Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/28/cursive-handwriting-makes-a-comeback.html
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…former elementary school teacher Sharon Quirk-Silva…
I heard her teaching style was mercurial.
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Cuneiform ftw
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i was one of the first kids to break from cursive in the late 70’s. when asked why, i explained that in the future, everything will be written. typed, actually. never looked back.
i don’t buy the explanations put forth justifying cursive as a mandatory class. what a colossal waste of time and energy.
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Interesting. Now I’ll have to go digging around for studies that show these cognitive effects. The fine motor skill ones do make sense on the face of things, though. I’d been negative about the trend to bring back cursive lately, but if all that is true, I can see the obvious value.
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I tried Google scholar just now. The top results seem to be:
- Pointing the other way
- Suggesting that typing might better for some kids
- Claiming kids find it hard to read their own cursive (this was me in high school btw)
- An NYT article
So… prima facile, can’t find it. Granted, only in 5 minutes but still…
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Next up…
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in the future, all math will be done by computers…
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i was one of the first kids to break from crayons in the late 20’s. when asked why, i explained that in the future, everything will be done in photoshop. AI-generated, actually. never looked back.
i don’t buy the explanations put forth justifying art as a mandatory class. what a colossal waste of time and energy.
i was one of the first kids to break from music classes in the late 20’s. when asked why, i explained that in the future, everything will be synthesized. autotuned, actually. never looked back.
you know how few people grow up to pursue careers with a symphony orchestra? they have special schools for that anyway.
/s (i could go on)
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Cursive writing is a tool of the dextrous to oppress the sinister.
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Paradoxically the motivation seems sinister
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If the goal at all is note taking then teach them shorthand. Probably something akin to Teeline for choice. Works wonders at keeping up with folks lecturing (leaving time to consider the veracity) and typically thwarts those who would copy/spy upon you.
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When I was in high school, I took a course called “Forkner Shorthand for Personal Use”. It was pretty easy to learn, I thought, but I haven’t really used it much in the 50 years since I took the course. 
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Your analogy to an art class is a good one.
I recently re-taught myself the Palmer method of cursive, the one I’d learned in school but had since bastardized as I found the quickest way to take notes in college. I started doing my morning journal in “proper” cursive and find it really meditative and artistic.
I don’t really care if it’s required in school or not, but I do get a nice chuckle out of how very upset some people seem to get about cursive every time it comes up.
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A stupid, unproductive law passed in a single district is hardly a “comeback.”
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The same fine motor skills can be put toward something more useful: printing legibly.
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My jobs for the last 25 years have been all digital and I didn’t want my skills to diminish, and 14 years ago I read this article on Slate.
I bought the “Fix It… Write” package and it’s fantastic!
I’m a lefty and my handwriting is very small. These lessons resolved any hand cramping (you mainly use your shoulder to move your hand, and that major muscle group does not get fatigued when writing), and they also resolved smudging of the ink due to leftie’s pinky moving across the previous writing, as this writing technique just uses the tip of the pinky as an anchor point on the page (similar to guitar playing).
I wish I had learned this method as a kid as many a paper would have been written faster, more legibly, and with less hand soreness!
I’m teaching my son this now and he’s really liking it as well and writing in cursive more instead of print.
Just like speaking well, writing in print isn’t bad, but you demonstrate to others that you put in some time and effort to better yourself in these skills.
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PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING
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I work with a 19-year-old who can’t read or write cursive. Not writing, OK; but not reading makes him functionally illiterate to some extent. We sometimes work with documents from the 20th century, many of them hand-written.
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If those claims have any scientific backing, they should study the effect of art like drawing, painting, and sculpting on fine motor skills. It would probably be better at encouraging fine motor skills, a lot more interesting for the students, and have positive mental health benefits
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