THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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PAGE 2
Associate sports editor Blake Schuster
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ADVISERS
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The University Daily Kansan (ISSN 0746-4967) is published daily during the school year except Friday, Saturday, Sunday, fall break, spring break and exams and weekly during the summer session excluding holidays. Annual subscriptions by mail are $250 plus tax. Send address changes to The University Daily Kansan, 2051A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue.
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of The Kansan are 50 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at the Kansan business office, 2015A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS., 66045.
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2000 Dole Human Development Center
1000 Sunnyside Avenue
Lawrence, Kan., 68045
What's the weather, Jay?
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2013
Wednesday
weather.com
HI: 24
LO: 12
Partly cloudy. 20 percent chance of rain. Wind NNW at 16 mph.
HI: 41
LO: 20
Thursday
Hollow out your den.
Partly cloudy. 10 percent chance of rain.Wind NNE at 14 mph.
HI: 27
LO: 16
Friday
Cloudy. 20 percent chance of rain. Wind N at 13 mph.
Eat lots of food.
Time to hibernate.
Calendar
Tuesday, Dec. 3
**What:** Plant Populations in a Chang-
ing World
**When:** 3:45 to 5 p.m.
**Where:** Haworth Hall, 1005
**About:** Seminar with Helen Alexander
presented by the BI03 seminar series
What: Rock Chalk Singers
When: 6 to 7.30 p.m.
Where: Murphy Hall, Swarthout Hall
About: Concert presented by the School of Music
Wednesday, Dec. 4
What: Professional Edge Breakfast: Persuasion
When: 8 to 9 a.m.
Where: Edwards Campus, BEST Building,
Conference Center
About: Public event with Kerry Benson with breakfast served at 7:30 a.m.
Thursday, Dec. 5
Where: Joseph R. Pearson Hall, Room 204
About: Workshop with presenter Blaine Hardy
What: The Identity Wheel: Dimension of Diversity
When: 1 to 3 p.m.
**What:** Disability, Emancipation and the U.S.
Civil War
**When:** 4 p.m.
**Where:** Spooner Hall, The Commons
**About:** Lecture with David Rediger from the Bold Aspirations visitor and lecture series
What: Peace Corps Coffee Chat
When: 7 to 9 p.m.
Where: Henry's Coffee Shop
About: Informal recruitment event
What: Peace Corps Coffee Chat
Friday, Dec. 6
ACADEMICS
What: Is Western Science an Indigenous Knowledge?
When: 10 a.m.
Where: Spooner Hall, The Commons
About: Public event with senior research scientist Jorge Soberon from the Idea Cafe
What: The City Dark: A Search for Night on a Planet that Never Sleeps
When: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Malott Hall, 2001
About: Award-winning documentary film
Kansas Board of Education clings to cursive
| YU-KYUNG LEF
yknglee@kansan.com
with the introduction of Common Core, cursive is all but dead, but the Kansas State Board of Education is one of the few states trying to keep it alive.
The Common Core, which is a set of education standards being implemented in 45 states, omitted requirements on handwriting and emphasized keyboarding. In the increasingly digital world, students will use keyboarding more than they will use handwriting, so devoting resources to teaching keyboarding instead of cursive was deemed more practical.
Like other states, Kansas already has standards on keyboarding, but not on handwriting.
"We know that people still do use handwriting and still do use curative writing as a method of communication," said Kris Shaw, language arts and literacy
consultant for the Kansas Department of Education.
Shaw is part of the team the Kansas State Board of Education assembled for the purpose of researching cursive writing and creating state standards on handwriting.
According to the Board of Education, "cursive handwriting as a student skill still holds an important place in the instructional practice of every school's curriculum."
The standard Shaw and her team developed calls for cursive learning starting in third grade. By the sixth grade, students should have developed their own legible handwriting style with the ability to use both print and cursive.
"I remember in grade school our teachers would tell us we would have to write in cursive all the time in middle school, and our middle school teachers didn't want us using cursive and our high school
teachers didn't want us using cursive," said Michaela Davied, a freshman from Neodesha.
Even though Davied hasn't used cursive for assignments, she has been hand-writing all her class notes in cursive.
"Now it's kind of a novelty but I still think it's something that should be taught," she said.
The Board will decide whether to adopt the suggested standards this month. Shaw said the standards are likely to be approved since the Board wanted them in the first place.
"We are not ignoring keyboarding, but we don't want that to be the only mode of communication," Shaw said.
A report from the Kansas State Department of Education also backs the benefit of learning cursive. Not only can cursive writing help children develop cognition and motor skills, the report found, but most of the
assignments done in kindergarten through 12th grade are still written by hand.
The quality of handwriting also correlated with students' grades on assignments, the report showed. On standardized tests, for instance, an essay can drop from 50th percentile to as low as the 10th percentile with poor handwriting.
Handwriting can also be a useful study tool.
"When I have written it, it's like physically putting it in my mind." Davied said. "It's like a way of studying, and I try to be efficient when I study so you write it and you kind of cement it better in your head, at least for me."
Ultimately, school districts will have the choice to teach cursive writing or not.
