Should Students Still be Learning Cursive?

Dr. Wendy Ghiora

Posting #111 – August 4, 2012

“Should students still be learning cursive?” This question was posed in an article recently published in the California Educator (June/July 2012 issue). Since this is a frequently debated issue, I looked at the pro’s and con’s expressed by the two opposing authors. 

Eldra Avery, an English teacher at San Luis Obispo High School writes that “Cursive connects us to our past and our future”.  Skills no longer considered “worthy,” are being eliminated. She reminds us cursive is not only a communication tool, but in contrast to keyboarding, it is, “A portion of our individual identity.”  

If students are not able to write in cursive, they will also be unable to read cursive.  This will deprive them the experience of reading historical documents in their original form, like The Declaration of Independence, and other personal letters and memoirs by famous people throughout history.

Ms. Avery points out that, “Legible penmanship is not a skill that can be purchased; therefore, it is one more way to create equity in the classroom.  Internet plagiarism is on the rise as a quick way for high school students to fulfill essay assignments for a variety of subjects. Assigning in-class essay writing, using cursive helps to eliminate this type of cheating. 

Using handwriting can help many students “internalize the language.” It is an art form, and one must admit, handwriting a note to someone in beautiful penmanship, really gets their attention.  Communicating solely by means of a keyboard will further narrow our viewpoint and creative expression.

Dustin Ellis, a fourth-grade teacher at Big Springs Elementary School in Simi Valley, writes, “Cursive is Unnecessary.” He compares it to the lost art of calligraphy. He states, “Whatever could be created by the pen can now be recreated by the computer.”  Cursive, just like calligraphy used to be a requirement in school. It can now be replicated on a computer. He suggests students desiring to add flair to their writing have a wide array of computer fonts to choose from.

Dustin writes that cursive is a state standard supposed to be learned in third grade. When he receives fourth-graders, “Their cursive is a train wreck. Half of what they write is unreadable.”   

Mr. Ellis wants his students to be competitive in our world, as it will be in the next twenty years. He claims, “Cursive is not going to be a part of that world.” He believes students interested in becoming historians can learn cursive. The rest of us will be able to read historical documents which have been digitalized and translated into standard font.

Dustin contends that there is already too much information teachers have to cover for state tests. To “teach “cursive, he sends home a cursive packet and asks his students to practice and turn it in, in a month.  He says, “It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the trade-offs I have to make.”  He adds, “I am not going to spend a lot of time on this because this is the age if iPads, cell phones and computers. When a kid can text  70 words per minute, does he really need to learn cursive?”

Ms. Avery is in favor of keeping cursive around and considers it to be a means of maintaining our individuality when we communicate. It is a skill that takes practice, like any other skill in order to perfect.

It is obvious that Mr. Ellis does not believe it is worth his time to require his students to practice that skill. If he gets fourth graders, and their cursive “is a train wreck,” it’s his job to help them improve. As a former high school teacher, I would like to tell Mr. Ellis how frustrating it was for me to write examples on the white board in cursive, only to discover many of my eleventh grade students couldn’t read cursive. Perhaps they had a teacher with Mr. Ellis’s viewpoint.  Imagine a student discovering a box of letters written by their great grandfather, and then not being able to read them.

 Ms. Avery points out that cursive, is in a way an “equalizer.” It is a skill everyone can learn and then improve through practice. Handwriting is an individual accomplishment one can be proud of. You can recognize someone’s handwriting as “theirs”.  Writing in cursive can be very enjoyable and fulfilling, like painting a picture.  Mr. Ellis would like cursive to be part of our past. He complains teachers are already burdened with too many subjects and standards they are required to teach.  Perhaps Mr. Ellis would also like to eliminate students being required to memorize the multiplication tables, since a calculator can accomplish this task more quickly than a third-grade student.  Cursive will be with you wherever there is a pen or pencil; no other equipment, other than your own style is required.  In my opinion cursive is a skill worthy of saving.