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. (more…)
Unraveling Time
Desert Wind
Ploughman's Son
Ploughman King
The Year the Cloud Fell
The Spirit of Thunder
Shadow of the Storm
The Cry of the Wind
Beneath a Wounded Sky
Cryptogenesis: A Memoir
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 