Editorial

There’s still room for cursive

It is quite possible that there will come a day when learning how to write in cursive becomes a truly impractical pursuit. That day hasn’t come. Call us old-fashioned, but we like the fact that third-graders in our state’s public schools still are being taught cursive writing, in accordance with the Arkansas Frameworks standards.

However, the new Common Core standards, which take effect in Arkansas next school year for grades three through eight, mention nothing about teaching cursive writing. That means that it will be up to each local school district to decide what kind of emphasis - if any - should be placed on cursive writing instruction.

Common Core emphasizes computer literacy,which is a good thing. Keyboarding is obviously a useful skill that deserves to be taught in the schools.

That doesn’t mean that handwriting can’t be taught as well.

Lola Malone, the principal at John Tyson Elementary School in Springdale, makes an excellent point: We have hand-held calculators that are cheap enough for virtually anyone to buy, but we wouldn’t think of dropping math from the curriculum.

Cursive writing has been called a dying art. And yes,we could live without it.

Dying or not, however, it’s still an art. There is beauty in cursive. A handwritten note just seems more special when it’s written in script rather than in block letters.

There’s a practical reason for it, too. Cursive is quicker than print-writing.

And we all need to be able to write our signatures.

Much of our nation’s history is recorded in cursive.

Future generations should be able to read not only the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, but also old family letters and other documents written in cursive that can be both interesting and informative.

If nothing else, there is something to be said for the process of learning cursive. It develops the motor skills. There’s also evidence to suggest that practicing writing by hand helps students learn a language better than they would through a computer.

Writing by hand, rather than by typing, forces students to slow down a bit and think about what they’re saying - not a bad thing, especially when you consider that this global trend toward instant communication has placed greater emphasis on the speed of our words than the content of them.

Let’s teach kids how to type, but let’s not lose our appreciation for fine penmanship in the process.

Editor’s note: This editorial appeared in the Rogers Morning News Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 01/25/2012