End goal with handwriting--what is yours? utility? beauty? both?

[cintinative]

I was talking to a friend who put her son in a classical school after homeschooling him through 3rd grade. He had maybe a year of cursive and she was not super strict on his handwriting. Since I didn't look at it I don't know how "not strict" she was but she indicated the school's expectation was that the handwriting be "beautiful."  So it is now taking him a VERY long time to do his writing due to that expectation.

 

I know classical education is in part about seeking truth, beauty and goodness in our world. I guess I never really looked at handwriting as something that needed to be beautiful. Legible-yes. But not beautiful.

 

It seems I am taking a utilitarian view of handwriting. What about you?  What is your goal with handwriting?

[Sherry in OH]

Legible.    

[JudoMom]

In theory, it should be beautiful.

In reality, I would be happy if it didn't look like some of my children took on jobs as scribes for serial killers.

[MysteryJen]

Legible. I would have pulled my kid out of a school that required handwriting to be beautiful. No one, in 3 generations in my dh's family, has anything other than barely legible to those that love them and read their handwriting every day.

[OneStepAtATime]

Beautiful handwriting is nice to have.  Probably most of us could achieve truly beautiful handwriting with consistent, targeted instruction and lots and lots and lots of practice.  For some, this is actually fairly easily achieved early on.  For others it may take years and years.  For some, this is just not achievable at all.

 

I, personally, have come to realize that while beautiful handwriting is a nice thing to have, it is not a hill to die on in my household.  

 

My nephew has profound dysgraphia.  Even printing legibly has not been possible, despite years of trying and OT.  He is gifted, he types well, he aces his college classes and while not being able to even print legibly has not always been easy for him, he is very functional in his day to day needs and he is an incredibly successful college student.  His hardest years were the upper elementary and middle school years where his teachers were pretty harsh judges of his intelligence, concern for the quality of his work, and his overall person.  They made false assumptions based on his horrific handwriting and it hurt him deeply.  In High School and college he has not had that same nasty judgement.  He has thrived.  And is incredibly capable.  

 

My son, too, has dysgraphia, although not nearly as severely as my nephew.  My goal for him is legible handwriting (unlike with my nephew this is an achievable goal for DS) and the ability to type.  In watching my nephew's journey, I realized that beautiful handwriting just isn't that important to me as a teacher.  A life long love of learning, healthy relationships with family and friends, ethics, good character, honing of skills and abilities in areas of interest that could lead to careers they genuinely care about...those are the things that truly matter to me and what I wish for my children.

[cintinative]

Love it OneStepAtATime!

 

My first impression when my friend told me about her son's troubles was that my kids would HATE it and there would be many many tears. My next thought was that I wasn't sure if I ever considered handwriting as something that had to be beautiful.  If can be, but does it have to be??  

[Hwin]

My goal is for him to be able to write out his thoughts as fast and legibly as possible. Right now he's got fast and completely illegible, or he's got one decent letter and a lost train of thought. I've really been encouraging him to work have a good attitude about cursive, because I think that once he really gets the hang of it, it's going to be a timesaveer.

[Guest]

For DS, utilitarian/legibility is printing. But I wanted his cursive to be beautiful so I found a handwriting program that made that easy for him - the French way. His handwriting would be terrible if we went with one of the other programs I've seen around here.

[Hunter]

I guess I have not focused on either legibility or beauty, and I'm trying to figure out what my goal has been. In the past, I have been affectionately called the Handwriting Nazi.

 

The hand I have taught most often is the Spalding hand--lowercase cursive and uppercase manuscript. I wouldn't call it beautiful, but for learning disabled lefties it is possible to master a clean looking and consistent hand.

 

I am rigid in my instruction. There is a "right" way to write the hand and my instructions are precise.

 

If someone finds minimalism beautiful, they might find the hand I teach beautiful. Another tutor in my area sneered at it, though, and said it is not "grownup" writing.

