When we have taken time and trouble to learn something, we tend to value it—simply because it was a PITA to learn. So, when something gets taken out of the K-12 curriculum, people of a certain generation can have a gleeful “kids these days” moment. When I was young, memorizing the state capitols was dropped from the curriculum in a lot of places, and I remember hearing people bemoan the debacle that had come to be known as education. As it happens, when I’m bored, I will sometimes try to write the states in alphabetical order. If I’m really bored, I’ll then try to identify each state’s capitol. I usually fail. My life would be no worse had I not been taught to memorize the capitols.
[ETA, since, apparently, I was unclear on this point: I don’t remember the state capitols because, between fourth grade and until I was an adult in boring meetings, it was never a skill I needed. Something that you’re forced to learn that you then never or rarely learn is something you forget. That some people in some very specific fields might find that knowledge useful doesn’t mean that it should be a required part of K-12 curriculum.]
As it happens, I write in cursive a lot. It is useful for taking notes quickly, although nowhere near as useful as shorthand—which I was never taught. If we’re concerned about people being able to write quickly, then we should teach shorthand.
When I was teaching, I had some students who wrote exams in cursive, but very few It’s faster to write an exam in cursive, but not necessarily a good choice. Even I think cursive is harder to read, and rhetorically it’s a poor choice to irritate a grader by writing in a way that takes extra time to decipher.
A lot of students wrote in what amounts to italics, and that made a lot of sense (sloped and somewhat looped, but without special characters for letters like capital Q). It’s as fast as cursive, but doesn’t take any particular training to write or read.
The other argument I hear for taking class time to teach cursive is that people won’t be able to read historical documents. This argument puzzles me. Printed documents tended to be in block letters from the beginning of the 19th century. Books were in block letters long before that. Some documents are in cursive (especially proclamations), but not always the same cursive.
I read a fair number of historical documents, and I do get a thrill when I’m looking at an original version of something like the Magna Carta or Declaration of Independence. But it’s that it’s the thing, not that it’s in cursive. I’m not sure that a person understands the document any better if they read it in cursive rather than block letters.
And, in fact, what makes reading those documents difficult isn’t the cursive, but first and foremost the content. The historical context, references, genre. The language is often archaic, and usually invokes legal or philosophical concepts that are unfamiliar. To the extent that deciphering them is hard, it isn’t because they’re in cursive, but usually that the font is serif, and the kerning is confusing. And they aren’t always in cursive. For instance, knowing cursive doesn’t help someone read the Rhode Island charter.
So, really, people need to stop worrying about not teaching cursive. What we should really be getting upset about is that students aren’t being taught geology, sex ed, history, argumentation. I don’t care if it’s in cursive or not.
So, my thing with this is not that cursive should or shouldn’t be required: it’s that there needs to be some minimum standard of penmanship (as there was for me, and I am guessing for you as well). It is fairly obvious anecdotally that elementary students spend less time writing by hand than they once did. (I gig constantly by grading standardized exams, so I think I count as a witness here.) This experience tells me a few things: 1) their penmanship ranges from perfectly nice cursive to completely illegible print script (both can, of course be good or bad); 2) poor penmanship either frustrates the reader (never a good thing) or gets the response deferred to a team leader (who is probably a harsher grader); 3) it is obvious that there still needs to be formal instruction in and standards of penmanship, given that these incredibly important exams (and doubtless other applications) still require it.
I sometimes entertain the idea that perhaps it’s just me and that the handwriting wouldn’t be hard to read for someone the writer’s own age (that it’s generational drift rather than poor quality), but I think that’s wrong for two reasons: 1) the other graders all complain about it as well (which is suspect and a little circular, I admit, based on our mostly similar demographics); 2) it’s not difficult to read in the same way–it’s highly idiosyncratic in its messiness. The problem presented by (2), I think, is that lack of precision or consistency in the formation of letters creates ambiguity, and ambiguity is exactly what makes handwriting difficult to discern: the reader’s brain is being given unclear instructions, and everyone everywhere is frustrated by unclear instructions for necessary tasks.
TLDR: whatever version students are being taught, they need to be assessed for legibility, because it is still important that they be able to produce legible documents by hand. I don’t know what that assessment looks like right now, but it is not working based on a pretty broad sample of handwritten documents that students produce.
Well, right now it’s important for exams, but I wonder how long that’s going to be true. I do think legibility is more important than whether it’s cursive, block, italic, all caps, whatevs.
Grading on legibility is a problem, though, as very few people get tested for dysgraphia, but it’s a real thang.
My concern about the loss of cursive is that it’s so immediate. I’ve found it to be invaluable not only for note-taking but also because I remember things better when I personally write them down. Essays are better when I’ve written at least the outline by hand. Short stories I typically do a very rough first draft by hand.
Could you replace this by, as you suggest, shorthand? Probably. But I think the educational trend right now is to lessen rather than replace the topics taught in public schools.
Writing by hand and cursive aren’t the same. And this is about cursive being required in K-12–there are so many other things much, much more important. Like recess.
Two quick thoughts:
* I remember learning cursive in the fourth grade (I’m 58 now, so this was a while ago), and I quite literally failed that part of the class. I’m a lefty and the teacher didn’t quite know what to do with how I could hold a pen and not drag it through the ink. I mostly printed, but that too was horrible. The thing that really changed things for me was learning how to type in about the 8th grade– quite literally, it was a class in a classroom of typewriters and all we did was learn how to touch-type. To me, that’s writing.
* One other thing about handwriting– cursive, but also just writing with a pen/pencil– is this idea of “authenticity.” My students frequently comment that they think that writing by hand has a higher level of realness, sincerity, meaningfulness, and like I said, authenticity. That’s not just my students either. People still think analyzing someone’s handwriting reveals something about that writer’s psyche.
The College Board’s advanced placement exams are giving up blue books next year. All the essays will be typed, as they were during COVID when all students took the exams online from home.