The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019.

Call me “old fashioned,” but I enjoy sending and (definitely) enjoy receiving a handwritten card or note, especially from my children. There is a certain “feel” to handwritten missives that an e-mail just cannot convey. And, what about the individual, nearly-impossible-to-precisely-duplicate personal signature? Even that lovely insight into our unique personalities is falling by the wayside. The article told of a mother’s shock that her eight-grade daughter was unable to sign her own name!

“We need to make sure (children will) be ready for what’s going to happen in 2020 or 2030,” said Katie Van Sluys, a professor at DePaul University and the president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Yes, I would agree that we want our children to be able to succeed in the global market. But, by 2020 or 2030, even though automobiles will likely be obsolete, should we dispense with teaching our children how to ride a bicycle? Some things from the past bring joy to the present.

Handwriting may increasingly be something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, but on the other hand, if our children lose the ability to write (or never learn how), will they be unable to converse with themselves in writing?

“Text messaging, e-mail, and word processing have replaced handwriting outside the classroom,” said Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University’s College of Education and Human Services, and she worries they’ll replace it entirely before long. “I am not sure students have a sense of any reason why they should vest their time and effort in writing a message out manually when it can be sent electronically in seconds.” For Jeffers, cursive writing is a lifelong skill, one she fears could become lost to the culture, making many historic records hard to decipher and robbing people of “a gift.”

Certainly there are those, like Jeffers, who still continue to believe in the handwritten word, e.g., Montessori Schools. At Mountaineer Montessori in Charleston, teacher Sharon Spencer stresses cursive to her first- through third-graders. By the time her students are in the third grade, they are writing book reports and their spelling words in cursive. To Spencer, cursive writing is an art that helps teach them muscle control and hand-eye coordination.

This should not be an “either/or” situation and we need to address the pros and cons before it’s too late. Get in touch with your local school board, “write” a letter to those involved in policies on education at the state and federal levels. Let’s not let handwriting become extinct.

For the full story,  go to discovery.com

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