 

On a private subforum we recently discussed "bourgeois handwriting". We talked about French handwriting, and slanted hands, and hands with longer ascenders and descenders, and fancy uppercase letters.

 

Spalding cursive with manuscript uppercase is efficient. It reminds me of hiking boots and backpacks, compared to high heels and purses.

 

Good boots and packs are expensive works of art to ME, and I'm willing to spend a small fortune on them. High heels and purses are part of my past. I just don't have room for that stuff now. They are not efficient.

 

Sometimes I think Western beauty is at its core inefficient, and meant to separate the classes.

 

I've been doing a lot of looking at handwriting again this past month.

[Hunter]

When some private schools say "beautiful", they might mean, "reflective of your social class".

[HomeschoolingHearts&Minds]

I am mostly interested in legible, fluent writing.  The point of cursive, for instance, is to be able to write quickly and so it can be read.  Beautiful handwriting can be saved for calligraphy with fits under art. :D

 

A little aside:  my 11-year-old dd does have beautiful handwriting when she meticulously does her copywork in her handwriting book.  She only does the handwriting because she wants to and has been doing it regularly for a few years.  I do not require perfection or beauty and if she ever said that she didn't want to do handwriting anymore, I'd be cool with that. 

 

But here's the thing---her "everyday" handwriting is hard to distinguish from her older 15-year-old brother's hurried chicken scratch.  Both are just legible.  Handwriting practice was torture for him ;), so while I did teach him proper formation and such, he doesn't have years of beautiful handwriting books the way she does. 

 

So, how can a girl have years of concentrated handwriting practice and still have her handwriting look like her brother's barely legible scribbles?  Clearly the handwriting practice doesn't translate to beautiful everyday handwriting.

 

 

[My3girls]

We strive for beautiful, but I require legible.

[Guest]

1--Comfortable writing. 2--Legible.

[mamaraby]

Beautiful is nice, but not necessary for most people. Legibile and efficient is what's most important in my mind.

[Arcadia]

I reserved the need for beautiful handwriting when writing in someone's guest book/autograph book. Writing is tiring for me and for DS10. For day to day we aim for legible for everyone.

[mamiof5]

Mainly legibility. Beauty if it happens to come easily. In a day where electronics seem to dominate so much (just found out some Jr highs in our area request all homework electronically, handwritten is not used at all anymore) I just want my kids to have decent/legible penmanship.

[Susie in MS]

I feel that no matter what a person puts their hand to it should be the best they can do. I strive for beauty, but I realize it is not something that everyone can accomplish. If my child struggles then I don't push it (just like with any subject). We work on improvement to the best of our ability and then move on. But on the flip side, if I know my child has the ability to do well, but is being lazy and sloppy, I require it to be done again. 

 

Short answer, like with all things, it depends on the child. 

[Rachel]

My goal is for my kids' handwriting to be neater than their father's handwriting. My FIL does have beautiful handwriting and if any of my kids took after him, I'd love it, but I'm not going to require it.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

Legibility all the way. I'm a lefty & had TERRIBLE handwriting until middle school, when I pain-stakingly (& independently) went all the way back to "handwriting paper" & trained myself to make it better. It still is not beautiful, but it is easily legible & that has been far more important in my adult life.

 

*ETA: I'm certain had the idea to go back to basics & improve my writing been anyone else's, I would have rejected it vehemently!

[Farrar]

Beautiful is very subjective. I went through first to third grades with Dnealian and had great handwriting. Then partway through fourth, I changed to another school that taught some other hand. I never made above a D on handwriting after that. Legibility definitely wasn't the issue. I distinctly remember my 5th grade teacher holding up my paper in front of the whole class and explaining how all the Dnealian flourishes were wrong. By the end of fifth grade I had atrocious handwriting and I never used cursive again, I'd come to resent it so much.

 

I like the people who said efficient and comfortable in addition to legible.

[SporkUK]

Our goal is 'comfortable and legible when done at speed' - I want them to be able to write as they want without it being painful or embarrassing. 

