Outrage

I discovered disturbing information at our Friday, February 11th parent/teacher conference which was confirmed by our principal yesterday (Wednesday, February 15th).

The district does not furnish any handwriting materials to teach cursive writing. It is certainly a skill that has been debated due to the fact that technology is our future.”

The principal furthered, “We are in the process of making a decision as to how we can incorporate this ‘important’ (in my opinion) skill in our very short, already packed instructional day. Our instructional team is considering purchasing cursive handwriting books (out of our own school budget) so we can implement the skill starting at the third grade level. Many schools do not teach it.”

Last week, as I initially heard the news from the teacher, I was incredulous as my eyes traveled to the capital and lower case cursive alphabet displayed at the front of the classroom.

I, and I’m sure most of you, learned to read and write cursive in the second grade. Even if a child never writes in it again, are we to believe that there is merit in a lifelong inability to read cursive text – letters from grandparents, teachers’ notes, employers’ instructions, etc.?

If the rationale were consistent on the future of handwriting, then only reading would be taught, as everything else would be keyed.

Regarding technology and the future, I recall when everyone thought computers would make the world go paperless, when in actuality, because of the ease of technology, we generate more paper than ever before.

I have reached out to the interim superintendent in hopes that what I have learned can be immediately corrected, as I would hate to think our children are on a path to partial illiteracy.

As it stands, two of the three fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic seem to have been misguidedly gutted and without notification. Sure glad I asked.

By the way, "the future" (keyboarding) is not taught until the sixth grade, years after students are already expected to be using computers, while developing bad, hard-to-correct habits along the way. Talk about cart before the horse. So without change or independent instruction, our children will enter sixth grade as printing-only hunters and peckers. Good luck on that global competitiveness thing.

I suppose all signatures will now be essentially the same - save unique flourishes like dotting with hearts or putting those decorative dots on the ends of letters - which should make life much easier for forgers.