It’s an interesting coincidence that (a) Katherine is learning cursive in school, and (b) Les is posting about how teaching handwriting is declining in the US.
Learning to write in script is a time-honored tradition. But in today’s time-starved classrooms, some around the country are questioning whether, given everything else vying for space in the curriculum and the increasing use of technology, teaching these children cursive is even necessary.
Local teachers say, if nothing else, its emphasis has diminished in recent years.
“Historically, we teach less cursive now,” said Webb, whose class works on handwriting for short periods two to three days each week. “It seems we have more and more standards we need to cover. The emphasis is on science and reading.”
[…] Lisa Jones, who teaches third grade at Edgelea Elementary, said she’s noticed that consequence of the de-emphasis, not just by schools but by society: “The most difficult part for me is that now they can’t read it, because they don’t see it anywhere.”
Like Webb, Jones said she isn’t teaching as much cursive as in the past. Not emphasizing it as much at that grade, however, means by the time they hit fourth grade, they’re not able to write as well.
“I don’t think it will be used as much,” Jones said. “When I was in junior high and high school, our final copies of work had to be handwritten in cursive. Now it’s typed.”
I’m of mixed feelings on this (as usual). I agree that typewriting / word processing is a much faster, cleaner way to both compose and present your writing. And, as someone who never picked up cursive (I print a nearly illegible scrawl, though, since I never learned bad habits in handwriting, I can do it as neat as any wall chart) it’s never struck me as essential.
On the other hand, there’s a feeling of nostalgia for it, having gone through its instruction myself. Further, since people will continue to write things by hand for the foreseeable future, having as many legible ways for people to do so is a good thing.
For what it’s worth, Katherine is still interested in learning it, as she’s long considered it to be “big kid writing,” which is thus a cool thing to learn to do.