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     I heard tell a few years ago that many public school systems were no longer teaching children how to write in cursive. I didn’t believe it at the time, but now I have heard from multiple teachers that this is, in fact, true. I would love to have someone, anyone in fact, answer me this one simple question: How are the children supposed to sign their name when they grow up? And I mean, really sign their name, not a digital signature.

In the future when someone says to put down your John Hancock (assuming the children in the future know who that is), they will print their name as if typing it. I agree with the new technology and using it, but does that mean that we should get rid of all the old ways? Should we allow our children’s signature (that is used on very important documents) to be forged so easily? What happened to the art of penmanship. I am studying calligraphy in my spare time, but the children in the school systems today will not even be able to sign their name? I find it sad that people no longer take pride in the way their handwriting looks (like in Elizabethan days), but to no longer use script at all?!

I have been saddened for years knowing that the art of writing is going away, since everything is going digital nowadays, but to lose everything from the past and simply replace it with the new is wrong in my opinion. I agree that technology is easy and sometimes incredibly useful, but that doesn’t mean that we should abandon the time-honored ways of yesteryear. Signing your name is a right of passage into adulthood. Signing your name means you control your own bank account, you can sign for yourself the legal documents (like a hunting license) and so on that you wouldn’t have been able to as a child. Now that the children of today are no longer learning to sign instead of simply print, the child will be printing his name the same in ten years and his license will look pathetic and oddly impersonal. A printed marriage license? Well, technically someone can even forge a printed signature on a check much easier than a personalized cursive signature.

Cursive was taught the correct way when I was in school, but as I grew and matured it was considered socially acceptable to adapt how you write to fit your own personal style, and this would reflect not only in your signature but just in the way that you write, so that if someone was good enough they could tell who wrote them the letter they are reading without even having to look at the bottom line. Your personal script was used to tell things about you. This is called handwriting analysis. Handwriting analysis can be used to say a lot about a person and can psychologically be used to study people, including criminals to try and predict what can happen next, as a form of behavioral analysis.

Developing your own personal style of writing is in essence like developing a part of your personality, a part of who you are. I find it sad that the children of the new generation (or at least a good majority of them), will not have this opportunity unless the parents take it into their own hands. What good is a public education if the parent has to supplement and teach the child things that are as important as that? Upon further “googling”, I have even found that some are arguing that the long-division algorithm shouldn’t be taught anymore because current technology can take care of that for you with the push of a few buttons. Another thing I should ask in this situation is: What is the world going to do if technology fails us? Lord, lets hope it doesn’t, because no one even knows how to use a card catalog anymore! Our children would never find a good book in a library again without the almighty internet. Perhaps the internet crashed and a mother lived in California and the son lived in Florida  How on earth would they communicate without email or cellphones? Many people don’t even value the idea of the written letter anymore, much less know how to properly write one (and yes, there is a proper way to write a letter!). An email is typed, and contains no personal touches, whereas a letter is written in (you guessed it!) cursive, showing that the person you are communicating with actually took the time to sit down at a desk and write that note. A personal touch was put into that letter because you can even see that it was written by the person it was from, instead of dictated to a secretary.

In this new age of technological advances, I feel that people have lost touch with reality. Individualism is lost and should be re-attained if the world is to continue to be one worth living in. Then again, perhaps the world is okay with the idea of going to a completely non-personal way of life and losing the art of human interaction on the most basic level. Texting has taken away the idea of talking on the phone, talking on the phone took away the idea of writing, emails have overtaken letters, and the internet and calculators have overtaken the idea of traditional math and traditional writing. Honestly it would not surprise me if, in the near future, writing was abandoned altogether and typing was the only thing that was taught. Really, in that case, why teach math at all when a simple computer program can do it all for you?

I have already decided to home school my children when the day comes that I have them, because of my lack of faith in the educational system, but I would hate to lose faith in the entire idea of education altogether, and think that the world is willing to make itself vulnerable to the possibility of future technological failings in order to provide ease and comfort. Lets start a revolution in the world and make sure that real education is not forgotten and overlooked. As time goes on, and new things come to be, don’t forget history and the way things used to be in order to only learn the new. If we forget history we all will lose touch with who we are and where we came from, which means that none of us will have a true sense of self. How am I supposed to know where I am going without knowing where I came from? In order to have a good future we must not ever forget the past, and the foundation that it gave us to grow on! Let’s teach the youth of America, and the youth of the world to write in cursive. Let’s make sure our children and nieces and nephews and grandchildren will one day be able to sign their own name! Lets make sure that if a calculator isn’t available that our children will still be able to divide! I want to read letters from my grandchildren one day, not just impersonal emails.

Everyone here has encountered a fast-food cashier who could not count change properly if the cash register was not working… Do you want that to be your child one day?

Let’s prepare for a better future, people. Stand up for what you believe in, and don’t be afraid to sign a petition every now and then to defend the old ways, or even write a new one!

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