Should This Blog Post Have Been Written in Cursive?

I recently learned that Indiana, my beloved home state, is no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing, focusing instead on printing and typing.

I remember struggling to perfect my cursive writing in Mr. Biltz’s fifth grade class. But I never came close to the beautiful script of my teacher. If there were an Olympics for penmanship, surely Mr. Biltz would have brought home the gold every time. As for me, I got Cs, the only ones of my elementary career.

But did I truly deserve those Cs? As future generations pass through each grade, digital communication will undoubtedly ease the burden of information transfer.

Should “antiquated” skills like cursive be phased out of institutional learning or do they still provide value?

It caused me to wonder, what other skills we may be losing in the digital age—and more importantly—should we care?

A few come to mind, along with cursive:

Long division
Multiplication tables
Spelling and grammar
Any historical fact (in the age of Google)

What would be left to teach kids? You might think I would give an empathetic sigh—finally!—for all those kids who no longer have to endure what my generation did in elementary school. But, I can’t help feeling there is something terribly wrong with not teaching cursive anymore, and I felt sure I wasn’t alone.

However, I was surprised to learn that my fellow editors did not share my fears. TMG Editor Matt McLaughlin said he hasn’t used cursive in 30 years and thinks it’s harder to read and less practical than block letters. Interestingly though, his 8-year-old daughter is fascinated by cursive writing.

TMG Editor Corey Murray has no problem with eliminating cursive. While students, of course, need to know how to read and write, Murray points out that no one handwrites letters anymore and no employer will be asking for a handwriting sample. “Technology has and will continue to fundamentally alter how people communicate,” Murray says. “And schools have a responsibility to stay on top of these changes. There’s hardly enough time in the school day as it is.”

The only real support I found for cursive writing had little to do with what the words mean or how the practice helps you learn, but what handwriting looks like. Some lamented what would happen to typography if cursive were eliminated. Cursive writing is an art form, one that show’s a person’s unique personality. Through the ages, handwriting has been a part of our history and culture. Will that be lost?

Cursive is certainly faster than printing, and some suggest it’s an important tool for children to learn eye-hand coordination. I also wonder if it’s a critical part of how kids think and process ideas. I still use cursive on paper when I’m taking interview notes or brainstorming ideas. Is there a link between how I choose to write and how I think?

A Newsweek article seems to support this idea. Experts interviewed for the article said kids are learning how to learn when they are mastering handwriting and that handwriting needs to be fluid, something kids don’t need to think about. Speed is also important. If cursive disappears, will we realize one day a gap in students’ learning, a hiccup in their thinking process?

What do you think? Is cursive an integral part of students’ learning process or an antiquated waste of precious school hours?

[Image: fung.leo]

http://bizziwriter.com Carrie Schmeck

I find that even I have a hard time converting back to old-fashioned cursive when I have to write a note or a check. Cursive hones our small motor skills. I think it’s a shame schools are ditching the curriculum.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Carrie! Finally, someone who agrees with me. Thanks for your comment.
http://www.magellanmediapartners.com Brian O’Leary

I’d separate “what schools teach” from “whether cursive writing forms have value”. Schools provide a social good, not an exhaustive laundry list of all things you could learn. They have limited resources and have to choose among competing priorities. Relative to other skill sets, cursive writing may not make the grade.

The research on developmental benefits (fine motor skills) carries more weight with me than “nice to know how to do this”. Schools include physical education in their curricula because we believe doing so promotes health and well-being (the efficacy of the programs in a nation where a plurality are obese can be questioned; I offer it only as an example of efforts to provide a social good that is only in part a body of knowledge). Maybe that’s where cursive writing belongs – a component of a curriculum dedicated to advancing personal skills.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Very good points, Brian. Thanks for chiming in.
http://www.dontdatethisdude.blogspot.com Hadley Slater

News like this breaks my old-fashioned heart. I understand the convenience of typing and electronic communication – I use it all the time in my professional and personal life. However, hand-written items just carry more emotional weight than their cyber counterparts.

I recently began my own personal campaign to bring back hand-written letters. Each week I send a few different friends personalized notes. There is something about receiving a letter in the mail that gives you a sense of excitement and anticipation that can not be matched by modern mechanical means. Seeing a person’s handwriting helps you to understand them on a deeper level.

Part of the allure is that is shows the sender’s effort to get in touch with the reader. Anyone can type out an e-mail, but to write a letter you must sit down, collect your thoughts, and write without the luxury of a delete key.

