Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)

Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> writes:
>*Third grade*? That's what, grade three, grade two equivalent (the
>fourth or third year of primary school)?? What did you do for the
>threeish years before then? (We learnt how to write in grade prep (first
>year), learnt cursive in grade three (fourth year), and got (ballpoint)
>pen licences in grade four (fifth year). We only had to do cursive while
>we were learning it, and even then it was an optional extra: they were
>happy enough if we did loops on our ascenders/descenders. Of course, it
>was also a sign of being better than people who didn't do it, so most
>people wanted to :) )

Lets see, well, as obvious as it can be, we learned...

How to write!

Yes, they teach that as soon as you get into Preschool (if you go), or
kindergarten if you start school then. WOW, we're just like every other
educated first world society then :).


My brother and I learned to write a bit even before we entered preschool
at age three. Mom thought it would be handy.From preschool through 2nd
grade we learned mostly how to print. And during first grade they
introduced in cursive to us (I still remember the cardboard banners of all
the cursive letters in my first grade classroom). By third grade we were
expected to know it perfectly, because as kendra said, they told us in
High School we'd be expected to use it. Of course that was only true in
Middle School (6th - 8th grades).

By high school computers had come far enough that teachers actually
preferred students to write essays on the computer, or the typewriter if
they could, but if a student chose to write by hand they had to do it in
cursive (neatly), and in black or blue ball point pen ink. If a student
printed the ink colors had to be the same. By the time i graduated high
school however, teachers were requiring that we use a  computer to type
and print out what we wrote.

In university, professors demand we use the computer to write our essays
(12 - 14 pt. font, only arial, helveteca, verdana, courier or times roman,
double spaced, and 1 inch margins).

I remember a couple years ago having to take the Graduate Writing
Asessment Requirement, where we had to show we could write about a topic
at college level (this was to weed out any students who for some reason
was able to get out of taking remedial English courses), and we had to
write it by hand. Everyone is so used to the computer that writing for 45
minutes caused all of our hands to cramp up and us to wonder how the hell
we wrote papers by hand in High School.


By the way, preschool and kindergarten are about two years additional
schooling before first grade. You usually start preschool at age 3 or so,
and then the next year is Kindergarten.

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