Team Cursive

I am Team Cursive.

(Not Team Cursing. Although anyone within muttering-earshot of me at the gym would be excused for thinking that I am. Only there. Mostly. Anyway. Cursive.)

It makes my heart hurt that some kids aren’t taught how to write cursive anymore.

Will a few generations from now be as confused by my papers as I am by Elizabethan secretary hand? I hate that the speed with which our media are evolving could very well leave in the dust something I love – something that I think matters.

The irony of my typing this is obvious. But I think differently when I write than when I type or speak. It’s like art – it’s prettier, more internalized, more thoughtful, more private, more me. 

Yes, kids should be taught how to type. I type all day, and if I didn’t know how to type fast, I’d be sunk. It’s incredibly useful. But it doesn’t mean as much.

It seems this is a controversial subject. I guess it has to be a tradeoff. One more thing that gets cut out of school. Handwriting, grammar, art, music. I don’t understand it. Why does so much have to be cut? Aren’t there the same hours in a school day? Is paper and ink that expensive?

This is a complaint and it deserves to be an elegy – a whine when what’s needed is a tribute. Perhaps I could find the words if I were writing them out.