Connecting over cursive

A few days ago, some of my Facebook friends got into a conversation about the teaching of cursive in school. It’s a conversation that comes up periodically among my Facebook friends (and I suspect yours, too). Those of us old enough to have worked our way through multiple handwriting workbooks have a lot of opinions about what the possible demise of cursive says about our schools, our children, and ourselves.

For the most part, the people in this conversation were courteous and reasonable, exchanging witticisms about having a secret code kids can’t understand and discussing what constitutes a valid signature. However, one part of the conversation stuck out to me, considering this issue’s theme.

The person who started the conversation said that not teaching cursive is a sign that schools are teaching less. It was a quick introductory remark that no one had picked up on because they really wanted to debate the merits of cursive writing. But then an actual educator entered the chat. She pointed out that schools are not in fact teaching less, that they’re being required to teach more content than ever. With that being the case, cursive is the thing that some schools decide to let go.