The Cursive Debate
Parents often ask me various questions pertaining to cursive writing, "Should they be concerned that their child's school doesn't teach it?", "Why do they need to learn this outdated skill?" etc.. To tell you the truth, I don't feel strongly in either direction for all students as a whole. There are articles and studies that outline the benefits of teaching cursive in school (improved fine motor skills, helps the students retain information, and teaches them to decode cursive) but I'm not convinced that these benefits can't be achieved using other methods or hobbies that will have more everyday value.
For students with developmental disabilities, cursive can be a painstaking and a seemingly unobtainable skill. In these cases, I see no harm in taking cursive off their plate and replacing it with a more beneficial and modern form of written communication. Many students gravitate towards cursive and enjoy writing their names with fancy loops and embellishments and it does not cause them undue frustration and feelings of inadequacy. In these cases, I say leave it alone. However, including cursive writing in state standards seems to place too much importance on a dying and outdated form of written language that I'm not convinced students need.
Parents may be concerned with their childs inability to read others cursive, but recognition of cursive can be taught without engaging in the time consuming process of teaching students to write in cursive. Periodic exposure to cursive can be fun for students and will teach them how to decode cursive writing over time. When it comes down to it, it seems that ours ties to cursive are mostly fueld by feelings of nostalgia. We learned it, and if our children don't, it will die off and become a lost art. Are these feelings enough to warrant the manditory teaching of a skill that we as adults rarely use? If we neglect t eliminate outdated skills from the state standards they will become crowded and less focused on essential skills. Below are some articles on the topic that express views from both sides of the debate.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-lost-virtue-of-cursive
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/scary-clown-rumors-serious-business-schools/
http://time.com/2820780/five-reasons-kids-should-still-learn-cursive-writing/