Cursive is an art form and I believe it should be passed down through the generations. I truly hope this doesn’t become yet another case of, “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Hadley, I’ll join this personal campaign of yours! Two of my closest friends and I always write handwritten thank-you cards and “snail mail” them. And they have their children do the same, a form of politeness and gratitude that I appreciate and that I could write an entirely new blog post on!
  
  I, too, fear this may be a case of “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Well said. Thanks for commenting.
Mack Kobel

Schools should focus on teaching efficient organization, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Cursive is an archaic style of writing without applicable benefits. Typing is far more efficient. Perhaps one day pens and pencils will be entirely obsolete and hand-writing will be replaced by electronics. I for one would not be in the least bit distraught.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Mack, you don’t believe there is a benefit in learning how to think as you write and working on hand-eye coordination among third graders learning cursive? Or, maybe you don’t buy those arguments? Oh well, I knew not everyone would agree with me. Thanks for sharing your viewpoints.
http://engage.tmgcustommedia.com Chloe Thompson

I use the same kind of pen I’ve been using since my senior year in high school, and I feel lost without it. (Bic Velocity, if you must know.) I scribble notes for interviews, story ideas and the like (in a mix print and cursive, with more emphasis on the former), but I was more shocked when I got out of my small town that other schools required kids to take a typing class. My dad personally bought a Lion King typing game for me and thrust it into my hands when I was 12, insisting it’d be a “vital thing” for me to learn. He was right–in high school, I was schooling him on how fast and accurately I could type. I think it’s great that schools are taking the reins and teaching word processing and the like, but there’s nothing like chewing on my Bic or absentmindedly breaking off the handle while I’m thinking of ideas. Writing will never truly go out of style.
http://engage.tmgcustommedia.com Ricky Ribeiro

Great article, Mel.

I’m going to have to agree with Corey and Matt though. Outside of my signature, I don’t use cursive at all in everyday life. And as we transition further into the digital age, cursive becomes even less important.

I can see the benefits of it for the small motor skill conditioning some have mentioned. Maybe we’ll just treat writing in cursive like we do piano lessons. Both are enriching extracurricular activities that students are free to pursue on their own time for their own personal growth.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Has this become a men vs. women debate? Seriously, that could be an interesting study. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus or Pluto or whatever that saying is … I do like your piano analogy though, Ricky. I’ll give you that.
Tom Davis

Cursive? Why not a few courses on engraving stone tablets? Cursive writing has no place in our fast paced, App based world. Just as the pen replaced the hammer and chisel, the keyboard is laying waste to the pen. We should be embracing the elimination of paper for both student and text book manufacturer alike. Cursive? I say stop all penmanship! School should be changing constantly to adapt with the times. Like Cher.
- Melanie Powers
  
  Is the Tom Davis I personally know who fancies himself a comedian? Either way, your comment is starting to make me feel old. But I appreciate your thoughts.
Christina

A really cool website
http://twitter.com/markmaps Mark

Learning to transcribe thought-into-print and speech-into-print are and will remain critical skills in the 21st century. Children need to be taught to write fluently & legibly.

Learning manuscript writing (printing) is critical. Forms say please type or print.
Learning cursive writing is not.

Research shows that manuscript can be as fast as cursive. Writers using manuscript will evolve their own shorthand letter strokes and combinations. We’re not talking about writing to match the letter forms & stroke patterns used for initial instruction.

It also retains its legibility longer. Look at the legibility difference in the lower fourth of a page of notes taken in manuscript vs cursive.

The average 6th grader writes at about 14 words per minute, 9 when composing.
Once a student can keyboard 20 words per minute at 80% accuracy, drill & practice becomes less important for further development than using keyboarding to write.

Myth Busting: That keyboarding can’t be learned in the primary grades is a myth.
They can learn to play the piano in those years, eh?

Myth Busting: Your legal signature has to be in cursive. Really?
How many undecipherable “signature marks” have you seen?
I’ve had a printed, all caps, signature nearly forever.
Quite legible but nothing like the handwriting chart.

Three Tips for teachers & parents:
1. We can’t write about things we can’t talk about. Engage children (and adult peers) in conversations about the topic about which they will be writing before they face the blank page to compose.

2. Don’t confront them with a blank page. Have them make a little smiley face in one of the corners. Watch the psychological effect of having broken the blank plane.

3. The most effective method of instructing handwriting is to copy models at the same scale of the intended writing. There should be a model letter at the beginning, middle and end of each practice line. The three referents ensure more accurate copying than when a single model is presented at the beginning of a practice line. Stroke patterns should be instructed, to build fluency, and not left to chance.

Just some thoughts after 42 years as an educator.
I enjoyed your post, Melanie!