Is Cursive Coming to a Close?

Laptops. Email. Texting. In today’s ever-evolving technological age, the future of cursive handwriting in schools hangs in the balance. What does it mean? What would a school without cursive handwriting built into its curriculum look like? How would a lack of cursive handwriting influence future generations? Is cursive coming to a close? And if it is, is it a bad thing?

There don’t seem to be any easy answers. Arguments both for and against continued teaching of cursive abound. With communication methods quickly shifting to electronic modes (when was the last time you sat down to write an old-fashioned letter?), some argue more time in the classroom should be spent on developing typing skills than on honing handwriting. But others, like Parkway Montessori director and lead teacher Angie Hann, say an element of beauty and art is lost when cursive handwriting goes by the wayside.

“Kids really like beauty,” says Hann, who teaches in the Northland and whose training in Montessori education taught her that kids are inspired by beautiful work. For her, good handwriting is matter of taking pride in your work, something she encourages all of the kids at the Montessori school to do.

But more and more, cursive is dropping out of school curriculums, no longer considered a necessity for children to learn. The Common Core State Standards for English, which outlines the expectations of what students should learn before attending college, does not require cursive. The set of standards has so far been adopted by 42 states, including both Kansas and Missouri.

Lynette Walker, a secretary at East High School, says she doesn’t use cursive anymore, although it was part of her curriculum years ago when she attended grade school at Hickman Mills.

“I think most people print nowadays,” she said. “I’ve really never thought about it. It’s probably easier for most people to read your writing when you print.”

In a 2009 Time Magazine article, writer Claire Suddath referred to a “boom of tech-savvy children who don’t remember life before the Internet and who text-message nearly as much as they talk.”

“They have even less need for good penmanship [than older generations],” she says. “We are witnessing the death of handwriting.”

Some parents see irreplaceable advantages to learning cursive, such as advancing motor skills and practicing individual signatures. Also, handwriting has been scientifically proven to improve kids’ spelling and communication skills. What’s more, fears abound that, if cursive is done away with, future generations will have trouble reading historical hand-written documents like the U.S. Constitution.

But is a death of handwriting a travesty or simply a reflection of a changing society? One blog I read on the subject spawned nearly 90 comments. Most of them acknowledged cursive as a nice extra, but not really necessary to the furthering of society. After all, more and more college students are taking notes on their laptops, and much of today’s communication is in electronic form.

Hann counts herself as an advocate for cursive handwriting, because it’s a reflection of taking pride in one’s work. But, she argues there is more to life than decent handwriting skills.

“I really believe cursive is great,” she said, “but I also believe that teaching children dignity and respect is a lot more important.”

Fun Facts About Cursive

• The word “cursive” is derived from the Latin word cursivus, which means “flowing.”
• An early advantage of cursive handwriting was that it allowed less lifting of the pen, which helped writers avoid ink smudges with their quills.
• The final draft of the Declaration of Independence was written professionally in cursive by Timothy Matlack. In the hand-written draft created by Thomas Jefferson, not all of the letters were joined.
• Clerks in the 18th and 19th centuries were trained to write correspondence in cursive. The script was called “fair hand,” because it was attractive.
• The ability to write in cursive is regarded as a sign of literacy in many countries today.
• In the late 1990s, U.S. Postal Service employees complained about having trouble deciphering the cursive capital letter, “Q,” from the number “2” on pieces of mail.

Kate Meadows does not hate her cursive handwriting, but she gets jealous of others whose cursive is prettier.