Is cursive handwriting even a valid skill anymore? A sentimental Boston Globe article explores this rapidly atrophying communication method, and discovers, although it has its fans, it’s essentially going extinct.
In today’s world, this seems logical – formal cursive handwriting just doesn’t seem necessary when so much communication is done via keyboard entered text. Even schools are phasing out penmanship. The Globe reports that A 2007 US Department of Education study shows nine out of 10 teachers only devote an average of 70 minutes per week to the teaching of handwriting.
But some, like Kitty Burns Florey author of Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting feel that the digital generation is loosing a link with the past. If peoples ability to read cursive handwriting completely disappears, how will they read old hand written notes, or a historical manuscript?
The Globe explains:
It’s a very disturbing problem,” said Kate Gladstone of Albany, N.Y., who has a website specializing in handwriting improvement. “I see people in their 20s and 30s who cannot read cursive. If you cannot read all types of handwriting, you might find your grandma’s diary or something from 100 years ago, and not be able to read it.” There are practical concerns as well. Sometimes we don’t have a computer, or the professor won’t let us bring it to class to take notes. Or sometimes, as happened in New Orleans hospitals during Hurricane Katrina, computers lose power and medical orders and records have to be written out by hand.
It all sounds like nostalgia for an antiquated practice. We’re in a post handwriting world, and no matter how nice it seems in theory, there just isn’t a need to spend excessive time teaching a dying art. As long as people can read and write printed writing on some basic level what does it mater if their cursive skills are up to par? Time is better spent on teaching more appropriate skills like touch typing, writing and critical thinking
All this said, we could see handwriting eventually come back into as an analog throwback kind of hobby, as seen in the craft movement of recent years.
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Good riddance to it.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Good riddance! My shamefully terrible handwriting has haunted me for an eternity. Ever since I could do no better than a “3″ in elementary school. Stupid handwriting.
If there was a way that I could symbolically watch as handwriting dangled by one hand from a cliff, slowly losing its grip, one finger at a time, and do nothing, I would. I would watch all of its little, weak, frail fingers lose their strength one at a time until finally, the grip was completely lost. I would watch with an open and quiet satisfaction as handwriting fell from the cliff. I would watch as its feeble, brittle bones broke and shattered against the rocky outcroppings. I would stare down upon the lifeless remnant of handwriting, sprawled against the valley floor. No more. Handwriting would be no more and I would find peace.
Hugs!
January 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
James, James, James shame on you!!! Allow me to stand on a pedestal for a moment….
I’m horrified that handwriting should disappear, our hands express our true selves thru pens/pencils/brushes and indeed fingers in the example of finger painting. Stress, enthusiasm, concern, fear, inhibitions, exhibitions are all communicated thru our hands, and to in a sense chop them off is indeed a shame.
Brilliant poetry by the way James, if only you could allow your self to be expressed thru ur handwriting as a creative outlet without the fear of being measured on the result. Who cares on the numbers awarded anyway, that’s only a way to keep writing uni(n)formed and same old same old. Just maybe dear James it’s a big, fat, THREE, that’s got you in a grip??
Consider this….. we are in fact creating and inventing a completely new means of handrighting.. thru computers, touch screens… the progression of computers seems to indicate there will in fact be a more hands on approach to technology. Could be due to a number of reasons.. repetitive strain injury for example… keeping our hands locked in a particular fashion causes strain and injury to our bodies (surprise surprise), therefore an outlet for more movement in the body thru computing is making it’s way to the masses via the creators who are quite possibly experiencing similar restraints. PERHAPS it’s only a matter of time before we get a little more handy with these plastic boxes. Phew… almost off the pedestal…
Computers CAN and ARE immortalising fonts for those of similar views… IE it’s a hoot seeing my handwriting on the screen. I can change the whole screen to look like I wrote everything on it and there’s a real sense of authorising information. A very cool thing, which comes highly recommended…. just one moment for a little advertising please.. in four words, and two full stops.
Get fonted. On MADinMelbourne.com.au
OK, I’m off the stool now…. NEXT…..
January 28th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Let me add some of the things that the BOSTON GLOBE left out in quoting my comments:
/1/ Fortunately, learning to read cursive takes far less time and effort than learning to write it! (You don’t need to write cursive in order to read it. Learning to read cursive takes 15 minutes to an hour — learning to write it requires weeks at best, more often some months of concentrated time and effort that could very well go to other, more important studies.)
/2/ The fastest and most legible handwriters avoid “pure” cursive anyway. Highest-speed, highest-legibility handwriters join only some, not all, of the letters — making the easiest joins, and skipping the rest — and use print-like shapes for those letters whose printed and cursive shapes “disagree.” This makes it extremely doubtful that anyone should continue to idolize cursive.
Kate Gladstone
Founder and CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works handwriting improvement service
Director, the World Handwriting Contest
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
January 29th, 2009 at 1:23 am