Indiana is taking the first steps towards what I believe will be a nationwide movement in removing cursive writing from its teaching curriculum. This Fall they will no longer be teaching the long hand form and will instead focus on keyboard typing skills. They are the first state to actually take the teaching out of their curriculum although 41 states have declared that cursive writing is no longer a “core standard”.
I beleive this is long over due. States should have started doing these things years ago when it was clear that the Internet was no passing fad and that the only time people ever use cursive is when signing their names.
Now I know there will be plenty of people out there (most likely over the age of 40) that will find this outlandish and against tradition. Well…..deal with it. The world is moving on and pencil and paper just no longer cut it. Teachers don’t want to have to translate scribbles written on paper made to look like actual words. They want to clearly be able to read a paper and typing is the easiest way for that to happen.
Cursive writing is going to go the way of caligraphy. It will be an elective class in high school and used very minimally until it is simply forgotten. This is how things work. We have eveolved into this technological society and this is just another step.
What do you think about the movement away from cursive writing? Will you want your children to learn cursive? Why do you think we should keep it?
