I had originally intended this week’s blogpost to revolve around cursive (script) writing, and whether or not it’s a lost art or should be taught in the schools. I will still touch on that subject, but my blogpost, like Topsy, “just growed,” at least in my head, as I was formulating it.
Here is the dilemma:
Cursive writing is no longer being taught in most schools. Most schools have also dropped music and art classes. STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects are becoming more predominant—and taking up more teaching time at all levels. And computer-related technology, in particular, is essential at every level from Kindergarten up.
Touch typing, once taught only to those more likely to seek secretarial positions than any other and more likely to seek office work after high school than go on to college, is now a near-essential for everyone. (Yes, you can keyboard with two fingers, but it’s damn slow and awkward.) So now it’s no longer a high school subject for the non-college-bound; it’s an elementary subject for all. My Significant Other, a man in his late sixties, is one of the few males of his age I know who can touch-type. But there are plenty of elementary school-aged kids today who are facile-fingered ar the keyboard.
And while computer programming is no longer essential knowledge for anyone wanting to use a computer—do you remember the early eighties?—it’s still a valuable skill for many who want to learn to write apps and other programs.
So how do we fit in STEM classes, including everything computer-related, still teach the basics—reading, writing, history, science, and such—and yet find time to teach cursive and enrich our young kids with music and art?
What do we drop from the curriculum? Or do we extend the school day so that teachers work from 9 to 5 like office workers?
Part of the problem with the latter solution is that a teacher’s workday doesn’t end when the dismissal bell rings. There is homework to be corrected, lesson plans to develop, and other prep work. Like their students, teachers do homework too—lots of it. And the longer they are required to remain in school, the less time they have for their school-related work that’s to be done after school hours.
Another problem: At least in the shorter daylight hours of the winter months, a 9-to-5 schoolday would have kids going home in darkness. Especially for those who walk home from school or who have a bit of a walk to get home from a schoolbus stop, particularly those who would have to cross one or more streets in darkness, this becomes a real hazard.
So what’s the answer?
I don’t have an absolute answer. I do have some thoughts.
1 – Cursive needs to be taught so we don’t lose the ability to read old documents written in script. Other than for signatures, writing in cursive is no longer necessary. Cursive was at one time a valuable skill so that a person could write more quickly. Now that most of us use laptops or other electronics to write, take notes, and such, the ability to write in cursive is outmoded—except in signatures. Printing one’s name as a check signature or other legal document signature is an invitation to forgers. But perhaps teaching just enough cursive writing for a person to create a signature could be incorporared into lessons in first- and second-grade writing classes, without the endless practice that was mandatory when I was in school.
Teaching the reading of cursive could be optional, the way foreign language studies are, although it would not take nearly as long as learning a foreign language takes. It is not necessary for everyone to learn cursive, as not everyone is going to need to read and study old script-written documents. And the number of us who have family history stored in cursive-written documents in our artics is increasingly lower. But studies of reading cursive, if not mandatory, should at least be optionally available.
2 – Music and art classes, though hardly classifiable as “essential” when compared with STEM classes, are still, I believe, essential in their own right. Humankind does not live by science alone. The arts, the humanities are vital too, and not just at a college level. Kids need more exposure to music and learning about music than listening to CDs or iTunes can give them, and they need to be encouraged to express themselves through art as well.
Here is a proposal for a cautious first step: Suppose we extend the school day by one period, at least at the elementary and intermediate school levels. Suppose we have specialized teachers come in and teach music twice a week, art twice a week, and cursive once a week, on a rotating basis. (Ms. Smith’s classroom gets the music teacher on Mondays and Thursdays, the art teacher on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the cursive teacher on Wednesdays, while Mr. Johnson’s classroom gets the music teacher on Tuesdays and Fridays, the cursive teacher on Mondays, and the arr teacher on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and so on.) As these classes are all being taught by specialized teachers, the regular classroom teachers can go to the faculty lounge for the duration of the period, and there they can have a “study hall,” working on lesson plans, correcting homework, or doing whatever other preparatory work they need to do.
Is that, to quote a phrase that’s been going around for some years now, “the final answer”? No. I told you upfront I didn’t have an answer. But it’s a start. And until we get a better answer, a good beginning is better than just sitting here scratching our heads in perplexity or cursing the system while doing nothing to improve it.