Curse That Which Destroyed Cursive Writing!

When I was 8 years old and attending P.S. 115 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, my teacher appeared to be in her 60s or 70s (as was the style at the time - no young hipster-looking teachers back then). She wore those horrid loose-fitting multi-colored sweaters with tight necklines and bland dress pants. If it wasn't bad enough, she smelled like centuries-old perfume. A short woman, she sported gaudy necklaces that accentuated her tacky attire, she had those strings attached to her granny glasses, which she kept near the tip of her nose while peering down at us in disapproval.

I remember cursive writing...HBU???

How do I remember all of these details from my 3rd grade experience? 

As soon as the Department of Education (DOE) and Chancellor Carmen Farina announced that cursive writing is returning to our schools, it brought me back to my childhood and a time when something that was as simple as learning script seemed so frustrating and useless.

There's something regal about cursive writing - something classy and old fashioned about signing one's name or writing a personal letter in script instead of print. The question is - are children these days ever really going to use cursive writing in their adult years?

Sadly, I can say with confidence that I have no use for cursive writing at this point in my life. Other than signing my name on a check or to approve a credit card purchase in a store, when does one actually need to use cursive writing?

The renewal of cursive lessons isn't mandated and it will be up to individual school administrators to decide if and how the lessons are executed. One official said learning script would improve reading and spelling among students. They can also be better tuned in to reading historical documents like the Declaration of Independence.

Let's get real! Our writing culture is now an embarrassment to the amazing expressions/communications and evolution of Egyptian and Chinese writings - even though some were harsh, others were eloquent in style.

Hey - I never learned cursive writing so that I could head to a museum and decode scrolls of ancient script written in verbose styles never to be used again! Did I miss something? The only thing I remember about learning cursive writing was standing in line behind my classmates so that our ugly-sweater wearing teacher could yell at me for not fluidly forming my "r's" so that they didn't look like "n's". UGH!

After middle school in the 1990s, penmanship and technology changed the way students submitted their assignments. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, you weren't allowed to print OR use cursive writing in your book reports or for any academic submissions! Maybe it was because teachers, overall, found it so hard to read students' handwriting or maybe they wanted students to get a handle on technology and use word processors/computers to complete 10-page papers? 

At some point in the last two decades, the DOE and teachers mandated that handwritten academic submissions weren't just unacceptable - and abolished - they became reasons to penalize a student and give them a poor grade. Teachers would throw ANY and ALL handwritten assignments/homework back to you as if you'd passed them a snotty rag or the plague! How's that for creative encouragement and teaching students the art of writing! 

By the middle of high school, just about all handwritten assignments were banned. When I was enrolled at South Shore High School in 1994-1995, they cast us off to typing classes where our grades were based on how fast we could peck at the right keys on a keyboard without making mistakes!  This was a skill needed more than any other in the workforce - if you're not typing more than a certain amount of words per minute, you're useless to a company!

Good bye cursive, hello speed typing!

Go ahead, teach our children how to sign their names away - when they're adults it'll be their signature on a mortgage they probably can't afford - or on a check they won't use because as adults they'll pay their bills online. Yes, it's distinguishing to learn cursive writing and novel to revive its authentic style. But grading students for penmanship that isn't going to exist in their adult years serves no purpose.

"LOL" and "LMAO" all you want and say "WTF" when it comes to reading someone's atrocious handwriting! Children are growing up in a world where technology/ acronyms rule and a pen is just a silly and ancient writing tool...