[Ellie]

I was talking to a friend who put her son in a classical school after homeschooling him through 3rd grade. He had maybe a year of cursive and she was not super strict on his handwriting. Since I didn't look at it I don't know how "not strict" she was but she indicated the school's expectation was that the handwriting be "beautiful."  So it is now taking him a VERY long time to do his writing due to that expectation.

 

I know classical education is in part about seeking truth, beauty and goodness in our world. I guess I never really looked at handwriting as something that needed to be beautiful. Legible-yes. But not beautiful.

 

It seems I am taking a utilitarian view of handwriting. What about you?  What is your goal with handwriting?

 

Both manuscript and cursive to be legible--easily legible, not that someone has to puzzle over it to figure it out--and cursive handwriting to be preferred. "Beautiful" would be nice, but really, a legible hand does have a certain beauty. It doesn't have to be Spencerian, though. :-)

[cintinative]

I was just thinking the other day about how important this would have been in a different time. When books were copied by hand, for example, the handwriting needed to be legible but I am sure that beauty was also expected.  So I can see how "beauty" in handwriting would have been an important part of a classical education. It was part of how you respected the work.  This is no longer "necessary" and we are left with handwriting for practical purposes only, thus---perhaps--why this is not a modern view of handwriting???  

[purpleowl]

Interesting question!

 

I think one of my overall goals for my kids is that they will be able to take pride in their work.  I do think presentation factors into that, so I want their handwriting to be something they can take pride in.  I think that what that ultimately looks like may vary from child to child.

[Bluegoat]

I think that with everything we create, we should strive to make it as beautiful as possible, according to what the task is.  If we are making a garden it should include aesthetic considerations. Handwriting should strive for a beauty,  correct form and clarity. If we are writing computer programs or doing mathematical work, logical order and elegance are ideals.

 

However, not only will individual children vary in what they are able to accomplish with diligent work, they will also bring their own sensibility and perspective to their tasks.

 

ETA - when I worked in an archive, I realized that having beautiful, regular handwriting is connected fairly closely with legibility, so I don't think the two are really very separate goals.

[vonbon]

[short on time, only read OP.]

 

For my students and myself, my goal is both utility and beauty, but for different applications.  DD is a perfectionist and handwriting can take a long time.  Sometimes she needs to balance the time it takes to write neatly with reality/our schedule.  I was the same way as a child, missing recess because I was trying to get the letters to look "just right", teachers frustrated that it took too long to get an assignment done.  She has beautiful penmanship, but we have to get on to other things too...

 

So we have spent a lot of time talking about when to shoot for "beauty" and when to shoot for "sufficient":

 

Beauty and perfection: 

- wedding invitations (just as an example), party invitations, thank you notes, birthday cards

- invitations to QEII for tea (joke)

- handwriting practice

- a final draft

 

Times to shoot for efficiency and content (and not perfect penmanship):

- notes to self

- shopping lists

- math (though numbers ovb. have to be legible)

- science journal

 

This has helped her gain perspective and to over some perfectionist issues.  We also apply some of this to spelling, as she can get really caught up in spelling everything right (can shift the focus too much when doing a science journal entry or first writing draft, for example.)  It's not that she's sloppy on certain things, but it gives her a freedom.  These ways of categorizing seem to fit the adult life for my uses of writing too (shopping list = messy/fast; birthday card = neat/I make them beautiful.)

[sbgrace]

My teachers in elementary school marked me down for handwriting. It caused a lot of stress for me. I was the first born and my parents wanted me to be successful. I just wasn't capable of what they wanted.

 

My husband is a bit less than legible when hurried.

 

My goal for my kids, one who takes after his dad, is quick enough to take notes or similar and legible in any circumstance. I am working hard to try to get that child to that point. I have another who could probably approach something near beautiful, or at least far better than either of his parents. But I have other, more important, goals for him.

