To Cursive, or not to Cursive? ... Why is this even a question?

Come on into the time machine with me. Come on. I know it's scary, but it's just back to 1992. (Go ahead, take a look at your hair and clothes.)

Back to my 3rd grade class. Mrs. Petty's classroom at Charlotte Elementary. I was in the front row (of course I was... I strived to be the teacher's pet!). The overhead projector was projecting on the white pull-down shade, the lights out, and our tiny hands were trying to copy the swoopy letters Mrs. Petty so elegantly wrote on the projector glass with her marker. Cursive. It was as foreign as algebra at the time, and each letter learned gave each of us great deal of satisfaction. We were so cool; we finally knew what this swoopy chart meant:

::notice the swooping instructions::

[Trust me when I say that I had flashbacks of this quite often when my Russian teacher, Galina Vichoslavovna, kept saying to me, "Ne krasiva, Alis, Ne krasiva," (not beautiful, Alys, not beauiful), referring to my russian cursive Ms, and then instructing me to do write-offs in order to improve. Write-offs? Really? Yes, yes, it's true. And Sarah was laughing the entire time. Here's a Russian chart, just for kicks, and yes, after much prayer, we did finally master this too:

::notice the "M", 4th down, 2nd row. How could I not make this beautiful? I don't know!::]

Now, hop into my time machine to my 6th grade year. Kings Lane Middle School. Ms. Gardner's class. Again, front row. Again, teacher's pet. Again, learning cursive. Ms. Gardner was a strange bird, who had quite the affinity for beautiful penmanship. After weeks of reading our work in our less-than-perfect cursive writing, she made us relearn it all over again. Afterwards, I was told on numerous occasions how beautiful my handwriting was. She really drilled it in!

So, we can now step out of the time machine, to a time where the unheard of is happening. I read the following article today, "Has Cursive Seen the Writing on the Wall?" .  Forty-four states in the United States no longer mandate that cursive be taught. What?! Two states, Indiana and Hawaii, no longer teach it all! Granted, we didn't always love learning cursive, but neither did we love to learn how to add and subtract, but you don't see that taken away with the invention of calculators (at least not completely!). This literally made me quite sad. Have we really thought about what this means? This means that in about 20 years, a large population won't have a signature, won't be able to read the Declaration of Independence or a letter written years ago. (The good news is that your journals are safe from being decoded...).

I think I am just sad, because, yet again, we are taking out a piece of culture, and replacing it with technology. I suppose it's the same disappointment music, art, theatre, and band teachers have been experiencing for years. Countries across the globe take pride in the arts displayed and performed by their people, hence why it was so important to Galina Vichoslavovna that I wrote Russian well. Why is it that in America, we want to do away from everything and replace it with technology? I am telling you, there will come a day when something happens and we will be helpless to respond because we no longer know how to write. And, that, my friends, is quite sad.

Never fear, Evie Grace and future siblings, you WILL be taught cursive! Now I am the one that gets to assign write-offs and say, "Not beautiful, not beautiful." But just as I survived it, you will, too. :)