Even if the standards are approved,if they aren't mandated, schools could opt out of teaching cursive. Also, school districts who
adopt the standards will be free to decide their own curriculum to achieve the goals of the standards.
"Kansas is very 'local control,' Shaw said. "We might not be happy about it, but schools can decide what's important and what they have time for and what they feel their students need. What we try to give is best practice in standards."
While different school districts within the state may decide not to teach cursive, the Kansas Board of Education still strongly encourages teachers to make sure that students can read and write cursive.
"I don't see it being used much and I admit I don't see that it's going to be used much for the next 10 years, but from my experience; yes, I think cursive is a good thing to learn." Davied said.
- Edited by Sylas May.
STUDENT ON THE STREET
RACHEL REARDON junior, Leavenworth
"I don't really remember it anymore, I don't really use it. I learned typing, too, and that's what I use now, because everybody is on the computer. If I'm going to turn something in to someone, I would type it up on the computer anyway, so I think it's a good thing they aren't teaching it anymore."
"only use it to sign my name, but I do think it's something everyone needs to know. Even if though you don't use it that often, it's a good tool to have, like signing your name. I think it'd be sad if kids weren't taught it anymore."
CAROLINE JACOBS freshman, Minnesota
What are your thoughts on the Kansas State Board of Education working to keep cursive writing standards in schools?
"When we were taught cursive they told us that we would need to use for the rest of our lives, but signatures is the only time I use cursive. I think it's definitely more efficient [to learn keyboarding] because they will use typing for the rest of their lives. It's no longer a waste of a lesson that they don't have to teach it any longer."
CHASE BRENTANO senior, Lenexa
SHOPPING
GivingTuesday initiative encourages charity
ckuiper@kansan.com
Shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday promote spending money on all sorts of items, but one thing seems to be missing in the midst of the shopping craze: charity. National and local organizations are looking to fix that today by taking part in the second annual #GivingTuesday.
GivingTuesday is a movement started by the United Nations Foundation to create a national day promoting charitable activities and donations, similar to how Cyber Monday promotes online shopping sales.
Nearly 8,300 partners across 32 countries participate in the movement, including large corporations such as Microsoft and Unilever. The participants usually encourage more volunteering or advocating for an issue, try to get more people engaged in their social media, or encourage online donations to nonprofits.
and not just in the gift wrap sense, but in the charitable sense," said Joshua Lamont, senior director of communications for the UN Foundation. "Giving Tuesday is a way for people and nonprofits to connect to a bigger movement and inspire supporters to donate and give."
"This time of year is about giving.
The event takes place on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and it had a successful debut in 2012. Last year's #GivingTuesday brought in millions in online donations, and they estimate donations increased 53 percent when compared to the same day in the previous year. Lamont said they are expecting even more contributions and involvement in 2013.
"just given how overwhelmed we've been with number of partners, it's almost like we can't keep our goals up with the attention it's getting." Lamont said.
The event is garnering national attention online as well, with the White House blogging about it and well-known participants from Secretary of State John Kerry to actor Kevin Bacon
4
tweeting pictures with the hashtag #UNselfies in support of the movement.
Many Lawrence-based organizations are partaking in #GivingTuesday too, including the United Way of Douglas County. The nonprofit is encouraging more people to be engaged in their social media, and will also accept easy online donations of $25,$50 and $100 on their website. Colleen Gregoire, vice president and campaign manager for United Way of Douglas County, said they are attempting to attract new donors to help meet their $1.8 million goal for this year.
"It's important to share that message in this time of year, when it's an opportunity to get people to think about giving back to our community," Gregoire said. "There are so many opportunities with the holiday efforts that are in place in our community to help low income families have a happy holiday season, but by participating in our Giving Tuesday you can really help people that need some extra assistance all
BU
Jana's Campaign, a Kansas-based advocacy group that focuses on preventing gender and relationship violence, is also taking advantage of #GivingTuesday. The event coincides with the national "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence," so Executive Director Eric Sader said their campaign will use #GivingTuesday to raise more awareness for that cause and other issues.
year round."
"Shopping season is expanding, so it's a good time to get nonprofits some attention and it's important we stay on the radar," he said. "With shopping getting that buzz,
Jana's Campaign is funded mostly through donations, as are many other nonprofits, and Sader said #GivingTuesday presents an opportunity to attract more donors.
"We're going to have two public service announcements about gender violence," Sader said. "So we're kind of using Giving Tuesday as a platform for trying to look at the activities we're going about and [are] focused on."
F D
it makes sense to piggy-back a little on that and make sure people are shopping for a good reason as well."
The University is participating in the giving festivities as well with the Dole Institute of Politics promoting donations to a variety of nonprofits through Twitter. For every $10 donated, the donor will be entered to win a signed copy of former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole's book, "One Soldier's Story."
Clarissa Unger, development coordinator for the Dole Institute, said the movement aligned perfectly with their mission.
"One of the things we emphasize is giving back to the community and public and civic service." Unger said. "We want people doing their part by going out and being active in the community and supporting financially different causes, so in that spirit we decided to join the thousands of other groups participating in it."
Edited by Duncan McHenry