California resurrects cursive
On Monday, October 16, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new bill requiring California schools to teach cursive handwriting to elementary students from first through sixth grade, starting in January of 2024. Cursive was removed from the required Common Core Standards for K-12 education in 2010.
In an NPR interview, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, author of The Atlantic article, "Gen Z Never Learned To Read Cursive,” spoke about teaching a Civil War history class for undergraduates at Harvard:
"A student was giving a report to the class about a book he'd read. He said one of the great attributes of the book is it had many wonderful illustrations, including illustrations of documents from the Civil War era. But, of course, he couldn't read those because he didn't read cursive. And I said, what? What? Wait a minute. What do you mean you can't read cursive?” She went on to state that two-thirds of her class couldn’t read cursive.
Since much of America’s early history is chronicled in cursive, it seems it’s about time we get back to teaching cursive so students can actually read the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution rather than thinking of them as “illustrations.”
You can listen to or read the NPR interview here.
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Wonderland
I am happy to hear this. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to learn cursive as a child, and it gives the children such a great opportunity to feel proud of themselves. My grandchildren attend Catholic school and they still teach cursive there. All children should have that opportunity.
Slipstream
There are online tutors that teach cursive. Those Harvard students may need to sign up so they can learn sign their name and read historical documents.
Well Street
My cursive was never going to win any awards, but it feels foreign to write it these days. The rare times I use it, I have to focus.
Bravo to the governor for correcting the serious mistake of removing cursive from the required curriculum.
Slipstream
More important than penmanship is just the ability to write and read it. I have a friend who was shocked to find out her college-aged grandson couldn't read her handwritten notes in his birthday cards. There are a lot of greeting cards where the front and entire greeting are in cursive, and there's a generation that doesn't know how to read it let alone write it.
Evangel
I don't know why they quit teaching it to begin with. Maybe because they wanted kids to focus on computer languages instead. But the hand/eye coordination that is developed through learning and practicing cursive is indispensable to developing any manual creative skills such as genuine art (not AI generated), crafts, and carpentry. I'm glad it's coming back.
Slipstream
Those from the "lost" generation will have a tougher time learning it at their advanced age. Much easier to learn it in primary grades.