Community Chat

[rolen]

I recently read an article that said there is a new trend in grade schools to stop teaching cursive handwriting to school kids. I think it said that about 1/3 of grade schools have already stopped it. To me that sounded like a poor decision. But to my surprise when I mentioned this to my kids and grandkids, they all seemed to agree that it was a good thing. Even our kids say that they hardly ever write anything in cursive. They use computers for everything and when they must write out something by hand, they print it. I asked them if they needed to sign their names to anything these days. They said sure, but that even that was rare.

If schools totally stop teaching this, hopefully the parents will at least teach their children how to sign their own names. Although less common than it once was, surely everyone has to sign a document a few times in their lives.

Also, my husband brought up an interesting thought about the upcoming generation that is not taught cursive - not only will they be unable to write cursive, but they probably will not be able to read it either, right? Will they be unable to read the original copy of the Declaration of Independence? If they buy a greeting card, will they only be able to choose from the ones that are printed in block letters? Will they need someone to translate the wedding invitation from their cousin? Maybe in years to come, all things will be totally generated on a computer and cursive writing will be gone and thought of as a relic.