[abba12]

My opinion on this may be different to others

 

I am actually unable to hand-write for any considerable period. I am legally blind, but was diagnosed as brain damaged to begin with and missed out on early intervention. I developed a terrible pencil grip that no one worked too hard to fix, and that I as an adult don't have the interest or motivation to work to change. It means my hand hurts considerably when I write. I can write a sentence or two, and fill out basic forms, but any more than that I need to type. Having gone through adult life like this, I find that there is very little I can't just type these days, the need for handwriting as a utility is diminishing. 

 

The one area I really miss being able to write, and can't just substitute a computer for, is really nice, beautiful handwriting, like writing in a birthday card, or art project like journaling a poem, or a handwritten letter for someone else, where typing seems too formal (the kind of letter you might write your husband or children). 

 

Handwriting is a priority for me, because I want it to be comfortable for my kids, first and foremost I want them to be capable of writing without pain so they have the option that I don't. But, beyond that, my priority really is for the handwriting to be as beautiful as they can make it, so I'd rather they spend 10 mins getting it beautiful than 5 minutes doing it legibly. Speed isn't an issue to me because, if you want to write fast these days you'll type it. It's all nice to say 'there wont always be a computer around' but when have you, as an adult, had to write more than a few sentences quickly in handwriting (remember college notes are often done on laptops now). Of course a certain level of speed is good, that's why we practice, to become faster and more fluid in motion. But my priority would be lovely text. 

[Hunter]

As a child I never knew WHY my handwriting was unacceptable. I might write and teach a hand that isn't bourgeois enough, but at least none of my students have to figure out on their own why their handwriting isn't acceptable.

 

I am able to tell them exactly HOW to fix their mistakes. They ALL are capable of clean and consistent hand that fills every need they try to use it for.

 

For example, acronyms are more common now than in the past. The manuscript uppercase looks better than cursive when writing acronyms.

 

Lefties are able to write the hand without tipping their papers almost upside down.

 

It works.

 

BUT, it isn't bourgeois. It isn't a "grownup" hand. It isn't inefficient enough to impress.

 

Lately, I worry that I am teaching Ebonics.

 

I don't doubt it is a good hand for me. But is it good enough for my students?

 

I refuse to totter around on high heels, but I wouldn't feel comfortable limiting my students to a life of no heels. But is it better to limit them to a life of ONLY heels?

 

I really really struggle with choosing a hand for my students. And I really don't want to convert to an inefficient hand myself, so that I can teach it better. I like my hiking boots and I like my hand. I like efficiency and minimalism.

[UCF612]

My goal falls between legible and beautiful. I don't accept something that skates by just because I CAN read it but I'm not asking for calligraphy either.

[Hunter]

Do you all think certain hands reflect social class? Is that important to you?

[Hwin]

Do you all think certain hands reflect social class? Is that important to you?

 

I suppose I do see it to some extent, there are some styles that seem a bit juvenile/junior high to me.

 

As someone who's becoming keenly interested in neurodiversity, though, handwriting is off my radar as a social thing.

http://www.yesthattoo.blogspot.com/2013/11/handwriting-not-for-everyone.html

 

I don't see the point of exquisitely beautiful handwriting, except as an art to appreciate - or perhaps a highbrow skill to be proud about. But that's not a value I want to pass on to my son. "That's foodstamps handwriting son, you need to write like a doctor." Oh, wait...  :tongue_smilie:

 

Spelling, grammar, and actually WRITING those aforementioned thank you cards? Definitely something we're working on.

[go_go_gadget]

In this time of declining need for handwriting, I think the writing we do should be beautiful. If I want utilitarian, I can type.

[Hunter]

I handwrite a lot. Pages and pages a day of writing cramped onto unlined paper. Usually cheap paper, cheap pens, and cheap crayons.

 

I have my own version of The Artist's Way Morning Pages, where I mark and colorcode what I need to do that day and that week.

 

I carry my morning pages around all day as a checklist, adding more as I go, and then start over the next morning, transferring anything that didn't get done yet.

 

All my curriculum planning methods involve cramped tiny writing squeezed into the blocks of folded paper.

 

I handwrite a lot.

