A Change Writ Large in History

Key words:  cursive, education

About 800 words or 3 pages

We seldom recognize history making events right away.  Usually turning points in history are something for historians to look back on and recognize a couple of hundred years after the fact.  For instance, we now know in retrospect that building just one more campfire at Valley Forge helped the ragged soldiers survive the winter and play a pivotal role launching our country. 

But the other day, I was an eyewitness to a clear and decisive turning point in history--an event so monumental that it is a change in direction of society from henceforth.  It will go down in the history books as a shift in the culture, the beginning of a new era.

Of what do I speak?  My daughter’s report card, of course, and the subject line that is not mentioned on it.  There is no grade for cursive penmanship.  It doesn’t exist. No more longhand.   As soon as I saw this, I began the interrogation:

“Where’s your penmanship grade?  You’re moving up in elementary school now, that’s when you learn to write cursive, right?”  I asked my daughter, who was otherwise proud of her good grades.

“We don’t have to learn cursive anymore.  They don’t teach it.  I did sign up along with Melissa Sullivan and got the work book to learn it on our own.  Does that make you happy?” she asked.

“Well, I’m very glad to hear it,” I said, still trying to comprehend that students no longer have to learn to write things in their own hand.

“So let me get this straight,” I continued, “you no longer have to learn to write cursive in school?” 

I got back a nod.  That was it.  Case closed, chapter over.  Writing in script on a piece of paper is no longer a required subject.  It’s gone.  It’s going to be like Latin—the purview of cloistered scholars and other arcane history detectives. 

Wow, this is big, I thought.  Really big.  Written interpersonal communication is now all electronic.  Why scribble when you can type?   I suppose one can still print in block letters and have that suffice, but who’s going to take the time to do that?  This means handwritten letters are basically gone.  The Post Office that couldn’t be defeated by rain, sleet, snow or dark of night is vanquished by lack of letters. 

I send as many emails and texts as the next guy, but I still write my fair share of handwritten thank you notes and cards.  But come to think of it, I’ve only written about one long nice cursive letter in the past year or so.  And that was pretty traumatic; my fountain pen was so crusty, I had to clean it out and bathed the bathroom sink in blue ink.  Come to think of it, not as many Christmas cards last year--glad to know it might not be something I said or did.

Suddenly, for the next generation, our founding documents-- the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution--written in the flowing script of yesteryear will be even more distant, remnants like the Magna Carta.  We know they’re important, but can’t really read what they say without some old professor telling us about it.  Granted, the old “s” that looks like an “f” is a bit confusing even for us accomplished cursive readers, but we can still read the original document.  We can appreciate and understand it as if its writers are still reaching out to us in heart to heart communication.

I suppose this was bound to happen.  There are only so many hours in the day for instruction, and they have to sacrifice some “old” things in order to keep up with newer things. There is so much information now for these children that they will have to learn to filter it down to what really matters.  Learning cursive is just not essential anymore. 

My, how the tides have turned.  I remember learning to type outside of school when I was about nine.  My uncle showed me the secrets of touch typing, and a whole new world was opened up for me.   I still did my school work in the mandated handwriting on lined pages.  But when left to my own devices I typed stories and letters on my manual typewriter, anxious to free myself from the ancient bonds of writing by hand.  But that old style of writing always came in handy; we didn’t exactly carry around typewriters in those days.  Now we do.  And that’s just it.  The typewriter has become portable in the texting cell phone and other devices. 

With all these devices and machines wordsmithing everything for us from now on, English—or a mechanized form thereof-- is sure to complete its conquest of the other languages.  Those foreign languages were fun enough in their day, but who has time for conjugating verbs when the text master can conjugate for you.  Skip German and Latin, just say no to declining nouns.   

 But what’s to happen to writing a quick note on a sticky and putting it on someone’s computer screen?  Will I still be in the work force long enough to see the scenario:  they’re under a certain age, so I better write it in block letters since the new kids can no longer read cursive.   But hey, now senior (and I do mean senior) management can pass notes in cursive to each other and the younger folks will be clueless.  It will be our secret form of texting, our secret code.  My kids will be LOLing with their BFFs (that is if I ever consent to buy any of those devices for them), but I’ll be passing notes in cursive that will be a mystery to all but my oldest friends. 

              It’s quite a turning point in history, this movement away from composing a manu on a piece of paper.   Few have noticed, but then not all of us can read the handwriting on the wall.         

             ©Copyright 2008 by JP Harrison.  All rights reserved.