By Anna Demetree
Those cursive tracing sheets used to be an everyday activity in the classroom, but no so much anymore. Recently, cursive writing was taken off the Common Core Standards, meaning it’s no longer required for schools to teach it to students. It has become irrelevant in schools and is fading out.
Why has cursive died? What’s causing it to disintegrate and people to view it as unnecessary in children’s education?
Technology, technology, technology. Who would’ve guessed?
“We thought that more and more of student communications and adult communications are via technology. And knowing how to use technology to communicate and to write was most critical for students, (Loewus, 2016)” said Sue Pimentel, one of the lead writers of the English/language arts standards. Technology has taken over all forms of writing, but most of all, cursive writing. Students are expected to use the Internet for research and to produce and publish writing. Cursive has transformed into a tech focus in the classroom.
Advocates for the art argue that society will eventually lose the ability to read and interpret valuable resources, such as historical documents, ancestral letters and handwritten papers if they can’t read or write cursive. Contrary to this belief, all of those historical documents have been electronically published in regular text, so you can look up the Bill of Rights online if you ever need access to it.
Even grandparents are beginning to use technology. Being able to read their handwritten cursive letters won’t be an issue too much longer if they’re learning how to FaceTime you or send you articles via Facebook Messenger.
But what about learning how to write your signature? Will those eventually fade out too? Will handwriting in general slowly die? Idaho representative Linden Bateman stated that “more areas of the human brain are engaged when children use cursive handwriting than when they keyboard. The fluid motion employed when writing script enhances hand-eye coordination and develops fine motor skills, in turn promoting reading, writing and cognition skills. (Associated Press, 2017)”