Comments on: Today’s lesson: not-so-friendly letters

By: Nocturnesthesia

Nocturnesthesia — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:14:11 +0000

Yeah, I remember being forced to use cursive (and write with a pencil) in the 80s. I hated this because my hands were black after a paragraph or so, plus cursive took me much longer than printing, and looked more like Arabic. I also remember having to erase an entire page of work and redo it because I forgot to double-space on one line, and couldn’t just start over on a new page because it would be a waste of paper.

Long story short, I really think abolishing this time-wasting bullshit and teaching kids some relevant life skills can only do good.

By: Um

Um — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 03:35:23 +0000

Ypsilanti is a college town. If she doesn’t want to live next to someone blasting music all night she should probably not live within the city limits of Ypsilanti or Ann Arbor…just sayin’

By: Ypsi Pride

Ypsi Pride — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:26:07 +0000

I heard she’s an amazing teacher, the students loved the assignment, she never actually gave the letters to anyone…and she’s really pretty.

By: pdx_reader

pdx_reader — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:40:27 +0000

The important thing here is that somewhere in America there is a Middle School classroom with only 18 students. I’m moving to Ypisilanti.

By: The Elf

The Elf — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:41:06 +0000

It’s not pride, bookworm. It’s a defensive reaction from being an A/B student with a consistant D/F in handwriting even though you really tried to write better, and then your parents overlooking the rest of the report card to focus on the D/F and punish you for it while your C student older brother gets praise for being average even though you still beat his GPA by a landslide but it just isn’t good enough because of that one little D/F.

I’m a little bitter.

By: Shannon Elliot

Shannon Elliot — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:00:37 +0000

The reason people can do without cursive now is that they do most of their writing via the keyboard, but if you’re physically writing, cursive is a lot faster than printing. Being able to write quickly was key to doing well on exams, particularly in university.

I’ve no doubt that in another decade or two, we’ll switch over completely to keyboards, and future students won’t have that reason.

By: JBee

JBee — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:01:54 +0000

After having cursive shoved down my throat in elementary, to the point where they made me cry with threats that if we didn’t get cursive down we would be a failure in the rest of our education , I was actually told by teachers from then on NOT to write in cursive because they had so much trouble reading it.

Printing is so much easier to read, I think they should stop teaching cursive, and just teach you how to sign your name.

By: Niki

Niki — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:30:53 +0000

when I was in 3rd grade we did a hypothetical exercise like this so that we could learn to be polite when writing to someone. I think this must’ve been a manners lesson for the students, at least I hope thats what it was

By: Somebody Else

Somebody Else — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:52:56 +0000

D-E-L-A-V-I-A-N Which really is a name, as I discovered here. Whether somebody actually named their kid that or not is still up for debate, I suppose. But I wouldn't rule it out, myself.

By: Frankenstien

Frankenstien — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:04:20 +0000

FAKE. Look at the handwriting. The note especially, but the ethnic name “Delavain” on the second paper?! Come on.

F. A. K. E

By: Somebody Else

Somebody Else — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 22:02:20 +0000

Thank you both for your posts, lazy me didn’t press Kerry’s link the first time through.

What a mistake that was, eh? Now that I am familiar with the factoids on that page, life is just so much more satisfying.

Thank God for Texas, and God bless America!

By: Jordie

Jordie — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:59:19 +0000

Did you see how seriously it was written and justified? I loved that.

By: Somebody Else

Somebody Else — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:44:45 +0000

Oooh, *that* would make this entire exercise so much better …

“Class, take out your number two pencils and a clean sheet of paper.

Now, I want you to imagine that through a bizarre case of temporary insanity of some kind, you married the biggest *&^-hole in the world, a guy who made your life a living hell in every way. Just like I did. Fortunately you wised up the next month and got a divorce, pronto.

Your assignment today is to write Mr. F_ck-face a letter, explaining to him calmly and rationally why he needs to stop putting large containers of his own urine into the refrigerator in the garage. Use the principles of rational argument that we learned yesterday.

Remember to write neatly, and put your name in the top right hand corner. If you don’t put your name on it, you won’t get any credit for this assignment. Okay, get to work people.”

By: Rat Liz

Rat Liz — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:35:43 +0000

does she live downtown with all us college kids? thats what i want to know