"Who needs cursive when you can type?"

Handwriting is becoming a lost art. My kids were taught the basics of cursive in 4th grade, then went right back to printing. Nowadays they write with their thumbs only -- on a tiny screen -- with words that are so abbreviated that I now understand why spelling is no longer a subject taught in school. Even as I'm writing this, my laptop signals me with a red underline if the word is spelled wrong -- sometimes if it's only a little off, it corrects it for me, instantly. It gives me a blue zigzag line under words that may not be grammatically correct for the sentence. No proofreading required. Is this progress or is this encouraging laziness? I tend to think the latter.

Who needs cursive? Our children do. Writing in cursive, like playing a musical instrument, stimulates areas of the brain that usually lie dormant. Just as musicians tend to do better in math, people who write in cursive tend to be more creative. Just think of cursive as an art. Budding artists are creative and imaginative. I rarely meet a young plugged-in person who has an original thought in their head. Harsh, but true. Sitting in front of a screen where you are entertained 24/7 leaves little room for creative thinking.

As a leftie, I worked hard to have legible handwriting. I practiced and practiced, determined not to have 'chicken scratching' like my dad, or words smeared across the page because I had to drag my hand across it. I now have beautiful handwriting (and I'm so modest, too). I take pride in my cursive. But my kids can't even read my notes, and I have to print for them. They can't read anything their grandmothers write in their birthday cards -- and my mother and MIL have neat handwriting. I feel like something precious has been lost in the 'progress' of technology.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written in cursive. Now we have a generation of children who can't read the original documents because they can't read cursive. Food for thought on this I-hope-it's-spring-now sunny day.