Letters to the Editor: Learning cursive can be torture. Why force something so obsolete on kids?
To the editor: Gustavo Arellano’s column on his traumatic experience learning cursive in the second grade brought back memories.
More than 40 years ago, my son’s fourth-grade teacher complained about his indecipherable chicken scratches. He’s never going to have good handwriting, I was told, so I should teach him to type.
I took her advice. I bought a typing manual, put masking tape over the keys of our old electric typewriter and sat him down for one lesson per day for a month.
He went on to earn his doctorate in computer science from UC Berkeley, and he’s the fastest typist I know.
Teaching elementary students to type is infinitely more valuable to them than forcing them to duplicate the anachronistic handwriting style so prized a century ago. There was a time when it was important to be able to write in cursive, but it is long past.
Requiring cursive instruction in public schools is a disgraceful waste of valuable class time. In addition, typing is a skill easily acquired by youngsters — it doesn’t take years of steadfast doodling practice to master.
Janet Weaver, Huntington Beach
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To the editor: I’m so sorry Arellano had a bad experience learning cursive as a child. But, that doesn’t correlate to eliminating curriculum shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language, working memory and abstract thinking.
Are we now to eliminate learning a foreign language because most of the world speaks English? Or eliminate learning math because computers can do it for us?
We’ve already dismantled art in our schools, which was the only other link to a form of written expression since computers have taken over our classrooms and taught the world to do everything at lightening speed.
I’m grateful my fast-moving son was taught cursive. He was horrible at it, but in the whirlwind of his fast-paced education, it was a rare moment that made him slow down, the benefits of which manifested years down the road.
Anna Faye, Santa Monica
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To the editor: Teaching or not teaching cursive is just another pendulum swing in education.
I don’t see teaching cursive and dealing with other important issues in public education as mutually exclusive. In my opinion, it is a useful skill, and students shouldn’t be deprived of attaining it.
However, since there are so many other ways of written communication available now, learning cursive doesn’t need to be as important as it has been in the past.
I think the real lesson to be learned from Arellano’s experience is to never humiliate a child. Or a person of any age.
Barbara Douglas, Santa Monica
