Uncategorized | Planned Pedanthood

I will preface this by saying I am a creative person. I actively support and actively practice many arts. I know what creativity is, and why it matters. I am also a pragmatic person. I want to be and say and create what will have the most constructive impact.

I have been lurking on the fringes of an online debate about education and cursive writing.

The entire ‘debate’ (and I use that term loosely) is rooted in nostalgia and has no practical relationship to the actual purpose of the education system.

The skills necessary in the workplace have changed dramatically in the last two generations. As the world changes the skills needed to navigate our world also change. The destination has changed, so the path taken must also change.

What has not changed is notable. Children still have a finite capacity for active instruction. There are still a finite number of hours in the day. The education system still needs to prepare young people for the realities of the workplace.

As a result, time and attention once paid to teaching cursive writing has been supplanted by time and attention allotted to teaching computer literacy.

In its time, cursive was taught for specific reasons. It increased the speed of written communication. Signatures were used as a means of identifying a person.

Neither of these reasons is valid in a modern context.

Handwriting is too slow to keep up with modern expectations in communication. Cursive is also frequently illegible, which slows down communication and introduces a margin of error.

One argument for cursive claims it nurtures ‘creativity’. First of all, the act of writing itself regardless of the method, is creativity. Hemingway typed. Cursive tends to be more difficult to read accurately precisely BECAUSE it lends itself to creativity; which is why official forms always ask you to print your name and information. Another cursive defense claims that humans evolved to have a relationship with the written word. Written communication did not evolve, we created it. Evolution is passive, creation is active. We evolved to recognize patterns, and used that pattern recognition to create written language. In fact, recognition is improved when the pattern is most consistent, and as I said before, cursive varies and on depends too many factors. Anyone who has tried to read a doctor’s script knows that is true.

Clarity and efficiency of communication are paramount. There are ways to teach creativity that are not antithetical to modernity.

There are better ways to identify a person. A signature is not a secure method of establishing identity, in large part because more of what we do is done via technology that does not accommodate pen and paper. Even learning to forge signature is old hat these days.

Another concern is that our children will not be able to understand what we write. Let’s not forget, they are still being taught to print. How often is it entirely necessary that we write? It is not just our children who need to adapt to the modern world. If you must, print. It will probably be more legible anyway.

Let’s stop mistaking wistfulness for educational fundamentalism, and stop basing our future on a nostalgia tinged belief in the inerrancy of “the way things have always been done around here’. Cursive writing is an anachronism in the modern classroom. We don’t teach children math on an abacus anymore.

Go right ahead and insist your child learn cursive. Then one day he will be able to sign his job application with a lovely signature. I will continue to insist my son learn modern skills. My son will be able to print his skills and competencies on his resume. My son will get the job.

(this was written very quickly – albeit after I calmed down because this has me very agitated – and I will probably come back to revisit grammar and spelling and rhetoric, but I felt compelled to post it, imperfect as it may be)

Iceland announces men-only UN conference on women, gender equality

“Iceland Announces men-only UN conference on women, gender equality”

When I posted this on my Facebook page I did so because I thought this was wonderful news.

Men wanting to talk about gender equality is, to me, a clear sign of commitment to seeing gender as an issue that transcends male and female. It is, after all, a human rights issue, which it makes it an issue whether there is a woman in the room or not.

However, gender equality effects men and women differently. And, it DOES effect men. Sadly, many men are not aware that it does. Societies that are more equal are not only coincidentally also more stable and wealthier. Countries that have lower rates of violence against women have over all lower rates of violence.

Perhaps if men in positions of influence sit together and talk they can share how it effects men and come to understand why it is so important for men to work toward constructive change in the way that gender is dealt with in our societies. They can discuss how dimorphic gender roles harm men as much as they harm women. The best person to demonstrate that fact to a man is another man.

When I saw this article I was encouraged that these men wanted to band together and talk about how they can be my ally, and about how they can walk beside me in a way that only a man can – and let’s be clear AGAIN, men and women will be addressing the issue from different vantage points.

I was glad to see the battle for equality will be fought on two fronts. I was glad that these men were going to gather and talk about how, in their male relationships, they can work toward the same goal I am working toward. We need men to model positive male behavior to other men.

I want them to meet. I want them to talk. It is wrong to not allow them the space to do that.

No one has any logical reason or moral right to object to or to be offended by or to mock manhood’s sincere attempt from a uniquely male perspective to come to terms with an issue they are expected to help solve.

This is why my boys roll their eyes when they hear the word feminist. Because they are being told they must join a group for women, driven by women on women’s terms. It doesn’t accommodate their maleness. Feminism isn’t just for women and a man cannot experience it on a woman’s terms. It’s for humanity, and men must come to understand it on their own terms before we can have equality.

We need a feminist re-brand because the ideology has gotten off course, steered by people who are NOT thinking critically before they react and collectively all need a smack upside the head.