[AmandaVT]

Do you all think certain hands reflect social class? Is that important to you?

 

No and no. Dr's are known for their atrocious writing and they would be considered middle to upper class in most societies. 

 

My goals are legible and comfortable for DS to write his thoughts out at a good pace. I don't want him to be painstakingly writing out each letter with a cramping hand. My handwriting was horrible until I got a job teaching pre-schoolers. Then I cleaned it up very quickly and have had clean print writing since. I've been buying myself 5th and 6th grade books from Zaner Bloser because my cursive is still not good and when DS does his handwriting, I do mine at the same time. Cursive has been slowly and steadily improving and as an added bonus, it's gotten DS excited to start cursive himself a bit later on this year when ZB 2 introduces cursive. 

[Hunter]

I also handwrite out lessons on paper, like Waldorf teachers do on a blackboard. Then I teach from that paper and sometimes have the student copy it.

[Hunter]

Not how neat the hand is, but the hand itself. Each private school is unique, but the more elite schools often teach hands that are not taught at middle class and low income schools.

 

Do you notice the tell tale signs of someone having learned handwriting at an elite school even if the handwriting is messy?

 

Sometimes handwriting is messy because a student was left to their own devices to figure out how to change it to try and make it more efficient.

 

Sometimes it is messy, because the student is left-handed and the school's hand doesn't adapt well to left-handed writing.

[Tanikit]

If one googles "calligraphy" as images then one will see that what creates beauty in handwritten pages is NOT the script it is written in - the first few images give various calligraphy scripts and just show the alphabet written out from left to right and top to bottom not centred and without proper margins to the page. They do not look beautiful although the scripts are usually used as decorative writing that is meant to be beautiful.

 

Further down the page will be more alphabet pages with more symmetry of the letters and these pages are more beautiful. Finally there are pages where a sentence has been written and other decorative techniques have been used and these pages (even the most simple of them) can truly be described as beautiful - it has to do with spacing, margins, symmetry - basically artistic flair.

 

I think teaching handwriting should teach not just letter formation, but symmetry (even to the extent of individual letter symmetry) and spacing (in more detail than just use a finger space between words), relative sizing of headings, indenting, keeping straight vertical lines when indenting multiple lines, blank space and why it can be effective. That even on blank paper capitals are double the size of regular letters and that punctuation marks do look better when they are all of relative size. There needs to be consistency too. This of course sounds crazy and like it would take a great deal of time to teach, but actually it shouldn't.

 

Personally I am looking for legible, neat, clear handwriting which can be done at speed from my children, but I also know that using correct symmetry speeds handwriting because of the more smooth hand movements required to write like that.

[Hunter]

That doesn't sound crazy at all. The initial letter formation instructions take up such a small percentage of my instruction. It is all the things you listed and more that earned me the name "The Handwriting Nazi".

[texasmama]

Legibility and a decent looking (cursive) signature because, as I have explained to my boys, a signature is not printed.  You would be surprised at what documents require their signature even at this age.  Little dd has pretty nice cursive and a lovely signature already.

[vonbon]

Returned to read more on this topic...

 

And remembered a recent experience with handwriting.  We just hosted a family event in which our children received several greeting cards from family friends who are maybe 65- to 80-years-old.  Wow!  The handwriting on those envelopes and cards--beautiful!!!  The kind of writing that makes you want to read over it a few times and savor its beauty.  Almost didn't want to throw the envelopes away.  I did make a mental note at the time that it seems like an art form that is dying out.  

 

My own printing is neat/legible and I can make a card look "fancy" with unique/creative/artsy script, but it's very different compared to the disciplined, uniform look of the penmanship on those cards we received.  I write in a cursive-print mix with a lot of the letters joined, but not true cursive, which I don't enjoy using.  

 

Something to be said for that art form that I see the older generations were trained so well in!

