Courtesy of National Archives
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Recently, I was listening to a story on NPR about the cyberattack of a company that provides software to auto dealerships across the country for managing sales and other services. This incident had significantly slowed activity in approximately 15,000 dealerships.
Besides contemplating the implications of businesses in all parts of the country relying on the same software platform, thereby increasing their vulnerability, I was struck by the comment made by one dealer being interviewed. He said that they were relying on handwritten notes for sales, repair instructions, etc. However, they had to be particular about how they prepared those notes because none of the employees under the age of 30 could read cursive.
Based on my experiences with my grandchildren, this did not come as a great revelation. But it underscored the fact that we are raising generations, including future historians, who will not be able to read the originals of the journals, personal letters, and official documents that comprise so much of the basis our past. There will likely be a need for persons trained in reading and “translating” cursive writing.
Some will dismiss this as the nostalgic longing of an old fart for the past. Most of the important documents have been transcribed digitally and more are being done so every day. Besides, hardly anyone can read that fancy handwriting from the past now, anyway.
And they will be right, up to a point. However, there is a bigger issue at stake. There is a substantial body of evidence that writing things by hand stimulate a wider region of one’s brain than keying them in on a laptop or smart phone does. This interaction among motor activity, vision, and conceptual activity increases learning and memory. My own experience bears this out. For many of the articles that I write for Bacon’s Rebellion (including this one), as well as other long pieces for my own use, I usually draft them by hand before preparing a typewritten final draft. I find that writing them by hand helps me to think them out better and to remember more later.
I don’t know when schools stopped teaching cursive writing. Those of us in school in the 1950’s spent many hours practicing cursive writing. Each person developed his or her own style. Some were pretty and legible; others, like mine, not so much. My daughter learned cursive in school in the mid-to late 1970s. Obviously, the advent of computers and smartphones that decreased the need for pencil and paper (many even keep grocery lists on their phones) was a major factor in the demise of cursive instruction. At some point, the schools effectively said, “They have their computers and smart phones. They hardly ever actually write anything on paper. They don’t need to learn how to actually write something manually,” and gave up trying to teach it.
There is now a movement afoot to make kids stop using their smart phones in class. Maybe this should be coupled with a directive to “close the cover on your laptop and pick your pen and write.”