Cursive

[Algernon Moncrieff]

15. Bloomberg View: The Case Against Cursive

Legislatures in California, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia have responded by mandating cursive teaching. Similar bills have been introduced in five other states this year. This counteraction is the product of an understandable but unhelpful attachment to tradition.

The blowback is also a result of flawed reasoning. There’s an argument that new generations must master cursive in order to read their forebears’ cursive documents. Yet students who can read print can be taught to read cursive in as little as an hour without spending the months of practice necessary to master formation of the loopy, connected letters of cursive.

There’s also an argument that cursive writing bestows benefits to the brain. This is far from established science. Some of the cited research actually deals with any writing by hand, including printing, while some is simply insubstantial. Even if it were clear that cursive writing somehow stimulates the brain, that’s not a reason to teach it. Plenty of activities arouse the brain -- meditation, learning to use a slide rule, playing Sudoku.

The issue is how students spend their limited time in school. In districts where cursive has been dropped, its former teachers have been among the most enthusiastic, because the change liberates them to teach more valuable subjects.

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