The Curse of Cursive

There's lots in the news right now about the death of cursive script... real handwriting. Apparently the Indiana Board of Education has decided that teachers no longer need to teach cursive writing in primary school, but can focus more on keyboard skills. Interesting...

I remember learning cursive script in Grade 3 and having horrible handwriting until Grade 5, when my parents gave me the incentive of $5 for going up a grade in Writing. I went from a C- to an A very quickly! After that, my handwriting was pretty good... and I used it throughout highschool. During my early years in university, I worked for a geotechnical engineer at the department of highways. I helped create a lot of draughting diagrams... by hand! This was before Autocad! So, I learned how to print everything. And after that... well, printing has become my new writing. I find it actually much quicker than cursive writing... as do a lot of other people apparently. Speed is now the key... not elegance or a beautiful script.

There was an editorial recently in the newspaper lamenting the disappearance of cursive script. "How will children, as they grow into adults, surive in the world??" Some of the examples given:

• signing legal documens
• scribble notes
• express themselves in writing away from a keyboard
• dash off a shopping list
• write cheques
• send thank-you notes with a personalm message
• write a sympathy/bereavement card
• label something
• take notes in a university lecture
• jot down last minute additions to a speech in the margins of a typed copy

Well, honestly... I think a lot of those are going into a Blackberry or iPhone or iPad or some other variant. These devices are being more and more ubiquitous. The only glitch would be if the power grid or the wireless network ever went down.

Plus... as long as they continue to teach printing in school, people will still be able to jot things down. As for signing a name... well... cheques are becoming dinosaurs with online banking. Credit cards only need a PIN now... and for those rare moments when you actually need to sign your name... well, there's always the good old-fashioned "X"... (plus a witness!)