Cursive Writing

September, 2011

    I was shocked to read in the newspaper several weeks ago that the state of Indiana has decided to drop a requirement to teach cursive writing as part of the public school curriculum. Instead, all Indiana students will be required to learn and become proficient in keyboarding.  I was even more shocked today when I looked up ‘cursive writing’ on Wikipedia and learned that  as of June 24, 2011, cursive writing was not longer a mandatory part of the grade school curriculum in my own state of Illinois!  

    Starting 3rd grade at Northside School with Mrs. Buckner was a big deal back in my grade school days, primarily because Mrs. Buckner was famous for making caramel apples for her class.  But 3rd grade was also the year that that Mrs. Buckner taught thirty nine year olds both our multiplication tables and cursive writing!  Even now, almost 55 years later, when I think of 3rd grade, I think of caramel apples, timed multiplication tests, and D’Learian cursive letters circling the room high above the blackboards.  Even now, I remember how proud I was when I could finally write my own name!

    My mother had a unique 3rd grade experience.  She lived in the country and attended a one-room school where one year she unexpectedly found herself the only 3rd grader in the school, so she was suddenly promoted to 4th grade.  She always claimed that the reason her handwriting was so bad was because cursive was taught in 3rd grade and all of her new 4th grade classmates already knew how to write, so no one bothered to teach her.  Fortunately, however, she never seemed to have any difficulty with multiplication! 

    My son Steve has the worst handwriting of any of my children and I’m pretty sure that his bad handwriting can be blamed on his 3rd grade experience as well.  Steve’s 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Marietta.  Mrs. Marietta was a no-nonsense teacher who, legend has it, kept a red scarf in her desk that she whipped out if and when she was in a bad mood.  Her students quickly learned to tiptoe around their teacher whenever they spotted the scarf.  She was also a big believer in detentions.  I’m not exactly sure what Steve was doing in Mrs. Marietta’s classroom besides not paying attention to that red scarf, but, although he was a whiz at multiplication, he never really mastered handwriting--and he averaged at least one detention a week for the first semester of 3rd grade.  Steve’s detentions finally decreased when I realized that he didn’t mind detentions.  He actually liked hanging out after school with his friends in detention, and sometimes he even got a head start on his homework.  It was me who had to make a return trip to St. Matt’s to pick him up who was being punished.  Once I figured this out and started charging him $1.00 a late ride, the detentions improved.  But his handwriting never did!

    Leslie, my most artistic child, also had Mrs. Marietta but she sailed through 3rd grade with only one detention (for chewing gum) and emerged with beautiful handwriting that today makes her unique within her chosen field of medicine.  Her father, another physician, has the stereotypic  doctor’s scrawl. His 3rd grade teacher was a nun!

    The trouble with having more than two children is that after two, everything begins to blur.  I’m pretty sure that Jill had Mrs. Marietta for 3rd grade, I’m pretty sure that, knowing Jill, she got her share of detentions, but my only vivid memory of Jill’s cursive skills is the fact that by high school she could perfectly imitate my own not terribly proficient signature, so much so that I couldn’t tell her copy from my own.  I’ve since learned that Jill spent most of high school signing her own permission slips, report cards, and detentions!  Mrs. Marietta would be appalled!

    Johanna’s brain tumor made multitasking activities difficult for her so, while she learned cursive, she has always preferred printing.  However, she is a whiz at her times tables.

    Obviously much has changed since my mom and I were in school.  Obviously much has changed even since my kids were in school.  My son’s keyboarding class in high school was still called typing.  No one had any idea that opposable thumbs would supplant index fingers when it came to tapping out messages on communication devices! Leslie got her first cell phone her junior year of college and all it did was make and receive calls.  Texting was still years away.  According to Wikipedia, only 15% of high school students taking the ACT’s today write their essays in cursive.  Clearly schools today are correct to insist that all students become proficient in keyboarding.  But I’m not sure that keyboarding vs cursive needs to be an either/or choice.

    Keyboarding is efficient and quick.  It’s a skill that everyone needs in this technological age we live in.  But it lacks the personal touch of something written in cursive.   I have a group of high school friends I still keep in touch with, and, 45 years after we all graduated from high school, I immediately recognize all their handwriting when I find their Christmas cards in my mailbox.  My parents have been gone for almost ten years now, but occasionally I will come across a card, a note, the back of a photograph--and immediately I recognize their handwriting and have a sense of their presence.   

    Indiana (and Illinois) haven’t eliminated the teaching of cursive writing, they’ve just made it optional.  I’m hoping that the Mrs. Buckners and Mrs. Marietta’s teaching third grade today will continue to incorporate cursive in their own curriculum.  Handwriting is a very personal thing, one of the things that makes us unique individuals.  Good or bad, neat or messy, artistic or ugly, slanted, sprawling, it’s ours alone.  As someone named ddavidshi once said, “I don’t have bad handwriting. I have my own Font!”

    In this increasingly homogenous world we live in, we all need our own Fonts!