Mitch Adams reporter
In third grade, I was assigned a yellow book with what seemed like millions of pages in it that taught me how to write in cursive. I remember how tedious it was to write the letters in a completely different way than I was used to and how it took me forever to get through that entire book. Even if it meant I had to skip recess to catch up.
With the days of the check-book creeping into non-existence, I cannot seem to find a great example on why cursive could still be seen as an important thing for children to be taught. One of the main arguments I have heard is that cursive is used to write one’s signature. The purpose of a signature is to be unique and irreplicable, so what is the point of using traditional cursive as your signature? A doctor’s signature can’t be replicated because instead of writing it out in cursive, they use a specific shape or detail to show that it was themselves who signed it.
Another big reason why cursive is pointless is because of the lack of use in recent generations. With credit and debit cards being so accessible, there is not a lot of demand for checkbooks and documents are electronically signed a lot of the time. Electronic signatures are considered the exact same as a physical signature, abandoning the age-old handwritten cursive. As the world constantly evolves, the way society writes by hand evolves with it. Some say that writing in cursive increases the writer’s speed and fluidity but it always took me LONGER to write in that specific style instead of simply printing.
Many would argue that learning to write in cursive is a crucial part of learning how to hand-write and that it shows a type of “sophisticated” writing. In my opinion, it’s an old-fashioned skill that will only get more and more left behind as technology continues to advance. I just can’t see cursive surviving in a world full of augmented reality technology, digital keyboards and e-signatures.
All in all, I think people could be more creative with the way they lay words on paper and move on from the antiquated ways of writing cursive by hand. While I’m not discrediting cursive for previously being extremely important, I just think there is a reason that it fails to survive as an essential skill to the modern person. Some writing styles just go out of fashion, and I think cursive is a great example of a once important piece of knowledge being left behind by time.