Josh Marshall points to:
…a fascinating article in tomorrow’s Post
about the decline of cursive handwriting. I’m 37. And I certainly
remember fairly intensive instruction in handwriting — first block
letters and then the more daunting and advanced cursive handwriting,
with the dreaded off-white paper with one solid line, one dotted below
it, and another solid beneath the dotted one — all to keep your letter
creations bounded and in check. But, I guess not surprisingly given the
ubiquity of computers and keyboards these days, instruction in
handwriting has dwindled to almost nothing.
I am in my early 50’s, remembering plainly the time spent working at learning to write in cursive script. Today when I use pencil / pen it is rarely to write more than notes. What spills onto the page is a hybrid of print and cursive. As the length increases, the percentage of cursive increases. I imgaine thas is a function of speed.
As an elementary teacher in a public school for the last quarter century, I noted that the time spent teaching cursive decreased. The reason is fairly simple to understand. The schools keep adding more and more to the curriculum and yet the time to teach does not increase.
Imagine a train that every year has a few more cars added to it, without changing the size of the engine. Eventually the engine cannot pull the load. Teachers quietly begin to unkook cars. Cursive is one of those, I believe.