Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Several articles have crossed my desk recently about the removal of penmanship — specifically writing in cursive — from the curricula of public schools and the Death of Modern Civilization that will naturally follow.

Piffle.

Cursive is as relevant and useful today as is Secretary Hand (pictured right), and those who decry its elimination are merely holding on to their nostalgic memories, clinging to a past that is gone, never to be seen again.

In grammar school, the only failing grade I ever received was in penmanship (well, there was that D in “Comportment” … but let’s not open up that old wound). Despite years of toil, facility in cursive has remained beyond my capacity, and no amount of practice (or repetitive exercises handed out in punishment for my … creative alternatives) ever improved my skill. My cursive was (and is) a crabbed, uneven, slowly produced, literally painful, and for the most part illegible scrawl. Yet, I have lived my life comfortably without its advantages and, now that my parents are both dead, I almost never have to read anything written in cursive script.

The intent of cursive was to increase the speed with which we can write. Printing is slower as you must pause to lift/place the nib for each letter, and block printing is even slower, as the orthographic forms require the writer to lift the pen multiple times for a single letter. Cursive eliminates the need to reposition the nib, allowing the writer to leave the pen in contact with the paper, which speeds up the entire process.

And that’s great … if your only medium for writing is pen and paper, I mean.

In the middle of the last century, typewriters became commonplace, and most of us were taught how to use them in school. Generally, though, a twelve-pound typewriter is inconvenient to lug around, so we were still taught cursive. After all, you don’t whip out your Underwood No. 5 to type up your grocery list or a note to your spouse; you write it by hand.

These days, your “typewriter” can fit in your back pocket. Almost everything we write is typed: emails, memos, instant messages, even the grocery lists we tap into our AnyList app. We might scribble a few words on the white board or on a post-it note, we might jot a “Happy Holidays!” on the bottom of our Christmas cards, but for most folks, that’s it. The need for speed in handwriting is irrelevant, unnecessary, and completely outpaced by the speed with which we can type.

But while I maintain that cursive is no longer a needed skill, handwriting remains important.

More than just knowing how to read, knowing how to write is crucial to modern existence. We must be able to form letters into words, words into sentences, etc., but beyond just typing out words on a keyboard, writing by hand has its own distinct benefits.

Students who write class notes by hand have been proven to have better retention and comprehension. Some — such as the NYT’s Anne Trudek — attribute this to the fact that students must slow down and distill their thoughts before committing them to paper with a pen. Trudek suggests that students simply slow down when they type notes, but I think this misses a crucial point.

In writing a word, you form each letter by hand, using different neurological pathways. You’re not just tapping a key; you’re creating a letter with pen on paper. From my own experience, it doesn’t matter how slow I type; writing by hand cements a thought in my brain much more fully. Because the word is in my handwriting — my unique style — it is mine. Type the word flugelhorn, and it’s just a word. Write the word, and it’s something that you’ve created.

Trudek also mistakes speed for quality. “Because they achieve automaticity quicker on the keyboard, today’s third graders may well become better writers as handwriting takes up less of their education,” she says.

Again, piffle.

Automaticity — writing without having to actually think about writing — is important, yes, but automaticity doesn’t makes you a better writer. It just makes you a faster writer. Moreover, many writers (myself included) find we write better when we write by hand.

There are plenty of reasons to teach keyboard skills at earlier ages than when I was young, and I’m all for it. Keyboard skills are the cursive of the computer age, and kids need them, but handwriting remains a necessary skill with benefits in fine motor skills and creativity that cannot be overlooked or set aside. Cursive? Dump it if you want, but we still need to be comfortable with pen and paper.

For me, writing longhand is much more than a competency; it’s an activity I enjoy and sometimes need. Sitting down to write a letter is a luxurious, relaxing process filled with sensory feedback, and for ideation or poetry, using a keyboard is Death. This is true for a lot of people, I’ll wager, and I would hate it if coming generations were never exposed to these joys.

In the end, though, cursive yes or cursive no, the world will go on. With all the troubles in the world, the risks posed by a World Without Cursive are among the least of our worries.

k