The history of cursive writing dates back to Ancient Rome. Through time it continued on, and even our founding fathers used it to write the important documents that started our country.
Cursive writing became a big part of our school systems, with entire classes devoted to learning the art. It was such a huge part of our society for so long, but now it’s almost non-existent. Why is this?
Because typewriting classes pushed their way into schools, taking time away from handwriting classes. Everyone could see that the future of businesses and schools was in the typing, not the writing, and they seemed to be incredibly correct!
The handwriting classes continued, but became less and less over time. Fast forward to today- handwriting classes are the bare minimum, not even covering cursive writing in most schools, and have been completely replaced with typing and computer work.
It’s no lie that we are in the middle of a technological revolution. The technology we had five years ago is irrelevant to the technology we have today, which will someday be irrelevant to the technology we have in five years from now. It only makes sense that the time and energy we are putting into education is based around this.
But is cursive writing dead? Even though there is something else that has taken the front seat in learning, does that mean it should be non-existent? Maybe in a sense cursive writing has changed subjects. Instead of being taught during Language Arts, it needs to be taught during History?
My opinion is that cursive writing defines history and our country in many ways and should still be a part of our education system. We don’t need it to be at the forefront of our children’s day in school, but we should at least add it in where we can.
What are your thoughts and opinions on teaching cursive writing in school?