Cursive Writing: A Nod To The Past

How many people actually write letters anymore? Letter writing along with cursive script is going the way of the dinosaurs if it is not extinct already. With so many alternative and quicker ways to communicate, what is the point of writing something down with a pen on paper?

Fellow GeekMom Kathy questioned teaching “script” to her homeschooled children and it is beginning to occur to school districts too that there is no point in teaching this arcane method of communication. Starting this fall, schools in Indiana will no longer be required to teach cursive writing. Replacing cursive writing will be keyboarding, which makes sense given the way most of us communicate this days. Keyboarding is an essential skill in today’s world, not just for work either. Even if you do a job that doesn’t involve computers, people send email, write documents, and reports  for personal use.

However, if you don’t learn cursive writing how will you sign a document? If you don’t learn cursive writing, how will you keep a personal journal in one of those cute little lockable diaries? If you don’t learn cursive, how can you write longer documents when there are no computers after the alien invasion? I can see a use for it, even though it is a small one. So while schools may be leaning toward not teaching it, I would probably go ahead and teach my child at home. After all, to her, it is a right of passage. She has been trying to write her name in cursive since she started kindergarten.