On Cursive: To Be or Not To Be

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This past fall, our local-weekly newspaper posed this question: Should school continue to teach cursive writing? Why or why not? Fortunately, they published many responses, to which I found a certain amount of amusement. Here you go, but the comments in italics are my responses.

Yes! Because it is necessary! (… and examples for necessary are?)

The teaching of cursive handwriting and reading has been in school since Abraham Lincoln wrote on a coal shovel in a one-room log cabin school. It not only teaches young students how to write, but how to read handwriting. (Yes … and using slide rules and an abacus have a chance of returning to schools. At least we don’t have to bring back the Algebra problem of determining what time do you have to be at the train station to pick up two friends arriving on different trains that left at different times and traveled at different speeds over different distances … oops …  that problem probably still exists!)

They should continue to teach it for the sole fact that someone will have to interpret old documents in the future. (Alright, interpreting hieroglyphics and ancient Hebrew still have a place, thus should be required for high school graduation.)

Yes because cursive writing is beneficial to learning and integrating communication between the two hemisphere. (Thank you Mr. Learning Theory & Cognitive Learning Expert because we now know that printing, typing, or keyboarding notes does not influence learning because of a lack of communication between cerebral hemispheres.)

Bare minimum, teach them how to sign their name for forms requiring signatures. My sixth-grader is clueless on that. (Although you are open to the idea, are you saying that printing is not acceptable signature on a formal document?)

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Time spent on teaching cursive could be used to educate children on other matters, such as grammar. (Say that it ain’t so!)

They (the students) will need to know it someday, and they will be smarter for it. (I don’t know when, but when it comes, the light bulb will serve as a reminder to thank schools for it.)

No, dumb them down some more. Then we will have total government and corporate control. (Thank you Sean Hannity enthusiast, and please, never attend a public forum on education …. now turn on the radio because it’s time Rush Limbaugh.)

Cursive is not yet obsolete, so we should keep teaching it. Perhaps we could eliminate Roman numerals instead. (How then will future generations understand the Super Bowl?)

A personal finance class should be mandatory for all high schoolers to graduate. (Thank you for your direct and insightful response to the question.)