No cursing over cursive, but stop it anyway

Ohio’s lawmakers have solved all the state’s woes.

They have banished poverty, eradicated hunger and annihilated unemployment. They have fixed our aging infrastructure and devised a plan to keep major manufacturers from stampeding for the borders.

We know they have accomplished all this because they are now focusing their considerable gifts on much smaller worries.

How small? Well, last week the Ohio Senate passed a bill requiring the State Department of Education to develop a curriculum by year’s end to teach cursive writing to elementary kids.

This follows the Ohio House’s passage of the bill in June. The legislation was sponsored by two Republican lawmakers who cite studies that say proficiency in cursive handwriting leads to better literacy and thinking skills, according to a story from NBC-4 in Columbus.

Fortunately, the law does not mandate that schools actually teach cursive, only that the curriculum is available if they elect to do so.

And I hope schools exercise their right not to.

I can hear traditionalists’ moans of anguish. Cursive is a necessity, they will argue.

Here are some other “necessities” that are no longer taught in schools:

Driving a horse and buggy

Telling time with a sundial

Using a washboard

Shoveling coal into a home furnace

Emptying night slops from a chamber pot

The truth — and it’s not even a sad truth, but merely a reflection of the rapidly changing world we live in — is that people just don’t write by hand very much anymore. And when they do, printing suffices.

But how will students communicate with one another? How will they sign checks? My response: Email/texting and direct deposit.

I’m not arguing that students should not be taught cursive at all, just that it needs to take a backseat, and a far backseat at that, to other lessons.

By all means, teach kids how to write their names in cursive so that they can, on those few occasions when they must (like buying a car or house), sign their names. Offer after-school instruction or summer enrichment for children who are really interested in penmanship, perhaps alongside calligraphy.

But the traditional instruction in loops and whorls? The long, laborious exercises where teachers circle stray marks that have gone a millimeter past the dotted line or extend a whisper too far into the margin? The formal cursive versions of the capital G, Q and Z, which nobody outside of school marms has ever written correctly?

Fuhgettaboutit.

If lawmakers are so worried about students’ literacy skills, they should mandate that reading instruction includes ample time for free reading, not just practice for high-stakes tests. If they are concerned about fine motor skills, offer kids more opportunities to learn how to draw, paint and build.

Cursive writing is more about conformity than creativity and critical thinking. Moreover, it’s a skill with little application to the daily lives of most kids.

Educators should give it — you’ll pardon the expression — no more than a cursory nod.

Originally published in December 2018 in The Alliance Review