2 minute read
Cursive: Outdated or relevant?
By Rebecca Hastings
Iwatched my daughter try to sign her name just above the signature line. She looked at me, a little lost. I felt sorry for her and frustrated that she had not been prepared for something so simple. Cursive hasn’t been taught in my kids’ district in years. They had become whizzes on computers, but what about something as simple as signing your name?
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It made me wonder if cursive was a thing of the past or something worth reviving. It’s certainly a highly debated topic in educational settings. The role of cursive is ambiguous at best and there are no clear answers. One thing we can all agree on is that the role of cursive in modern education has changed.
Incorporating cursive in the curriculum had been on the decline, but it was in 2010 that we saw a drastic drop. With the implementation of more technology, there was a shift to more typing. That, together with the Common Core creating more rigorous classroom standards (in the US) made things particularly challenging. Something in the day had to go, and cursive was already questionable. It seemed like the obvious choice.
Education Week addressed this specifically, referring to an interview with Sue Pimentel, a lead writer for the Common Core Language Arts standards. In the interview, she explained, “that the decision was about priorities—and that learning to use technology took precedence.”
However, for many, not having enough room in the curriculum doesn’t outweigh the benefits of teaching cursive. While some argue to let cursive go, similar to the way we
abandoned the abacus and the slide rule for more modern instruments, we cannot ignore some of the benefits of cursive.
The word that comes to the forefront of many cursive debates is signature. As with my experience with my daughter, we cannot ignore the need to sign our names on documents. And the truth is that many kids are growing up without the skills to do so. If education is preparing kids for life, are we doing them a disservice by eliminating cursive? Something as simple as voter registration becomes an issue for those that have never been taught how to sign their names.
Signatures lead directly to the second most common argument in favor of cursive: the inability to read historical documents because one cannot read cursive, can put people at a disadvantage. This argument is much more of a personal conviction than an official one, but it should not be ignored.
Some argue, however, that the ability to read cursive is a skill independent of the ability to write in cursive. Teaching kids the skill of simply reading cursive could be taught in as little as a thirty to sixty-minute lesson.
However, the arguments are not as simple as cursive semantics. The most surprising, and perhaps convincing arguments for cursive in the classroom have little to do with such specifics. They address more general benefits that could be easily overlooked.
Cursive can teach fine motor skills, increase the speed of writing, and aid in the creative process. While this may seem like a lofty argument, it goes beyond generalizations to specify the benefits to those struggling with dyslexia or brain injury.
The New York Department of Education took this argument further in their research
