During elementary school, I remember thinking that learning to write in cursive was a big deal, a sign of maturity and progress. I liked the weirdness of the cursive Z and getting a new way to write my name. I practiced and practiced in school to get all the letters right. Unfortunately, handwriting of either form has never been my strength. My mother and her parents have beautiful handwriting, but I guess I missed that gene. The first time I ever got less than an A on a report card was an A- in handwriting, which was probably generous on the part of Miss George. I wrote in cursive for a while, certainly in elementary school and junior high. Then, at some point in high school or college, I switched back to printing.

I can’t remember why I switched. Perhaps my printing was a bit easier to read. Perhaps I could write faster that way. For some time I think I did both, switching arbitrarily based on my mood. Then I simply quit writing in cursive altogether except for my signature, which is a crude and ugly hybrid of printing and cursive, much different from my handwriting textbooks. Miss George would give me a solid F, or maybe a D since she liked me.

These days, I write very little by hand. When I must, I print. At work I fill out my time sheet. Sometimes I add a few things to the grocery list. When forced to snail-mail something that doesn’t have a pre-printed address, I begrudgingly write the address on the envelope. Perhaps once a month, I write a check for some weird expense. That’s pretty much it. I hate to write by hand. I can type much faster, and the result is much easier for everyone to read.

A question simmers in my head: is cursive writing even necessary anymore?

It seems odd that we teach two different forms of writing, especially when the cursive form is so bizarre in some cases (upper-case Q, anyone?) and so seldom used today except in signatures. Wouldn’t a typing class be more useful, even in elementary school? Perhaps things have changed since I was in grade school, but I didn’t take a typing class until eighth grade. By then, I had already taught myself to type using about five fingers (left index and thumb plus right index, middle, and thumb), and using all ten just felt weird to me. I’m pretty fast with five fingers and can mostly type without looking, although I’m sure I could be better using proper technique.

As our society becomes increasingly dependent on technology, it seems that we type more and write by hand less. When is the last time you hand-wrote an actual letter to someone – not a thank-you note or brief message on a birthday card, but an actual letter? I can’t remember for certain, but it was probably in college under compulsion, a long thank-you letter to the donor of one of my scholarships. I probably printed it.

What do you think? Do you still write in cursive? Is it still worth teaching to our children? If so, how long should we keep teaching it?

I’m leaning toward giving up on it in our schools within the next 5-10 years. My main concern is that future generations won’t be able to read some documents from previous generations that were written in cursive. Some are also concerned about signatures on legal documents, but there’s no requirement for signatures to be in cursive. In truth, many signatures would be much more legible if they were NOT written in cursive.

Here are a few articles about the debate:

• Cursive writing is fading skill, but so what?
• Cursive writing is now practically obsolete
• Schools debate: Is cursive writing worth teaching?