Writing our own history

The Indiana Department of Education recently announced that it will no longer require public schools to teach cursive writing. Being able to write a letter, birthday card or sign my name to a document seems second nature. I can’t imagine not having learned how to write something longer than my name in cursive.

Think, people! Our handwriting is as individual as we are. I’ve kept birthday cards from my grandmother because they contain her handwriting. It was a part of who she was – her personality. Handwriting can be filled with emotion, with various slants, the speed at which it’s produced or the punctuation chosen. When I receive a handwritten note, it communicates much more than a stoic email, which can be short and impersonal. There is a certain thought process required when writing by hand. I think before I speak and before I write, because there is a finiteness to the words I put down on paper.

Are we robbing children of the uniquely individual experience of developing their own signature? I remember the process I went through to learn cursive writing. I had my lined Big Chief tablet with the middle dotted line that guided me toward writing a small “a” versus a capital “A”. I remember what seemed to be a very tedious task of repeatedly writing “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” because the phrase included every letter of the alphabet. After much practice, my handwriting morphed into my own secret handwriting code. What will handwriting analysts resort to in relation to human psychology? Will new baselines be developed based on what font is chosen – will persons who choose Arial or Times New Roman be classified as “old-fashioned” or “inexpressive”?

Also, some proficiency and placement exams still require handwritten essays. If children haven’t been taught to write cursive, will they be at a disadvantage because they can’t write as quickly or as legibly as the next person?

I understand the importance of being keyboard proficient. I took my year of typing (think carbon paper and Liquid Paper correction fluid) so I’ve paid my dues. But, the goals of learning the keyboard (speed and accuracy) are very different from writing in cursive (requiring a longer, more reflective brain-to-hand process). I can tell a lot about a person by how they write a sticky note or a personal addendum to a computer-generated Christmas letter. It’s like receiving a made-from-scratch chocolate cake with buttermilk fudge and walnut frosting. It’s a real treat to enjoy and rare because of the additional time and attention-to-detail it requires.

Why has it become an either/or situation? Children will learn the keyboard because it’s part of our common, everyday culture. Video messaging is coming of age on our handheld devices so does this mean they will soon do away with keyboards? I can’t imagine it.

Will this result in all of us signing documents with illegible scrawl like doctors and lawyers? Or, perhaps we’ll resort to clicking a radio button with our mouse to “accept the terms and conditions” and we’ll do away with signatures all together. Will cursive writing fall into decay and only be read by historians and scholars from the future? Will future generations even be able to read what they are unfamiliar with writing?

Has our dependence on technology robbed us of a memorable childhood experience and important identity marker?

Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant-future, we’ll discover a (digital) time capsule that includes a hand-written letter or Christmas card. The digital voice file will explain, “In the good ‘ol days, folks used to write with a pen or pencil on thin sheets of paper made from trees …”