, right?
     What would you do if you found that someone you knew and admired was the victim of domestic violence or child abuse and too scared to come forward  or worse, was not the victim, but the person doing the abusing? Would you confront them, would you call the police or continue to live in a state of denial and hope that no one 'gets really hurt'? I think the events at Penn State illustrate what many would do, because so many who knew just took the easy way out and looked the other way!
     What would you do if you discovered that your child was the victim of emotional abuse from a spouse or partner. Would you step in to protect them knowing what you might be risking?. And what if you were wrong?
     There have been too many examples in the news, too many tragic stories told about what happens when people are reluctant to face the facts. But confrontation is hard. It hurts, not only the person you are confronting, but it is also painful for you.
     Now I can deny that my hair is falling or that I have gained an extra pound or two. I can argue that I really needed the two new pair of pants and shirt, when in reality I could be perfectly satisfied with what I already owned. These are not life or death issues,
      But what would you do if confronted with a life or death issue?

? Would you deny it and look in the other direction?