{"id":350,"date":"2015-09-20T00:35:41","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T07:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/?p=350"},"modified":"2015-09-20T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T00:09:08","slug":"cursive-writing-a-future-obscure-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/2015\/09\/20\/cursive-writing-a-future-obscure-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Cursive Writing: a future obscure code?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1257\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The idea of cursive writing as fading away into obscurity seems probable. And, for it to become a form of writing that not everyone can decode will be inevitable. Why teach it, other than the practice of it is supposed to be good for developing neural pathways. But, humans existed long before cursive writing and developed healthy neural pathways.<\/p>\n

Will the evolution of writing produce more disconnections between generations? My sons can\u2019t read my mother\u2019s perfect and beautiful cursive writing. I have to \u201ctranslate\u201d her birthday cards to them. What will we lose when we can\u2019t read it anymore as a society? Or is it insignificant?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this for a few years now, not all the time, but now and then. I was writing a novel for young readers about time travel, and I was considering a bit in it where my protagonist goes into a future where she and her sidekick can decode \u201cthe code\u201d which is cursive writing, and how that becomes a valuable skill and perhaps saves their lives in some way. It\u2019s fun to think about.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago when I lived in Japan, I recall a Japanese friend telling me that she couldn\u2019t read the stylized Japanese writing that is found in some temples, and some art, I think it is a form of Kanji (it is very fluid and flowing) It reminded me of cursive writing in English. It stuck with me, and it was beautiful. That makes me imagine cursive writing on t-shirts one day, not for the content of the words, but only for the form, or the perceived art of it.<\/p>\n

Which goes back to thoughts of Japan, and of T-shirts and the strange fashion of having English writing on T-shirts and other products that was nonsensical. It was there for the fashion of it and the actual words were meaningless to the people wearing the clothes or buying the products, but for an English reader, it was a combination of distracting, amusing, and sometimes very strange.<\/p>\n

One thing I have noticed in my class is that the students love to hear stories. They often ask if I can tell them stories, and it is surprising to me that they seem to crave this type of oral communication. They are a very noisy bunch and talk to each other a lot, but they also want to hear stories. I wish I had a smaller group so we could all sit on the Bison hide and have a story time.<\/p>\n

One other interesting thing about living and teaching in the Yukon is that the First Nations here are very actively trying to revitalize their languages. I am very interested in this, and in their successes and what that means to their cultures. In the school where I teach, Southern Tutchone is a part of the curriculum. A teacher of that language who recently retired\u00a0 is responsible for creating the written form of Southern Tutchone.\u00a0 I believe he started working on this in the mid-1970s.\u00a0 In doing so, he has made his language more accessible and one can study it online at the Native Language Centre through Yukon College.<\/p>\n

Does the evolution of new technologies mean the death of old technologies, like cursive writing?\u00a0 Or is there more of an integration, and not a death?<\/p>\n

What do humans need to maintain intelligence? How has our use of time changed because of the Internet?<\/p>\n

Will our age be lost to the distant future because our digital records will be so obscure that they will not be able to be decoded? Or, will the records of our society be so fragile and obsolete in form that there will simply be no records?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea of cursive writing as fading away into obscurity seems probable. And, for it to become a form of writing that not everyone can decode will be inevitable. Why teach it, other than the practice of it is supposed to be good for developing neural pathways. But, humans existed long before cursive writing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33689,"featured_media":352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[279,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-introductions","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33689"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540w2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}