[luuknam]

Speed, legibility, and some amount of stamina (no need to be able to handwrite entire books, but it'd be nice if a paragraph wouldn't wear you out). I'm really not all that concerned about beauty, though I'd rather that the handwriting isn't awfully ugly. Both my kids just started learning cursive (B because he really wanted to), not because I want them to end up writing in cursive (cursive writing looks childish to me, since where I grew up kids learned cursive first and then ditched that in favor of print as soon as it was allowed to do so, usually in middle school), but because the fastest, most legible writers do something in between printing and cursive, taking the best of both methods:

 

http://www.quora.com/Handwriting/Is-writing-in-cursive-generally-faster-than-printing

 

I don't know of a method that teaches that way, so I figure that teaching a little cursive will help accomplish two goals: teaching my kids how to read cursive, and giving them enough exposure to incorporate some aspects of cursive in their handwriting.

[Hunter]

Vonbon, I like your choice of the words "disciplined" and "uniform".

[vonbon]

My father was raised in Europe in the 40's.  He writes with his pointer finger extended straight along the pen/pencil (yes, very different from what we are teaching kids today and hard to describe and do.)  He says they were all taught that way.  When I see Christmas cards or other things written by family friends and relatives from his home country, I can tell immediately where the letter came from--without seeing a name first.  All of their handwriting is very similar from that generation/culture.  

 

I don't know if this is true for the younger generations there, as they all email/type.  

 

Hunter, wonder if some of the hand you see is a difference in both socioeconomic class and generation/age?  

 

I often think that as each generation successively uses technology more and more for various applications, it will inevitably follow that handwriting will change. 

[vonbon]

I handwrite a lot. Pages and pages a day of writing cramped onto unlined paper. Usually cheap paper, cheap pens, and cheap crayons.

 

I have my own version of The Artist's Way Morning Pages, where I mark and colorcode what I need to do that day and that week.

 

I carry my morning pages around all day as a checklist, adding more as I go, and then start over the next morning, transferring anything that didn't get done yet.

 

All my curriculum planning methods involve cramped tiny writing squeezed into the blocks of folded paper.

 

I handwrite a lot.

 

This is cool.  I use my own version of a "daily sheet"--a hand-written, photocopied half sheet with some check-boxed items to do everyday, another short list related to dailies (livestock, garden, etc.) and then open space for items that change/to do particular to that day.  I transfer and handwrite a lot too.  Similar process with lesson plans.  I do have a hard time keeping "week" type things organized (things I may or may not get to on a given day but that need to be done in a timely way.)  I've resorted to a "Getting Things Done" binder with various lists/categories that is OK, but not quite right.  

 

Have loved Artist Way Morning Pages, but never thought of combining them into something useful.  

 

This is an interesting way to look at it.  I'm kind of a nerd about improving my system, so this is thought-provoking.  Thanks.  

 

[Just realized this is quite off topic!  Sorry!  But will post anyway?]

[waa510]

My end goal is for handwriting to be legible and to get the speed up to where the hand and brain aren't on a disconnect. My handwriting in college was frequently commented on as being the worst ever seen...by multiple professors.  :o My handwriting normally wasn't that bad. It was when I was under a time crunch or wanted to write quickly and get my thoughts down on paper fast. My hand could never keep up with the thoughts pouring out of my head. People stopped asking to borrow my notes from class b/c they could never read them!! So my goal is for them to have legible handwriting, the ability to take down dictated info quickly and easily (note-taking for college), and not getting a hand cramp from writing a few paragraphs at once. 

 

I've taught my kids cursive but mainly b/c they were interested in learning it and we school year-round so we have time to take a couple months and do it. Beautiful handwriting is nice but I'm not sure it's a worthy *goal* for handwriting. 

[wintermom]

 

I know classical education is in part about seeking truth, beauty and goodness in our world. I guess I never really looked at handwriting as something that needed to be beautiful. Legible-yes. But not beautiful.

 

 

Labelling what is "beautiful" is entirely subjective. If my child writes to the best of their ability, is neat and legible, that is beautiful and acceptable in our homeschool - the exact style of handwriting is immaterial.