20 years ago, when I was in elementary school, every student was taught cursive, and out handwriting was graded on our report cards. As a leftie who was taught to write exclusively by right-handed people, my print handwriting was never wonderful, but my cursive was simply atrocious. I would take three times as long to write something (trying desperately to make it neat) as my peers would take, and it would still be practically unreadable. I was a straight A student in other subjects, so my teachers took pity on me and fluffed my handwriting grades up to Cs.
By the time I got to middle school, I was frustrated and angry about the emphasis on cursive. I used it only when teachers insisted on it (for final drafts of essays and the like). In high school, I faced the same situation, but a few of my teachers decided to save themselves some eye strain and eased the cursive rule.
When I was on college, and finally had regular computer and printer access, the weight of a decade of difficult penmanship was finally lifted from my shoulders. I never looked back.
I still do a lot of writing by hand, finding it easier to create first drafts with pen and paper while sitting outside than indoors, parked in front of a computer screen. There are a few cursive characters scattered in those pages, but they are few and far between. When I'm writing by hand, what matters to me is the words themselves. I was never able to adequately create the art known as cursive writing, so it never became important to me... except as something to be avoided.
Is it a valuable skill worth preserving? NO. We should be teaching children that what they have to say is far more important than the method by which those thoughts meet paper. There's far too much emphasis on appearances over content in this world as it is. Spending time teaching students an artistic method of penmanship that could be spent putting truly valuable ideas and skills in their heads is as bad as my cursive handwriting... horrible.
By the time I got to middle school, I was frustrated and angry about the emphasis on cursive. I used it only when teachers insisted on it (for final drafts of essays and the like). In high school, I faced the same situation, but a few of my teachers decided to save themselves some eye strain and eased the cursive rule.
When I was on college, and finally had regular computer and printer access, the weight of a decade of difficult penmanship was finally lifted from my shoulders. I never looked back.
I still do a lot of writing by hand, finding it easier to create first drafts with pen and paper while sitting outside than indoors, parked in front of a computer screen. There are a few cursive characters scattered in those pages, but they are few and far between. When I'm writing by hand, what matters to me is the words themselves. I was never able to adequately create the art known as cursive writing, so it never became important to me... except as something to be avoided.
Is it a valuable skill worth preserving? NO. We should be teaching children that what they have to say is far more important than the method by which those thoughts meet paper. There's far too much emphasis on appearances over content in this world as it is. Spending time teaching students an artistic method of penmanship that could be spent putting truly valuable ideas and skills in their heads is as bad as my cursive handwriting... horrible.